The 4 Puppy Training Rules That Will Change Your Life
When I got my first puppy,
it was a complete disaster. She was having accidents everywhere, chewing everything up and
she just wouldn't listen. Now eventually my vet mentioned to me
that I needed to go for some dog training. He suggested that I come over here to
McCann dogs, and that's where I met kale. It's also where I learned the four puppy
training rules that changed my life. Now, after all of these years, as
a professional dog trainer myself, I've seen thousands of students have
their own lives transformed by these four rules.
And in this video, Kayl is going to outline exactly
what these rules can do for you. I'm Ken Steepe, welcome
back to McCann Dogs. Here in our training facility, we've helped more than a hundred thousand
dog owners to overcome the same dog training challenges that you had. So if
this is your first time on the channel, make sure you hit that subscribe button
so that we can help you to have a well behaved four-legged family member. We're just going for a walk around
the property with some of our dogs. And we're talking about the series that
we're currently doing here on YouTube with our puppy Euchre. And it reminded me of my first puppy
and all of the mistakes that I'd made.
And when I learned these four rules, that we're about to talk about how I
could apply them to every single skill I was working on. And you're going to see in each one of
our videos that we're applying these four rules to our puppy training. So
let's get to the first rule. Now, the first rule we need to talk about
is don't overwhelm your dog with challenges. It's something
that so many people do. It's definitely something
that I did. And you won't see, you don't see little Euchre out here
with us on our walks with our other dogs, because she is so interested in these
dogs that there's no chance that she could be successful. If we were going to try to work with
on something like response to name, not pulling on leash, these
things just wouldn't happen. Let's talk a little bit about what you've
done instead of taking Euchre on these walks to make sure that she
can be successful.
And so
that she'll still listen. Yeah. So I, you know, before
we put her in this scenario, we want to sort of teach her first, what she supposed to do so independently
on her own, I have been working, you know, bringing her out here on
a long line with her favorite toys, her favorite treats, and working on teaching her to respond
to her name and making it very valuable to listen to me.
And I've actually progressed to being
able to take her for a walk with one other dog, a boring old dog, like Funkee Monkee who doesn't
really care too much about the puppy. So it's less distracting for
her, which means it's, you know, a little bit more distracting
for the pup for Euchre, but she still has an opportunity
to be successful. And if she's not, I can control the environment
and help her to be right. And as she starts to show me that she
knows what to do and that she can be a good listener, then we're going to give her more and
more opportunity if we would love for her to be able to walk with her other dogs
and have everybody come all together. But what we don't want to do is sacrifice
our training and do all of this hard work to teach her, to
have a reliable recall, and to listen to us and then put her in
a scenario where she thinks, okay, well, I have to, I can listen to the kitchen, but when I go for a walk on the property, I just get to be a hellion
and do my own thing.
So we're taking the necessary
steps by controlling it, to help her to be successful and
learn to do it the right way and. Figuring out what is the challenge level
for your dog is something that you're going to have to figure out on your own, but you're definitely gonna want
to start at the easiest level. So for example Kayl has spent some time
in the kitchen working with Euchre and Funkee Monkee in a very
controlled situation. Remember, your dog is going to do
whatever they find rewarding. So if we were to bring Euchre out here
with all these dogs running around, she would find it very rewarding
to chase after those dogs, to not pay attention to us
because, you know, what can we, what can we possibly offer her?
That's better than chasing the dog. So I'm gonna show it roll a
clip right now of Kayl training, Euchre around funky monkey and
really insisting on getting some, some attention really showing
Euchre that Kayl is quite valuable.
