The Overtraining Trap
Brandy Girot, CPDT-KA

We get asked so many times how long it’s going to take to train a dog. The answer every time is always the same. 

A dog always determines their own timeframe for training. 

Each individual dog learns at their own pace.  We do believe, however, the more a dog trains, the more capacity they do gain for learning.

Humans can get very frustrated when it takes a dog a long time to pattern a new behavior that in our mind is simple.  What can sometimes happen then is that we tend to over-train.  Over- training looks like this, we get several awesome repetitions, and then the dog starts to lose interest. We start to get frustrated when the dog melts down and we walk away really unsuccessful.

We’ve seen this set dogs back in their training progression and then its even more difficult to go back and fix each set back so this is not the way to optimally train your dog. The moment you can see that you’re losing them,  meaning they’re getting bored or they’re losing their ability to pay attention,  It’s time to stop.   Some dogs can train for a very long period of time, and some dogs are only able to train for a few minutes at a time.

Training is much more successful overall if we are able to identify and acknowledge this aspect of time.  We tell all of our clients to work at their dogs pace, be patient, and always end on a positive successful note, even if that means just a plain old sit.

Here are a few things you can do to help yourself from falling into the overtraining trap:

-Set a timer for 2 to 5 minutes, stop to assess where your dog is.  You can reset the timer or if you think your dog might not make it through another timer, STOP with something simple.

-Have a family member sit back watch and then remind you time is up.  Sometimes another set of eyes can help you identify that your dog is done before we see it.  When trainers work together we oftentimes have to tell each other time is up.
 
-Several micro sessions throughout the day can be much more productive than trying to squeeze in long sessions. Some people are able to make the food bowl at feeding time with successful training sessions twice a day.

-TAKE A BREAK!  Take a few days off, maybe even a week.  You both need to rest and reset and you will probably find that when you pick it back up after a bit of a break your dog does even better with what you left off with.

Remember, be patient, persistent, insistent, and consistent!