At 13 weeks what should I be teaching my Yorkie?
 

Just curious as to if she is old enough to work on any thing else beside potty training.

TIA

Most definitely! You can teach you dog anything.. sit is a good one to start with! Good luck!

Of course potty training is the biggest and most important thing right now... but sure, start on some other tricks as well.

At 13 weeks, I think we were doing "sit" and "high-five" with Nikko. Sit is great to teach - it comes in so handy a little later on for all sorts of other general behavior training, so it's a good one to get it ingrained in her head right from the start.

Lauren & Nikko

Ella is 12 weeks & she learned to sit in like 5 min and that was at 10 weeks old. Now she can also lay down and crawl

Anything and everything! This is a very curious age for them and a very good age that they pick things up quickly. The key is consistency and repetition. Good luck. :)

Okay, its training time :D.

Thanks!!

We do fetch!! Wasn't what I planned to teach her first but oh well. ;) She loves to play fetch with her mini tennis balls or her teeny duck!

Anything, really!

Jackson knew Sit and Down by 13-15 weeks, I want to say.

LOL, yeah... Nikko was doing fetch off and on by around 14 to 15 weeks (he was pretty sick with intestinal parasites in the beginning, but still played and learned hard whenever he felt decent enough). It started with us throwing kibble across the kitchen for him to chase down, and he would always go after it then bring it back to actually chew and eat it while he was beside us.

So we started "naming" the game by telling him "get it!" every time (seemed more natural than saying "fetch" at the time), and then eventually we figured out he'd return other items - like toys - we threw if we said "get it." Convincing him to place those items in our hand and let go instead of assuming it was tug-of-war time was a different story, but still... hahaha.

From what I understand, "fetching" just comes naturally to some pups, and others aren't as keen on it from the beginning. But it is a fun game if your pup is up for learning it, and it does help with exercise. Sheesh, they have so much energy when they're that young! And the more you can tire them out, the more they sleep... and when they're sleeping, they're not peeing and pooing in your house. So exercise and stimulation, no matter how you manage to do it, is definitely good at this stage. :-)

- Lauren & Nikko

at 13 weeks he should be out in the world seeing tons and learning soical skills.

you need to cover 100 places, people, things and sounds by the time he is 16 weeks old to have a proper soicalization on a dog.

as for teaching they can learn anything and everything right now but make sure it is safe for thier growing body. for example I would start agility with a yorkie this young but not a big dog that we need to safe guard the growing hips.

jl

Jett is 16 weeks and knows "sit, stay,down and come".....I was so impressed how quickly he learned these commands!

Im trying to teach my puppy to sit. She is already 95% potty trained ! Thanks to my older dog :)
Sit is a challenge right now at 11 weeks (:

I am a great fan of starting as young as possible. When I start to breed with June, I am planning to clicker train the pups before they leave home. They will also be leaving with a clicker and a training instruction booklet. :)

Anyway, June graduated from her first puppy class at four months! We are enrolling in another one in August, so we have a lot to work on. At 18 weeks, she can sit, lie down, stand on her hind legs, beg, wait and kiss. She also has a great recall. We are working on stay, high five and shake.

She isn't even the smartest puppy, I just started early. Cash is much smarter than she is, but starting early has really given her an advantage. I would recommend it to anyone.

By starting early, you can control them when they reach the difficult teenage stage. I wish I had started earlier with Cash, we started at about 6 months - in the midst of his teenage rebellion. June is almost 5 months now and we are prepared for the terrible teens!

Marilize, how do you plan to teach the difference between Stay and Wait?

My dog has stay do not move until I say so.

Wait is stop long enough for me to get out the door or into the car and then at your choice not mine you can move. Wait is also do not jump at my hand while I pick up the ball but once it is flying through the air by all means go get it without waiting for the release word.

It can be done.

I know the difference, thanks. I was wondering how you teach the dog the difference.

I taught her to wait for me by putting her on my bed - she sleeps with me - telling her 'wait' and going to brush my teeth. I also use 'wait' when I am grooming her, when I just need a minute to get my things ready, etc. So, the 'wait' command simply means to give me a minute. She already knows this - I started the moment I got her.

Stay is a completely different story. Stay means that she has to stay in the exact position I put her in until I say okay (my release word). I plan to teach her this when she is a little older and less scatterbrained. I would simply ask her to sit or lie down and lengthen the time that she stays in that position. I have a hand signal for stay and while I won't say anything when she is in her position, I don't want her to get confused when I say something else. She is very in tune to what we say - I have to talk to her constantly when she is getting a bath, etc.

So, using a hand signal, I will get her to stay in her position. The success of this method might be doubted since I haven't taught her to stay yet, but my older yorkie, Cash, knows wait and stay very well. He waits for me to say 'okay' before he gets in the car, before he gets out of the car, when I have to attach his leash, etc.
Cash is also great in stay! I can walk around him, other people and dogs can walk around him and he will not get out of the stay. I can jump up and down, circle him, hold a toy, throw a toy or put food down, and he will stay. I can even leave the room for some time and he will stay in his position.