There's value in paying attention to
her when there's another dog around. And that's a really important
starting point for any puppy. So how does this apply to
you now? Kayl mentioned, we've talked a little bit
in the past about finding, finding friends or food or
family members. Nice jump buddy, who might have a dog. And let's talk a little bit about maybe
choosing the right dog for you to work on with your puppy. Yeah. You know, having your, your young dog around other dogs is
really great for socialization as long as it's in a controlled manner. So if you do have friends or family that
have a pretty chill dog or a dog that has had some training, that's definitely gonna make your life
with your untrained puppy a little easier, but if you don't have access
to that, because lots of people don't, and you know, you do there, you just
keep going and keep making an appearance.
And you do have, if you
don't have access to that, the other thing you could do is, you
know, go to a local place that has, you know, maybe some dogs or kids at a
park or whatever, and utilize the 3d's. So distance, duration,
distraction, those three things. Typically you can always control. So maybe you go to the park and instead
of going right up to where all the other dogs are, you try to get
some control at a distance. So your dog can see all that other action, but at a distance where your dog is at
a threshold where they can be successful and then slowly go forward, or
maybe the level of distraction, maybe you go when there's like only
a few kids playing versus like in the afternoon on a Saturday when like
everybody and their brother is at, is at the park. And then duration
don't overwhelm yourself. You always want to start
small, short, short, little increments of success and then
pull the plug while it's going great. Sometimes people just do things
too long and it starts off well, and then it starts to fizzle up because
we've worked the puppies a little bit too long, so short and sweet.
So
distance duration and distractions. Rule, number two, don't
overuse your commands. This is definitely something
I did with my first puppy. I'd be calling her and calling her and
she wouldn't be coming in or, you know, she'd be in some other room in the house
and I'm asking her to come with me and it just wasn't happening, but it can really have a damaging
effect on your dog's training, as well as your relationship. Let's talk a little bit about what
follow through means following through. Yeah, I think people often over
overused commands before
they've actually really taken the time to teach dog how
to respond to the command. And I think some people are really
surprised at how many repetitions do you actually need to take it before a command
can really be just used in everyday life without any teaching
involved with it. Things like recall or
their name is a big one. A lot of people overuse dog's names, and then it just sort of gets watered
down over time because the dog hears it so much that they don't really think they
have to react to it all of the time.
So you want to try to make sure that, especially when you have
a young dog in training, regardless of whether they're a puppy
or even an older dog that that you don't use commands, unless you're ready to sort of follow
through and make sure they happen. And that follow through could
be in the teaching phase, maybe associating their name with using
some treats to get your dog's attention, or with Euchre. One thing that we talk about a lot in
our puppy series is that she's not super food motivated, but thank
goodness she loves a toy. So we would often say her
name and then I'd run away, dangling a toy to get her a little bit
more motivated to hear that word and then want to respond. And then
from there, you know, when they get a little bit more
trained and a little bit more reliable, you need to be prepared for when you
call their name or ask them to do something.
And they decide that sniffing the floor
or barking at the neighbor's dog is more important than listening to you, that you have a way of actually following
through because that's where people start to repeat themselves or get
more angry or start like the point. And then by that point, you
know, it's going in one, one of your dog's ears and out
the other, like they don't, they don't really care.
So the follow through. For sure, having something like
a leash or a line on your dog, and allowing getting them
away from that distraction, and then maybe you can set them up in a
situation where they can be successful.
If you know that this tree over here, that your puppy really wants to
sniff it and they're not responding, then you need to, the 3d is you need to get some distance
from that tree and you can practice it again. If the dog doesn't respond, then you figure out how you're going
to get them redirected away from that. And you're going to go farther
away and practice it again, but make sure that you're not calling
over and asking over and over again, because it really waters
down what that word means. And it really teaches your dog that
not listening to you is an option. Now, the next puppy training rule, it's going to change your
life is practicing great
management with your puppy.
Now we talked a little bit, just a moment ago about redirecting the
dog away from a tree, for example, well, how are you going to do that? It's
pretty exciting for your puppy. If every time you need to get them away
from something that you need to run up to them and chase them
around and somehow take hold. The best puppy game of all
time is catch me if he can. And not one that you ever
want them to learn exists.
