OK, so how often do you train your dog and how long for? I'm curious to know how many minutes/hours per day (on average) and how many days per week. We have: Monday to Friday: 20-30 minutes after breakfast, 20 minutes at lunchtime, ad-hoc during evening walk. Training classes 1/2 hour every Thursday, 1 hour every other Monday, and ad-hoc (roughly fortnightly) 1to1 gundog training for an hour. Plus monthly group gundog training session for a whole Sunday morning. Weekends: Harv usually gets the weekends off! But I will still do some training if I think it will help to tire him out a little and be more likely to settle
Re: How much and how often I usually do 15-20 mins at lunch time, 15 mins around 4pm, some training on our walk Mon-Fri. I then do at least 4 x 10-15mins Sat and Sun along with some on our walks. We have our first 1-2-1 gundog session in 2 weeks and hopefully will do this on a regular basis. When my daughter is home she also does several short sessions a day.
Re: How much and how often jasper is a family pet, we train daily on our walks, my training involves people sitting having picnics kids playing ball, push chairs, joggers real life situations we do water retrieves, swimming, 3 to 4 hour walks daily ....his ball/dummy has become my weapon , if he wants to do his own thing i just bring the ball out of my bag we are having loads of fun and teaching each other along the way ;D
Re: How much and how often Like Lynne, we do training out on our walks - there is always the opportunity to refine something Yesterday Obi decided he wanted to fling himself onto the road in front of a concrete truck (well, he would've had he not had a lead on) so we went back to basics on 'sitting at the kerb until the human says to cross the road' We will also throw in the odd 'obedience' thing like a drop on recall, sit stay, bit of heeling, formal recall... And of course we are perpetually training for 'don't bark at every flipping noise you hear in the street', 'don't whine all the blinking time' and 'for god's sake stop nicking things out of the recycling box' Otherwise, we also do about 10 mins of obedience training daily in one block - either morning or evening. On Sundays we have a 1 hour Obedience class and a 1 hour Flyball class.
Re: How much and how often oh dear naughty obi, thank goodness he was on lead, it seems to be constant training as soon as we master one thing we have got to move onto the next and repeat over and over i am loving the training it does get easier over time, i am so proud of my little man tomorrow is another day ;D ;D ;D
Re: How much and how often [quote author=Oberon link=topic=7796.msg109109#msg109109 date=1410560970]...'for god's sake stop nicking things out of the recycling box' ...[/quote] That's a popular one with Harvey too
Re: How much and how often It does depend what I'm working on - like Harv, Charlie has specific things to learn this month so I'm trying to do a bit more in the garden on the cones and placeboards. I try to do at least one session a day on this, maybe 10 minutes. Charlie gets street walks when we work on walking nicely, but then either a walk or training these days - we go out and find a field and do our training. He'll get free time to sniff and explore on the way and on the way back, but if we've done a long session on proofing something, or retrieving, he is less likely to get a long walk as well. Restricting free running in this way has been really good for him, I think, it has improved his concentration and focus. Helen says 20 minute of free running a day, max, so I try to stick to that. Then we'll try to do being calm around "something exciting" - watching other dogs and balls, mainly - but that depends on opportunities. In addition, he gets his communciation classes, and the same monthly session as you, plus the odd week away on residential courses, and I walk with some of the students from the last course once a week and we train together.
Re: How much and how often I do short bursts of training during the day, when I have a gap and when one of the many piles of kibble around our house remind me. I think quite a bit of training is now subconscious, eg sit and wait before I go through a door. I like to introduce new things for her to do, it occupies her mind. Frequently I am the twerp, getting the timing right, especially if using a clicker, can be difficult to start with. Much of our training is proofing in new situations. I do feel a bit of a prat as I try to train her NOT to bounce on every dog she meets or jump up at people with a "Look at me" and a C+T (get some strange looks), but I'd look an even bigger prat if I continued to have a dog that bounced on every living creature it met. And, indeed, I would be.
Re: How much and how often Tatze (black lab) is a family pet (fundog ) and at 17 months she's trained as far as needed. She walks well and behaves well in the house, she's a great big sister for Gypsy. Gypsy (GRxLab) is a guide dog pup and has to learn to walk straight, on a loose lead but slightly ahead of me in shops, shopping centres, stations etc etc. Not looking at me as we go. So we train twice a day for 15 minutes all over town, it will be twice a day for 45 minutes by the time she leaves (at 12 months). She also has to be trained not to poo or wee when out and only toilet in a small area in the garden, so that is on-going - as you can imagine! She also needs to learn how to relax on her blanket in cafes, lecture halls, theatres and restraunts etc - so she comes everywhere with me. She also needs to learn sit, down, upsit, stand, wait, stay and to come to the whistle on free runs. She needs to get used to people feeling for her head and putting their face very close to her, as a visually impaired person needs to - so I do short bursts of all of these. Tatze often chooses to do them alongside her
Re: How much and how often I just do a little bit of training, usually gundog related, when we are out on our walk and good manners, eg getting in and out of car, walking to heel to our walk, on lead and then off. Otherwise they are free. I do think too much training is not altogether a good thing, they also need to be a dog. Training can also take place as a 'fun thing' and dog doesn't realise it is a training session. They do have an hour every Thursday afternoon which is relaxed training and takes in a cup of coffee in a hotel, this training is to give the dogs confidence and self control. Edited to say they are now aged 8 and almost two and threequarters, so not in so much need of more intensive training.
