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Week 2 Of Training

Duration: 2 Weeks

Welcome to the second week of training with your new puppy! You will be working on training goals in each of the below sections simultaneously. Though these training goals typically coincide with training a new puppy, they can also be adapted to training with any dog, no matter their age!

Obedience Goals: Over the next two weeks you will be working on obedience training sessions via clicker training during meal times. You will work on teaching recall, sit and kennel.

Developmental Goals: You will also be working on secondary goals with your puppy which include continuing to condition nail maintenance and other physical handling goals, as well as working on appropriate play behaviors. Keep in mind to maintain the realistic expectations you set for your puppy as well as continue socialization. We will also be starting to introduce retrieving with your puppy.

Complimentary Goals: You will need to maintain the routine that you created for your new puppy which includes important things like play time, potty time, training time, exercise and crate training.

Be sure to check out our Supporting Documents at the bottom of the page for helpful links to a recommended training items shopping list, sample weekly training schedule, daily training journal and training checklist. As well as a way to schedule a video training consult.

Note: Yes, there are a mix of videos of GSPs, Labs and English Cockers… however, the same expectations and obedience behaviors can be applied to all breeds!

Obedience Goals

Clicker Training

Overview: Now that you have charged the clicker with your new puppy you are ready to teach your puppy how to exhibit behaviors consistently with clicker training.

Frequency: You should continue to utilize your puppy’s meals for training sessions. Therefore you will be able to have two formal clicker training sessions per day. Each training session will last as long as your puppy is able to focus, but shouldn’t last longer than 15 minutes. If your puppy loses focus during a training session, pull the rest of their meal and resume their training session at their next meal.

Clicker Training

Clicker Recall

Overview: The first behavior you are going to teach your puppy is how to come when you call. However, you will need to start by shaping the recall behavior before you ever introduce the cue “here”. You will first teach the behavior, then associate the cue with that behavior. Once your puppy is consistently exhibiting the recall behavior then you will introduce the cue.

Frequency: You should spend 1-3 days teaching your puppy how to come when you call. Since we recommend using your puppy’s meals for training sessions this should take you between 2-6 training sessions.

Clicker Recall

Overview: This is another great example of teaching the recall behavior.

Clicker Recall

Overview: This is another great example of teaching the recall behavior.

Clicker Sit

Overview: The next behavior you are going to teach your puppy is how to sit. However, you will need to start by shaping the sit behavior before you ever introduce the cue “sit”. You will first teach the behavior, then associate the cue with that behavior. Once your puppy is consistently exhibiting the sit behavior then you will introduce the cue.

Frequency: You should spend 1-3 days teaching your puppy how to sit when you ask. Since we recommend using your puppy’s meals for training sessions this should take you between 2-6 training sessions.

Clicker Sit

Overview: This is another great example of teaching the sit behavior.

Free-shaping is a great way to introduce behaviors. Free-shaping allows the behaviors your puppy is offering to be molded into the behaviors we want to see and then rewarding them for those behaviors.

Clicker Sit

Overview: This is another great example of teaching the sit behavior.

Key Takeaway: Sit is a pretty easy and natural behavior for us to teach our puppies. Utilizing free shaping as well as our body language and subtle non verbal cues will help develop the sit behavior

Clicker Sit

Overview: This is another great example of teaching the sit behavior.

Clicker Kennel

Overview: The last behavior you are going to teach your puppy this week is how to kennel. Remember, you will need to start by shaping the kennel behavior before you ever introduce the cue “kennel”. You will first teach the behavior through shaping, then associate the cue with that behavior. Once your puppy is consistently exhibiting the kennel behavior then you will introduce the cue.

Frequency: You should spend 1-3 days teaching your puppy how to kennel when you ask. Since we recommend using your puppy’s meals for training sessions this should take you between 2-6 training sessions.

Clicker Kennel

Overview: This is another great example of teaching the kennl behavior.

Clicker Kennel

Overview: This is another great example of teaching the kennel behavior.

Developmental Goals

Nail Maintenance & Physical Handling

Nail Maintenance/Physical Handling

Overview: Developing a puppy that is comfortable with being physically handled will not only help with nail trims but vet appointments and tailgate checks as well.

Frequency: Though your puppy will not need their nails trimmed every day, spending time continuing to get them comfortable being handled and put into a nail trimming position will help them become more tolerant of physical handling. You should work this into your daily routine.