Especially in the house. But what does management mean when
it comes to our series with Euchre? What are some of the things that we've
been doing consistently so that if she does make the wrong choice,
we're able to redirect? Yeah, we've really had to do a lot of
management with her because she is, she can be pretty wild and crazy,
sometimes fun, loving for sure, but pretty well and crazy. So when she's out of her crate and
we're giving her some free time in our home, it's not actually entirely free as
of yet being a four month old puppy. So when she's out of her
crate, we will, you know, do management decisions like keep a leash
or line on her when she's out of her crate.
So that, you know, if she
tries to jump up on the counter, as I'm trying to make
dinner and see what's there, we can use the line to redirect her off
and then maybe get her to sit instead and teach her that that's
what she should do. You know, if she's trying to get at the
shoes at the front door again, the line on allows me to stop her and
get the shoe out of her mouth and, and redirect her to a different location
and show her what she should be doing differently. So that
line is such a lifesaver. The other management tool that we utilize
a lot in our house is we restrict what room she's allowed to go into.
So if we're in the kitchen. We have her be in the kitchen
with us. So we have baby gates up. So she can't just wander into the living
room and get into mischief while we're not paying attention.
Now, eventually, you know, we will give her access to maybe
two rooms and then three rooms, and then we'll progress from
there.
Once we see that, you know, she has a little bit more training
and can kind of chill out a bit more independently, but we're a ways off
from that because she's a puppy. So those are two of the things that we do. What do you do if you can't supervise
100% of the time? Now we all have lives. We all have things that
we need to do. So you, it's impossible to be able to keep our
eyes on our puppy 100% of the time. So what do you do in the times
when you can't supervise? Well, I know what we do and that is we happily
utilize our crate and we have a crate in the central location of our house
that we actually have a really great, a YouTube video on crate locations and
where you can move the crate to help things go along a little bit
more smoothly.
But, you know, we can't watch her all of
the time. You know, we, we have very busy lives
as I'm sure you guys do. And knowing that when she's in the crate,
she can't be rehearsing bad things. She can't be eating something
that could hurt her. She can't have accidents in the house. It allows us to make sure that
when she is out of the crate, that she's just being, you know,
drilled with good information. This is what you need to do. This is
how you do this, instead of just saying, well, I have to go have a meeting now. I sure hope she's okay in the kitchen
on her own and then come down and, you know, she's renovated the
cupboards for us. So, you know, the crate is such a great way to keep
your dog out of mischief until you have more training.
And they have the
ability just to hang out. You know, we don't use crates very much with our
older dogs because they've learned how to be a well-behaved dog in the house. But when you have a puppy being
able to manage them is so important. But if you need the time help, because you can't manage them
every two seconds of the day, the crate is just the most amazing
thing that you can do for the dogs. And if you teach it right, a lot of dogs
just, they actually seek their crate.
They, they want to go and chill out,
Funkee, actually the dog on his table, she's 13 years old. And how many times do we find her
curled up in the back of a crate? She usually has a crate and her doors
just open. She can freely go in it, but even at 13, she still wants to go in there and
have a nap and just have some time to herself. So I think some
people view it as, you know, a bad thing or something
that is not going to be. Something well, it is restrictive,
not quite intentional. Your puppy can only make good choices.
And that was, that was even at a two. And I introduced the crate to
Deegan.
It changed everything. Here's the other thing, here's the little secret that those of
you who are watching this video are going to get what's. The great thing about the crate is every
time that puppy or dog comes out of their crate, you're there, you're
there to do something with them, so that they think every
time that they they're out, that you're the most engaging
thing in the room that you, you bring all that's good.
And that's such a powerful. Thing for motivation. And relationship. And it's really something that you can
take advantage of so that you get a dog who listens and isn't distracted
by the slightest thing. When you go out and you start
in the real world training.
