Puppies come with a variety of skills, some we love and others we could do without. Unfortunately, if your puppy has not had the chance to go through early training, it may come with more unwanted behaviors than desired behaviors. Sadly, this is actually more common than many realize. As a puppy trainer, I have noticed that many, if not most, are rarely taught foundation skills. So, what are foundation skills, and which ones should you be focusing on? Read on to discover what three foundation skills are so crucial that your puppy needs to know them before everything else!
What are Foundation Skills?
When people first get their puppy home, they often think of potty training and “sit” as the first behaviors they need to teach their puppy. While it is essential that you start or continue potty training as soon as your puppy gets home, when it comes to everything else, “sit” is not the behavior you should be focusing on. Instead, you should focus on teaching your puppy foundation skills. You might be asking, “Isn’t “sit” a foundation skill?” Not really. Let me explain. Imagine learning algebra, but no one taught you how addition and subtraction work. That might be hard to imagine since we humans are taught math basics starting at a relatively young age. We do this because we know that it would be extremely hard for someone to do higher math without understanding how subtraction and addition work. It is similar with behaviors. When training puppies, we often assume they already know these basic foundation skills. In reality, the basics often get lumped into training other behaviors, making the training process frustrating for both humans and puppies alike. So, what are these foundation skills, and why are they so important? For the next three weeks, I will discuss three foundation skills every puppy needs to learn. I like to call these the golden skills.
The Golden Skills
There are three primary foundation skills that all puppies need to learn. These skills are so foundational that, as mentioned previously, I like to call them the “golden skills.” The golden skills are attention, targeting, and waiting. Most, if not all, behaviors your puppy will learn require these three skills in some form. The ability to effectively teach your puppy anything requires that your puppy pay attention to you. Any time your puppy places any part of its body on something else (e.g., lying down on the ground), it is targeting. Teaching your puppy to wait at station for food, cues, instructions, and more can significantly impact the success of your training and your puppy’s overall life enjoyment. Let’s take a moment to explore why these three skills are so essential.
Why Train the Golden Skills?
So, what is so great about these skills? If people have successfully trained their puppies without covering these topics, why work on them? To answer this, let me set the stage. Imagine you are working with your puppy on door manners. It jumps on people every time they come in the door and sometimes bolts into your front yard for an inconvenient game of chase. You decide you need to teach door manners fast, or your puppy may end up in the street, and in addition to that, your guests aren’t always happy with being jumped on. The prospect of training desperately needed door manners is often a daunting task and quickly turns into a very uncoordinated dance of repeated “sit” cues, and both you and your puppy getting frustrated. Eventually, things either work out, and your puppy learns, after a lot of trial and error, to stay away from the door when people come in, or you find yourself having to crate it or set up a gate every time the doorbell rings.
Now, take a deep breath; I know that sounds a little stressful. Or maybe you have been through it and know how frustrating it can be, even if you are successful. Now, imagine if the first things you taught your puppy were the golden skills. A couple of days after getting your puppy home, you began to work on these skills. After dedicated hard work, within a month or so, you have taught your puppy to give you attention when you ask, target objects with its nose and paws, and you have taught it to wait patiently at station (on its mat or a towel, which is taught using targeting) for treat delivery and instructions. These behaviors aren’t perfect, your puppy is still learning to perform them with distractions present, but it can and will perform them on cue. Now think about the door manners situation again. Guests arrive, and your puppy goes to the door all excited. Instead of the frustrating door dance of confusion, you get your puppy’s attention, ask it to target your hand with its nose, something it has already learned to love, and reinforce that behavior with a treat. Next, you ask your puppy to go to its bed and station there, waiting patiently for further instructions. Again, you reinforce it for getting on its bed. Finally, you open the door; the people come in; maybe your puppy breaks station because this is a new situation, but maybe not. Either way, the only thing left to work on is reviewing what your puppy already knows in a new context. All it has to do is learn to hold the station even when people come in the door. With some dedicated practice, your puppy will wait at station for people to come in and for you to give it permission to say hello. Wow! That was a lot easier!
Not Perfect, But Way Easier
It is important to note that teaching these skills takes time and effort. Some puppies can learn them in days; for others, it takes more time. The amount of time often depends on how often you train and how effective your training skills are. A trainer can be a beneficial resource if you don’t have as much time as you would like or are still brushing up on your training skills.
With these golden skills, your puppy already knows so much! In addition to that, your puppy has already learned that giving you attention gets it good things and fun times; touching other things with its nose and paws is a game you might use to teach it other behaviors, and waiting patiently at station leads to good things! Of course, these skills will need to be tweaked and refined for each situation and desired end behavior, but with the foundation skills there, training becomes a lot easier for everyone!
Stay tuned for next week’s more in-depth look at the skill of attention. Book a session now if you want help teaching your puppy the golden skills! Click here to visit the services page!
Photo Credit #1: Wix
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