Hi all. What are people’s thoughts on the first thing/commands that you should teach your pup. We are waiting for Lenny our first yellow lab to arrive and was just wondering where to start as there are so many options. Thanks Daniel
We start with ‘sit’ and ‘down’. At meal times we teach ‘wait’ - not too long at first, just a few seconds. The next command, at about 10 weeks ish we do is ‘look’ then ‘upsit’ and ‘stand’. ‘Give’ and ‘Leave it’ are early ones too.
‘Look’ is probably ‘look at me (the human)’ and ‘upsit’ would mean ‘sit up from a lying down position’ (just guessing on that one!). You can teach a ‘look’ by luring your dog’s gaze to your face with a bit of food (move the food up to between your eyes), then giving your dog the food as soon as s/he meets your eyes. You can also encourage this behaviour by just gving your dog a bit of food every time s/he voluntarily looks at you. Another great thing to do is just to reward your puppy whenever s/he happily runs to you. Rewards can be a food treat, combined with showing your pup how pleased and happy you are that s/he came to you. Running away (not too fast!) and having your pup catch up to you for a treat is a great way to build the basics of a good recall. Do avoid the reverse - chasing your pup. It’s best to make sure your pup is always the one doing the chasing, otherwise they can learn that it’s a fun game to keep away from you. You might have a good grasp already of the principles of training and training methods/tools (eg positive reinforcement, markers/clickers, lures, shaping) but if you think it’s something you need to brush up on we can recommend some good books Using a marker word or a clicker along with food rewards will hugely improve the effectiveness of your training. Is that the approach you plan to use? As far as books go, Pippa Mattinson’s The Happy Puppy Handbook is a terrific start.
I really like this blog: https://eileenanddogs.com/2014/08/16/first-thing-teach-puppy/ On this page there is a video from Eileen’s friend with her new puppy. The friend says that the first thing she is going to teach her puppy is that she is fun!
First thing I train is 'look' which as @Oberon says is a look at me with puppy rewarded for every slight glance until happy to make full eye contact and also puppy's name. I don't rush with 'sit' - puppies already know how to sit . A great step by step guide to training basics is Jean Donaldson's Train your dog like a Pro - very easy to follow
We teach ‘sit’ first because it’s useful in so many ways - * waiting to go out of the door rather than rushing through * putting their collar on * waiting to be fed * a quick interrupter when in bitey phase * a good prelude to the ‘look’ * a good way of asking for anything - to go out to the toilet, to be given a toy, for a fuss etc etc etc
Everyone does things differently. There is no "right" way, just a case of focussing on what you think is most important to you. I train impulse control from the very start, not allowing mugging of my hand when there's a treat in it, waiting before coming through doors, waiting to be released to the food bowl, sitting without being cued to say "please" etc. The "no mugging" also encompasses eye contact, though I don't train it as a cued behaviour from the start. LOADS of handling - nail trimming, brushing, brushing teeth, practicing for ear and eye drops etc. And, of course, recall, early retrieving games and learning that being close to me is the best fun in the whole wide world. Like @Jojo83 I don't train a cued sit until much later - I think my puppy was about 4 months before I put I on cue! - because I want her to learn to do it uncued first, as a way of teaching basic manners, for her to physically ask for something in an acceptable way. Most of the things @Boogie has listed above I require a sit for, but I train it to be an offered one, not a cued one. Like I said, horses for courses, there's no right or wrong.
I wonder (and I don’t know, just asking) if what you train in the earliest days sticks best? Keir didn’t come to me until he was 12 weeks old and the person who had him for the first five weeks was clearly very keen on a good ‘sit’ before he goes through a door. He does this every time now with his nose do high as to be almost vertical lol. I’ve met her and she does hold the treat very high when training so it looks like he learned this was the ‘waiting at doors’ position. Very cute it is too .
As far as I'm aware there are no studies which look at early training but from all my reading I would say the age that something is taught is not relevant. Training can and should be ongoing throughout life. I think the important part is how well something is trained; if it's properly trained it should stick regardless
That's interesting to consider, though, and I wonder if any research has been done. We know in humans that language learning is far better done at a young age (I believe there was some fairly recent research around this, but I didn't look into it as it's not an area of interest), so I wonder if the same could hold true for different areas of learning for dogs?
I focus on handling/husbandry, closeness so they get that with me is where it happens everything else is BORING, automated manners & recall recall recall. But it's not a 'fixed' thing as each dog is individual, what's right for one is not necessarily right for the other so, I personally think the training should go at the speed of the dog & if something's not working or 'stuck' then change it out for a bit.
There has been some work around training with different age dogs, can't remember off hand what the main thrust of the study was but general data suggested that younger dogs learn new tasks quicker than older dogs. I think, and not 100% sure on this aspect (or it could have been a different study) that the older dogs retained the training better over a period of time than the younger dogs without any further training reinforcement. Interesting I'll have a search and see if I can find the study as I know it's not linked on the new laptop.
Thank you that’s very helpful. We intend on trying the clicker training, and have a couple of puppy books at the moment.