Puppy Biting

Overview: Puppy biting is a normal behavior. But even though it is normal for puppies to use their mouths to explore their world, they need to learn that biting us is not an OK behavior.

Appropriate Play

Proper Interactions w/ Dogs & People

Overview: Puppies love to play! But it is our job to teach them how to play appropriately with other dogs and interact properly with people. It is a common thought process to “let dogs sort it out amongst themselves”. However, we prefer to help mediate those interactions and help advocate for both the puppy if the older dog is playing too rough and for the older dog if the puppy is pestering too much.

We also need to develop proper interactions with our puppy and how they interact with us. Keep in mind that anything your puppy is doing consistently they are conditioning themselves to. So if your puppy is getting attention for jumping up on you or you are allowing your puppy to get the zoomies in the evening and you don’t interrupt that behavior those behaviors are going to become habits.

Key Takeaway: Anything your dog is doing consistently they are conditioning themselves to, whether that is good behaviors or bad behaviors. So put in the time now to develop the dog you want so you can enjoy them for years to come.

“The dog you pet is the dog you get!”

Socialization/Exposure

Overview: It is important to continue exposing your puppy to new things and environments throughout their development. This will help your puppy be well-adjusted and easily able to deal with new experiences and environments without being overwhelmed. These experiences and environments can include:

~New People/Dogs

~New Environments

~New Activities

~New Smells/Sounds

Frequency: Try to incorporate a few new things a week to continue socialization and exposure to new stimuli.

Key Takeaway: Proper continued socialization is the foundation for a mentally stable and well-rounded dog. This will allow them to be well-adjusted and able to easily bounce back from startling or stressful situations. This ability to recover quickly will be very beneficial as you continue to develop and train your puppy.

Keep in mind that if your puppy does get started by a new experience do not coddle them. Comforting them and telling them “it's okay” only reinforces that what they were unsure of, or startled by, was actually scary and they exhibited the correct response to be startled by it.

Socialization

Develop Your Puppy Properly

Overview: It is important to maintain the realistic expectations you set for your puppy in order to continue to properly develop them to become the adult dog you will want to live with and enjoy for years to come. Make sure that the expectations you have for your puppy are fair and consistent in order to not cause confusion.

Maintain realistic expectations

Retrieving Introduction

Overview: Retrieving is a fun part of your puppy’s development! It is also an important part of your puppy’s development if they are going to be a hunting dog! There are two parts to retrieving:

~ The desire to go out and pick something up and carry it around in their mouth

~ The cooperation to come back to you with that object in their mouth

Frequency: It is important to keep retrieving exciting and not overdo this exercise. If your puppy gets bored easily with retrieving games you will want to decrease the amount of retrieving you are doing with your puppy. Typically 2-3 retrieves a session and 3 sessions a week is a good starting point.

Key Takeaway: Keep in mind you want to quit the retrieving session before your puppy wants to quit the retrieving session! This will help you build drive and desire to retrieve.

Retrieving Introduction

Using A Hallway

Overview: You can utilize a hallway to help create a pathway for your puppy to retrieve objects to you. If they go down to the end of the hallway to pick up the retrieve then only have one option to come back down the hallway, it will help direct them to you. This will help shape good retrieving behaviors.

Using A Hallway

Overview: This is another great example of using a hallway to create a pathway for your puppy to retrieve objects to you.

Using A Check Cord

Overview: You can utilize a check cord to help direct your puppy back to you once they have picked up their retrieving object. If they pick up their retrieve in a less controlled environment and then want to lay down and chew on it or run off in the opposite direction with it, you can utilize a few tugs on the check cord to redirect them to recall to you. This will help shape good retrieving behaviors.

Using A Check Cord

Overview: Here is another great example of using a check cord to help direct your puppy back to you once they have picked up their retrieving object.

Tug-Of-War

Overview: Utilizing tug-of-war is a great way to make the game of retrieving fun! Your puppy will want to bring the object they are retrieving back to you in order to play the game of tug-of-war. Not only does this build a natural hold, because your puppy is encouraged to hold onto the object via light tugs on the retrieving object, but they are also encouraged to bring the object to you to continue the game.

