January is the start of “Puppy Training Season” for us and this January is no exception.  It is so wonderful to get out there and work with these cute little guys just waiting to get off on the right paw.  We were at a new puppy training client in Cumming yesterday, working with her and her beautiful Rottweiler puppy.  We were working through the potty issues, boundaries, focus, behavior, and beginning obedience.  As is always the case, we wanted to make sure that she was not overwhelmed with the challenge and appreciated her successes.  She was a great listener and very good at following our instructions to properly interact with Charlie (her puppy).  Although she knew that her puppy was learning, she was frustrated because of the small steps forward and continued need to repeat, repeat, and repeat.  

The great thing about puppies is that they are a clean slate, ready for us to teach.  The bad thing about puppies is that now we have to teach them everything.  The first thing we must do is to set up a hierarchy of goals for our puppy that are easy for him to understand and possible for us to accomplish.  In my opinion, the first goal we need to obtain is proper potty training.  Our puppy can reach this goal when he goes to the bathroom only when we take him outside.  Our ability to accomplish this is to understand his schedule, our actions impacting his schedule, and diligence in learning his schedule based on our actions.

The one thing that I did not include in the above plan was an absolute time frame for success or completion.  Success is based on our ability to stick to the plan, learn from our mistakes, and improve our process.  We focus on our goal (potty outside) and work our plan (get Charlie out to potty).  Our consistency builds our knowledge of the problem and continual improvement, sometimes ever so slight, builds our confidence that we will succeed.  “Time” is not important.

Being patient and focused on what we need to accomplish is the most important factor in anything we want to teach our puppy.  Some things like “Sit” or “Come” might be easy to teach.  Other things such as “Stay” or “Off” might take longer.  If we focus on our “wins”, we will feel confident that our “work in progresses” will succeed too.  So what if some things take a little longer?  We are sure we will succeed and have a great puppy!

If we keep to our plan, working on the “A Priorities” until they are done, the process works.  If we are too eager for results, we lose sight or our goal and will fail.

Robin and I have lived through the trials and tribulations of many puppies so please call us at (770) 718-7704 if you are having issues with your little puppy.  You can access all our phone numbers, text addresses and email contacts at Dog Training Help Center Cumming Georgia.