Basic Training

As the lucky owner of a new pup basic training is a must. But whether you do this yourself or go to classes is up to you. We opted for classes which were done mostly via zoom due to the second lockdown in November. We went this route as neither of us had much experience with a puppy and wanted Roo to have the best start she could.

Due to the lockdown there wasn't a great variety of choice with where to go so we ended up just going with the trainer that had an available class the soonest - not the best way to go about it but it is what we did. Most puppies cannot join training classes until they have had their second vacine, so Roo didn't get to start her until she was 15 nearly 16 weeks old rather than 12 weeks old.

The trainer we went with was a positive trainer who used a clicker. You will hear a lot about training approaches - positive, balanced, force-free etc. Positive and force-free trainer will use positive reinforcement only to train a dog whereas a balanced trainer will correct negative behaviour, basically tell the dog when it has done something wrong. The classes we did were just very generic puppy training classes, not tailored towards any specific breeds.

During her 6 week course Roo learnt:

Sit

Lay

Settle

Leave it

Loose Lead Walking

Chin

Touch

Eye Contact

Recall

5 out of the 6 sessions were done via zoom with one in person session.

Training via zoom was fairly sucessfull. Roo learnt all of the basic commands she was taught and we were able to do so in a low distraction setting. Out of everything she learnt, settle was probably the most important one and the one we would not have taught her had we not done classes.

Settle or Place is basically teaching your dog that they have a space (typically a mat or a raise bed) that is their place to be. In this space they should relax and switch off, you should be able to put them on their place and leave the room without them getting up and following you. It can help with seperation anxiety as well as having a shadow dog. We use Roo's mat to give her treats and chew and she stays on it (well she is meant to, more training needed) when we are in the kitchen cooking. She will often take herself off to it to lay down when she feels like it.

Would we do basic training again when we get another pup? Probably not. We now have the tools to teach these basic commands and would rather save the £80 for 1-2-1 sessions later down the line to fine tune issues.