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Originally Posted by yorkietalkjilly  He's just a baby so his brain isn't capable to retaining much training for long right now so cut him a little slack and just keep up the daily very, very short sessions - say 3 minutes x3 daily or so - and he'll come along nicely as his brain grows and develops and learns how to learn. One day soon, you'll be surprised as you get your payoff when you see him starting to make sense of it all and going through his tricks. With a very, very young dog a lure of a treat or favorite toy is just about a necessity but I frankly used treats all along as to a dog it's a form of love to share food with them and offer it as an enticement to work hard. We're that same way - we want something we like in order to work hard and dogs are just the same. Later on, after you two are a real team and have bonded, he'll do tricks mainly just because you want him to and in order to please you and get all that positive feedback and reinforcement from you.
But treats are like words of love and nurture to a dog and frankly, in their world, giving a necessity of survival - food - to them is one of the greatest things you can do for them in their eyes. They see you are willing to share resources with them in training and want badly to work with you after that to keep pleasing you so they can participate in the resource sharing of your little pack. I never hesitate to train small dogs with their smaller brains with treats, especially early on in the first months of training. It just excites them and gets them working hard - just as we work for our paychecks. I use my dog's own dog kibble as treats so it's just part of his daily diet and doesn't add fat to him. But for especially difficult trick training or behavior modification, I use warm, freshly boiled chicken or turkey hot dogs in a healthy dog with no GI problems in its history but I would not do that with a young puppy like yours - only with an older dog whom I knew didn't have GI/liver/pancreatic issues. For a young puppy, I'd just use my own dog's food as the "treat" so as not to upset his tummy or give him diarrhea.
Keep on working with your young baby and he'll get there when he's a little older and you'll be so proud of him - and never hesitate to tell him how proud you are of him when he gets it right. They just glow when you do that. |
Thanks! I have been keeping things short I think I only train about a minute I only use one or two treats and break them up smaller and once the treats are done I stop for that round and only about 2 or 3 times a day do I do that. So sounds like I am doing okay so far.....I was just unsure if I was doing things right. I have not ever trained a dog to do tricks.....I really think the trick where they play dead when you say bang is so cute so my goal is for Howie to eventually learn that trick...that will be a while!!