The next puppy training rule that
changed my life entirely was to remember, to be consistent. This is one of the most crucial
parts of your puppy training. One of the most challenging
ones for people, because unfortunately humans are not. Consistent. Yeah. And that
includes some patience. So let's talk about some of the things
that we've been working on with Euchre that have required us to be
really consistent about it. Especially you need to be
consistent about you know, managing there's that management word
again behaviors that dogs find very self rewarding. So um, I think one of the big ones with Euchre
is that she is really interested in jumping on top of her crate to where
she knows we have a little toy been up there with some of the toys that
we'll use from time to time. And she's very curious
about getting up there. So we have to be very consistent on making
sure that when she goes over towards the crate and starts air
scenting, that's our cue.
That means she's probably going to try
to jump up and then we can stop her. But if we're not paying attention to her
and she gets up and she gets to steal that toy, you know, every couple of days that behavior is
going to keep going because we're not being consistent. Yeah. And, and, you know, consistency
means throughout your household too. So if I, for sure, if I allowed
Euchre to jump up on me, or if I allowed you her
to jump up on her crate, but Kayl insisted that she didn't, that wouldn't be fair to Euchre and
dogs need really black and white information.
You're allowed to do this.
She's not allowed to do this for sure. So, you know, consistency throughout
your household is just as important. That also applies to things. For example, we were talking about not taking you
out in this walk with other dogs, she'll get her own walk, but you know, we don't want her to have the first few
months of her life allowed to pull on leash until she chokes to dragging
herself around the property. We want to make sure that she's
getting great information. So we're going to be consistent about
our expectations for her pulling on her leash. We're going to set her up so
that she's not in a situation that's too distracting.
And we're going to work on skills in a
smaller area where she's rewarded for not pulling on her leash, where she finds, she's motivated to make sure
that leash is loose, you know, this consistency when you start you know, through puppy with that
kind of consistency, your
adult, dog trains faster, they know that you're someone who's
going to be consistent when you have one expectation that stays throughout
time. And that is so important. And it's really where I see a lot of
students that come in for classes they'll really excel. And you know
that the kinds of people, you can usually tell them the first
couple of classes that are really consistent, they set high expectations
of their dog and they maintain those. Yeah. And I think another thing
with consistency is repetition. I think I mentioned this earlier
dog learn through repetition, and then they learn even better if you
do consistent repetition. So for example, I'm trying to teach Euchre currently
how to be focused when there are cars driving past the end of
our driveway. She's a Border, a young Border Collie, and she's very
interested in cars going past.
So I've, that's my goal for this
week. And the last two weeks, actually I've every day gone out, even
if it's just been for two minutes, if that's all the time
I have to work on it, I just go over a couple of minutes and
we just stand at the end of the driveway, or we go down to the corner of our
road and I work a sit or a down, and I just reward her for
being calm as the cars go by. And I've probably had, I don't
know, five or six sessions you know, really good sessions now. And I cannot believe the difference
between now and the very first time that I did it because I've consistently
practiced and get gotten her, given her good information.
So you see the progress go.
But if you only do things sometimes, and then other times you just
sorta let them do their own thing. You're not going to see
the same type of results. So consistency is massive in dog training, but it needs to be consistency
of the right things. If you're consistently letting
things happen the wrong way, then that's going to work. If you're consistently
teaching your puppy, that they can get the toilet
paper roll, that's a bad thing. They'll go quickly learn
that the toilet paper rolls. In any particular direction. Now these
four rules are just the beginning.
And if you're looking for some help on
how to use these rules and so much more in your particular puppy's training, make sure you check out our
online puppy essentials course. The link for that is down below. Now, if you're looking for some ideas of how
to apply these four rules in your puppy training, check out this card right here.
It's a 24 hour period with our puppy. Euchre in our new puppy series on
that note. I'm Ken and I'm Kayl. This is Funkee Monkee, Happy Training..