Frequency: You should make sure to incorporate this into a few retrieving and play sessions, but not to overdo the tug-of-war game. You want your puppy to exhibit a nice strong hold, but not to get overly excited by the game and start shaking and thrashing the object too much.

Key Takeaway: Keep in mind you are in charge of starting and ending the game. If your puppy is getting too carried away it is important to recognize that as a pattern and behavior that if not interrupted and addressed will become a conditioned response.

Complimentary Goals

100% Supervised Time

Overview: Puppies need 100% supervision. This allows us to help develop good behaviors and habits and interrupt naughty behaviors with proper timing. Maintaining the realistic routine you have created will set your puppy up for success because they will continue to know what to expect throughout the day. Your puppy’s daily routine should include:

~Playtime

~Potty time

~Training time

~Exercise time

~Crate time

Frequency: It is important to maintain a routine that you apply to each day so your puppy knows to expect a general flow to the day. Remember it’s not a set schedule with specific times, but more of an overview of the day. They will learn they get an opportunity to potty every time they come out of their crate, they will also know they get opportunities to play, train and exercise throughout the day.

Key Takeaway: If you can’t give your puppy your full focus you should crate your puppy. You need to give your puppy 100% of your attention to supervise what they are doing so you can praise good behaviors and interrupt and correct bad behaviors. If you are unable to supervise them they need to be crated.

Maintain A Routine

Things To Include In Your Puppy’s Daily Routine

Play Time

Overview: We know puppies love to play! So we need to make sure to include plenty of supervised playtime for your puppy in their daily routine. However, that needs to be supervised time. It’s easy to give your puppy a pile of toys and say “here you go, entertain yourself for a little while”, but that is the time when puppies can start playing with and chewing on the wrong thing or have a potty accident!

Frequency: Puppies have fairly short attention spans so keep playtime just long enough for your puppy to get to play and burn off some puppy energy, but not so long that they get bored! Work playtime into your daily routine a few times a day.

Potty Time

Overview: Your puppy will need to learn that they go outside to potty. Again you will need to be supervising your puppy 100% of the time they are outside of their crate in order to help them be successful with potty training. This will allow you to learn the signs of when your puppy needs to potty and also will allow you to interrupt your puppy in the act of going potty inside… because they are puppies and accidents WILL happen!

Frequency: Puppies have tiny little bladders with limited bladder control. It is important to give them plenty of opportunities to go potty outside to build on success. They should get an opportunity to go potty outside:

~Anytime they come out of their crate

~Anytime they go back in their crate

~Anytime they wake up from a nap

~During inside playtime

Key Takeaway: Keep in mind that if your puppy has been playing outside for a long duration they may have gone potty immediately when they went outside but not gone potty again since. This means, if you bring them back inside to play or even go in their crate there is a good chance they truly will need another opportunity to potty!

Crate Time

Overview: Have we mentioned that your puppy should be 100% supervised? So what should you do when you can’t 100% supervise your puppy? You should crate them!

It’s important to think about the crate as a safe place for your puppy to be and not as a punishment. It may take time for your puppy to get comfortable in their crate, but it is very important that they do so! Crating your puppy will not only keep them safe from getting into things they shouldn’t when you aren’t watching them, but it also keeps your things safe from your puppy too!

This also allows you to make sure your puppy isn’t learning any naughty habits when you aren’t focused on them, because they will be spending that time in their crate!

Frequency: Anytime you aren’t able to 100% supervise your puppy they should be crated. This includes:

~Overnight

~While you are at work

~While you are distracted working from home

~ANYTIME YOU CAN’T 100% SUPERVISE YOUR PUPPY

Key Takeaway: It is not unreasonable for your puppy to spend most of their time in a crate while they are learning how to behave and interact properly in your home as well as while they are potty training. As long as you are providing quality time for your puppy while they are out of their crate that involves both mental and physical stimulation they can spend as much as 16 hours in their crate. This length of time will decrease as your puppy develops.

Supporting Documents

Here are some links that will be helpful for this week’s training goals:

Shopping List: Week 1-4 Of Training

Sample Training Routine: Week 2-3

Daily Activity Journal

Weekly Training Checklist

Schedule a Video Consult

We would love to set up a consult with you. Please sign up here to schedule a video consult. This is a great way to connect with us to ask questions about the training goals for this week or to schedule a video check in to show us where your pup is at in their training journey. We look forward to answering your questions and working with you and your pup!