I think 'wait' is a more practical thing to teach your dog while stay is very impressive. I hope that answers your question. :)

Hm. Well, riddle me this:

Thor is excellent at Stay, as long as there is no one around him. He can Stay for over a minute if we're in a calm area. If there is another dog or person, or say, a paper bag, he gets up. I've been trying to practice Stay with him quite a bit (minimum is 5x/day). I'd like him to sit at corners, while I am waiting in line, etc. The thing is, he is so small that I feel like to some degree he's right to be so nervous. One stray human foot, and he will go flying. On the other hand, he is overly nervous. I'm pretty sure he is not going to be harmed by a paper bag, for instance. Sometimes he just breaks the Stay because he sees something very interesting he wants to check out. Also, if he's not Staying, he's off exploring, trying to climb up people's legs and generally being a Bad Doggy.

I try to put him in Stays in a position where he can feel safe, like with his back to a wall. But I'm kind of wondering if I am being counter productive, because now he is breaking Stays all the time, and I don't want him to think it's optional. :confused:

Hiya :)

How old is your pup? It's possible that if he is quite young, new things are just, well, too new and interesting for him to be able to control himself. When I took my Milly to training classes, the trainer (a highly respected Kennel Club trainer) informed me there was little point in trying to teach her to stay in an interesting and exciting place "this side of Christmas", because she was just too excited about life in general to keep her bottom on the floor.

It's possible that perhaps Thor is suffering from highly-excitable-adolescent-doggy syndrome? And maybe time will do the trick?

Well, he is almost three, though he's very immature. ;) I just got him a few months ago and his first owner put zero effort into training him, so we are going through a major remedial effort.

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed tonight. He is a decently behaved dog, but we are working on SO many things.

I'm planning to start our first obedience class at the SPCA in a few weeks, so I'm excited to get the perspecitve of a professional trainer.

If you have him in minute-long stays already, then it sounds like you're doing something right! If his previous owner didn't bother training him, it could be that he's also had limited opportunities to experience new and different situations.

He'll get the hang of it eventually :) He sounds like a great little fella!

Good luck with your training sessions! Milly had a couple of different trainers before we finally settled on one who was suitable. She was his first Yorkie, but his methods really worked for Milly.

If he is already staying, you just need to increase the distractions. It basically sounds like he knows what stay means, but he isn't used to staying when there are distractions around.
You can either lengthen his stays or increase the amount of distraction.
What is your release word? This is the most NB thing when it comes to stays.

You have to build up to the great stays. Cash recently finished another obedience course where the trainer would distract them with toys, other dogs and food. The distractions are gradually increased and only when he has mastered the previous distraction.

Also, when you treat him, don't let him come to you. He needs to learn that being away from you does not equal less or no treats. At the end of the stay, move towards him, give the release word when you have reached him and then treat. Don't ever let him move from the spot where he should stay - go to him. This tiny change made Cash incredible with stays.

The other big mistake that people make with stays is to keep the stay going until the dog shows signs of getting up (or he gets up). I am not saying that this is the case with you, I am just throwing it out there.
Every time he gets out of a stay, the process will be that much longer. You should end the stay, not him. So, I would actually suggest that you vary the amount of time that he is in a stay and quite suddenly give him the release word and then praise and treats. Doing this, you will condition him to listen to you, not act on a whim.

I hope this helps. I think it is a great thing that you are giving this baby a new lease on life. I am sure the training will go very well. Keep at it. Oh, and he is too cute! Love the colour!

Oh dear, that could be it. I say oh dear, because my most common practice is to take his leash off at the park and then walk away from him. Then at some point I turn around and say my release work ("OK") and he explodes with energy running around. I can see the value of what you are saying about coming back to him before releasing him, because I am encouraging him to end his stay with a huge burst, and I am having an issue with that - if he decides to get up without me, he runs around like he's on fire and it's hard to catch him and put him back in his stay. The problem is that it is so darn cute when it works.

Oh, I know. Sometimes they are just too cute.

What do you want out of the stay exercise? Do you want him all excited and running around after a stay or do you want him to have a reliable, consistent stay? If you answer this question truthfully, you can work on what you want and need.

I think you will find that he will be excited in a park anyway, regardless of whether you encourage it or not. To have a really obedient dog, he has to listen to you wherever he is and exciting him so much that you can't handle him afterwards may be detrimental later.

At the moment, he is getting his reward if he breaks the stay. His reward being to run around like crazy. So, in his mind, the sooner he breaks the stay, the sooner he gets his reward. No wonder he is breaking the stay. He is a smart little guy.

In your situation, I would take a ball or toy with me to the park and give it to him after the stay. This will reward him for a great stay in a great way. He should look forward to the end of a stay, but he shouldn't break a stay to get what he wants earlier.

So, reward him with a toy or ball and a fun game of fetch. He will soon learn that if he holds off a little while longer, he gets a better reward. I mean, he can run around as much as he wants, but that isn't going to get him the toy.

So, simply change your reward and he should do fine. Hehe, I find that even though they absolutely love running around like crazy, they will hover near you if you have a nice toy and a fun attitude.

A dog behaviourist friend told me something that has meant the world to me: The most important thing when you are training your dog is to figure out what he wants at that moment. So, he wants fun and games... give it to him, but only on your terms and only if he is a good boy.

Good luck. I think you are both going to have a lot of fun.

We pro trainers love to give a diffenrt view just make sure that who ever this one is is training from postive especcially as he is still very new and building a relationship with you.

JL

Thank you for the advice, that is very helpful. I usually bring a couple tennis balls with me, so I will try using those as rewards for Staying. That is if I can train myself out of my treat, seeing him jump out of a Stay like there's a spring in his butt. :p