How Puppies Learn

Soft, smelly food with a high meat content is usually more acceptable than dry, hard food, but some puppies with a big appetite will work well for the dry kibble.  Natures Menu puppy treats (95% meat), cooked chicken, warm sausage, or liver that has been dried in the oven are all very acceptable to puppies.  Treats should be small so your puppy does not become full too quickly.  Pieces about the size of a pea are best (small pea for small pups, large pea for larger pups). 

Use the treats that work best for your puppy.  You may find that after a few days, your puppy begins to lose interest in working for familiar treats.  Changing the type of treats you offer regularly will help.

To avoid overfeeding your puppy as a result of feeding lots of treats, measure the amount of food needed for each day, replace some with special treats for training, and make sure the food and treats form a well-balanced diet.

Your puppy needs to be interested in working for the treats you are offering during training, so your puppy needs to be peckish during lessons.  For this reason, it is not a good idea to try to train your puppy soon after a meal.  It is important that your puppy is not too hungry either, as they can become too excited by the food to concentrate well.

Top tip when using treats - remember to avoid having them in your hands if you are not luring whilst practising your training, as your puppy may become too focused on the food reward and again, too excited to concentrate well. This is also true if using a treat pouch, be mindful not to have a hand always going into the pouch before your puppy has finished practising what you have asked him to do (this is called overshadowing).

As well as being interested in food or wanting to play, your puppy also needs to be alert and lively rather than tired.  Choose times for training during the day when they have had enough rest, when they do not want to go to the toilet, and when they are not distracted by anything else. If you own a boisterous puppy that has lots of energy, particularly if they are from a working strain, give them plenty of time for play and free running sessions in a safe place before training.  This will help to ensure that your puppy is in a calm, ready-to-learn mood.

Remember that this should be for short amounts of time so that your puppy isn’t then too tired before training.

It will take time for you to learn the handling skills needed to make the training work successfully, particularly if this is your first puppy.  Learning how to hold the treat, how to use it as a lure, how to hold your puppy, how to use the lead to ensure success, and all the other skills you need takes practice, rather like driving a car or riding a bike.  If you are new to puppy training, don’t expect to be good at it to begin with (remember the first time you drove a car or rode a bike).  Keep practising, keep working on the correct way to do it, and you will gradually develop all the skills you need to be successful.

While your puppy is learning, it is best to reward every small success to make it more likely it will happen again next time.  Be generous and reward every single correct action.  You will find your puppy works well for you and enjoys learning.  Learning is hard work and puppies need a good incentive to work through the frustration of not knowing what to do to get to the point where they can respond in a way that gets them the reward.

Once your puppy has learned to associate a voice cue or hand signal with a particular action and is responding reliably every time, you can begin to reduce the ‘wages’ you pay for responding with either fewer rewards or less valuable rewards (doing this too soon, however, before your puppy has reliably learned what to do will lead to confusion and lack of learning).  Remember, nobody likes to work for free, puppies included!

Since there may be many things your puppy may prefer to do other than to do as you ask, he may wander off or stop responding if the ‘wages’ for working for you are too low, so try to aim for ‘fair pay’ for each action you ask for.  If your puppy is doing something for you which means he cannot do something he prefers (such as coming when you call from playing with other dogs or even just running free in a new open area) always pay well, often and immediately, to keep responses sharp. Keep the rewards your puppy enjoys most for these occasions. 

While puppies are still young, your love and praise will mean a lot to them and showing loving social approval can really help to speed up learning.  Some dogs (such as those with herding or gun dog genetics) will work harder to please you than the more independent types (hounds, sled dogs) who may always need to be ‘paid’ to keep them responsive.   These differences in willingness to please will become more obvious once they begin to mature, and particularly during adolescence.