I know with mine, when I need to teach them something I really want them to 'get', I plan on doing it for at least 2 days in a row, usually the weekend. And I devote most all of my attention to them. Seems like a lot, but in the scheme of things it's a miniscule amount of time, considering the rewards of having a trained dog for the rest of her life. It took over two months training my girl, or trying to catch her doing the right thing so I could praise her for it. Finally the last weekend I sat down with her and she was all I paid attention to, bc I had to get this done. That's also when I changed my method, and rewarded her for peeing, although it was on the rug. I took a step back and realized she then understood the 'what', then we worked on the 'where'. She learned this in about 10 minutes, and when she learned she got a treat for using her pad, there was no stopping her. Whenever she did do wrong in the beginning, I would say, oh Sapphire, and she would do the absolute cutest head tilt with the blankest gaze... she was totally clueless! When she did 'get it', I swear I saw a lightbulb going on in her head! I do miss that head tilt though. She was like 'Who? Me? You want me Momma? Okay... soon as I'm done...' and she'd come running over to me all happy with herself. I was useless at training her, I'd melt every time, lol. |