Re: How much and how often MELT! That is suuuch a lovely pic of tatze and gypsy! At the moment my two get a session of indoor home made Obedience challenges, a of bit Rally O/agility for the gardenly deprived type stuff. Its a bit daft but fun and they enjoy it and they are using their heads to move round different sets of ' tasks' and doing stuff like long downs, changing directions, wee jumps etc etc. Lot of it is clicker trained. Probably 15-20 mins about three times a week together. They both get a one to one with me outdoors about three times a week. This is gundoggy stuff, both learning direction stuff now with varying success as its hard to train in the park as its a bit busy sometimes - they quite often get their dummies nicked . About half an hour each at a time. Again they seem to love it so its fun as well as learning. They will get a wee bit of training mixed in with their walks too. Cuilli and I go out to the park at super busy times to train around her worries about groups of strange dogs racing about, she has BAT time for ten mins or so most nights. Brods goes out to the park at super busy time too just now for Working Cocker Desentisisation training. He is obsessed with them, I think its because they rush about do much but he gets wildly and idiotically excited when he sees one so we are working on that with him!
Re: How much and how often [quote author=Oberon link=topic=7796.msg109109#msg109109 date=1410560970] will also throw in the odd 'obedience' thing like 'for god's sake stop nicking things out of the recycling box' [/quote] Lol. Ours are 'for god's sake stop ripping branches off Dad's Japanese Maple Tree (perfect puppy height!) and stop taking my wellies down the garden! (Does look very cute being carried between the two of them, real partners in crime
Re: How much and how often [quote author=debsie link=topic=7796.msg109148#msg109148 date=1410600803]... wee jumps ... [/quote] I still have such a childish sense of humour : this conjoured up quite a messy exercise in my imagination
Re: How much and how often I've enjoyed reading this as I've been wondering recently,based on a few comments from 'well meaning members of the public ' .....when will my 2 year old dog be trained?i feel better that you some of you have mentioned in your replies that you are still working on things with older dogs ...so there is still hope for me.....I don't HAVE to be the full package yet?its ok to still be a work in progress? I don't wear rose tinted glasses at all and I know the areas we are not succeeding in but a few people have passed comments on Dexter in the last week or so that have made me feel a bit down as I work on them on every walk or at some part of the day everyday :'( Lunging on the lead or running off to new dogs especially small dogs .....we will get it as we have made progress from lunging at ALL dogs and we practice every occasion we get ('won't hijack the post ,I'll start a new one,I've got a plan to tackle this ) a dog owner I walk with commented on how reactive and hard work Dexter still was for his age :'( :'( :'( :'( her 18 month old will heel with new dogs in the vicinity....I haven't got that by a mile,it's my fault I know :-\ but I'm trying....... Barking at the arrival of visitors.....we are ok at this but friends sniggered the other day as I still continue to work on it and commented on me ' rewarding Dexter for barking'...I got tetchy and said if you watch me I'm rewarding him for being quiet....the barking always lasts all of 2 mins but it's deep and loud so sounds nothing like the 15 minute yapping their 2 miniature dogs do : they are finally silenced by being yelled at progressively louder and louder .....oh not to mention the jumping all over you,running up your back as you sit on the couch and leaping into your lap....hmmmm by which point my Dexter is settled on his bed sleeping ignoring anyone around him ??? I've gone off subject a bit and I'm sorry for that UB but training amounts and the success that comes is something I've been thinking about a lot these last few weeks......
Re: How much and how often Sounds all perfectly normal to me Dogs are not robots and Labs are a law unto themselves. Dexter is still young and they do improve as they get older; we don't expect our young children to be at university!
Re: How much and how often We tend to train as we go along, I always seem to be saying to people sorry she is a work in progress, but she is getting better, less pulling, less lunging (if I see a person before she does I can stop that entirely) less barking but not perfect by any means. Gets in and out of the car herself without killing any of us, poos by the poo bins which is helpful, no longer raiding the log pile. Elsie has a very large dose of the over excitement/enthusiastic gene though so has forgetful moments rather a lot. So really working on the calm down you nutter at the moment.
Re: How much and how often [quote author=Dexter link=topic=7796.msg109239#msg109239 date=1410634021]...when will my 2 year old dog be trained?[/quote] Is there a time limit? No. Is it some sort of race? No. You'll get there when you get there. The important thing is that you are the sort of person that is working on training rather than one of the constant apologisers that has no intention of ever doing anything to correct their dog's poor behaviour. No worries. All discussion welcomed (unless you branch off into cooking programmes or soaps!)
