Your puppy has to have confidence in you before he can begin learning. Remember that puppies are like children - they have growing bodies, short attention spans, and will only learn things when the conditions are right and when they understand what it is you're trying to teach them.
That said, the earlier you start training dogs, the better. More specifically, it's best if you start "socialization" from 8 weeks, simple commands like "come" and "sit" from 12 weeks, and more intensive training at 5 to 6 months.
While some early training can be started as soon as you bring your puppy home, the optimum time to begin obedience training is somewhere around 9 to 12 weeks of age.
Keep in mind that training can cover a broad range of topics - I'm not suggesting that you begin training your puppy at 8 weeks of age for agility competitions! Your training should start off with the basics - teaching him "No!" and beginning house-training.
Socialization skills are next - experts tell us the best window for your puppy to learn socialization skills is between 3 and 16 weeks - that's the best time to insure that your puppy grows into a well-adjusted adult.
And remember, socialization isn't about teaching him the right fork to use at the dinner table - it's about giving your dog the self-assurance to deal correctly with any social environment he finds himself in is one of the most valuable and lasting lessons you can teach him.
A well-socialized dog will interact well with all types of people and situations, even those he has never been in before. With appropriate social skills, your dog will show little or no fear of most objects, people or other animals, and even if startled, will recover quickly and won't panic.
Bottom line, a well-adjusted dog is one that is comfortable in a variety of situations and surroundings. He may be excited in a new setting, but not fearful. The key here is to create positive experiences as you expose your dog to more and more new situations.
Even training your puppy for 5 - 10 minutes per day as soon as you bring him home will make a big difference in the social skills and adaptability of your puppy.
Keep in mind that puppies have very short attention spans, so keep your lessons short and fun. How short an attention span? That depends on the age of the puppy, his breed and how mature your individual puppy is - but a good rule of thumb is to keep the training sessions within that 5 -10 minute range.
Depending on your puppy's age and maturity level, sometime between 3 and 6 months of age you should be moving the training into the area of the basic commands such as Sit, Heel, Down, etc.
It's important you have realistic expectations about your dog's capabilities at this point - I don't expect a puppy to be responding to the basic commands with any degree of regularity until they've reached 6 months of age.
If you haven't been training for quite some time, meaning 1 to 10 years, you need to definitely consider hiring a trainer to do a full assessment on you. An assessment entails a medial health history ... very, very detailed medical health history ... so that you can clearly share with your trainer what is going on with your body physically. Also, you would be tested for cardiovascular level of fitness, muscle strength and endurance and flexibility. Also, we would need to talk about your goals and your nutrition. If you have specific goals, we need to make sure that they are realistic and design a program to get you to those goals as efficiently and safely as possible. Nutritionally, there may be changes that need to take place, and those should be discussed in detail as well.
Once you have been assessed, the trainer is now fully prepared to use all that information in designing a program specifically for you. Your well-designed program takes in both cardiovascular activity as well as muscle strength and endurance. Your cardiovascular system has to be trained through aerobic activity and your aerobic activity is achieved by getting your heart rate into your training zone and working within that zone for about 120-180 minutes per week. That works out to be about 30 minutes a day, 6 days a week. The reason that you need cardiovascular activity that often is because the heart muscle is a very specific type of muscle. It does not hold its strength for long periods of time. It is recommended that we do cardiovascular activity no less than every other day, and that way our heart and our lungs stay strong and efficient.
Now, your skeletal muscle system is made up of a very different type of muscle cells and it does hold strength for fairly good long periods of time, so it's possible that you could go as long as a week without resistance training and probably not lose much ground. You wouldn't want to go much longer than that in between workouts.
When you're working cardiovascularly, you have to train within your training zone. The way a training zone is determined is through this equation: 220, minus your age, minus your resting heart rate. You take that number and you multiple it by 60%, as well as by 85%, and then you re-add your resting heart rate back into both of those numbers. What you end up with is a training range between 60 and 85%. We figure that within this range, your body is burning fat most efficiently and your heart and lungs are benefitting very well from this activity. We do cardiovascular activity to train the heart and lungs, of course, and also, it's aerobic, and your aerobic system uses fat for fuel. If losing weight is part of your goal, then it is very important that you have plenty of cardiovascular activity designed into your program.
Now, your resting heart rate is your heart rate when you are just sitting around relaxing, minus 5-8 beats. Your actual resting heart rate is taken when you are asleep, which, of course, we can't do, so we guesstimate by using a functional heart rate, one when you are sitting relaxing for anywhere for 20-30 minutes. Take your pulse, and then subtract maybe 5-8 beats off that, and you can use that as your resting heart rate in the equation.
Now, you want to do your muscle strengthening and endurance work for at least 2 hours a week, and that is using your anaerobic system for fuel. When you are using your anaerobic system for fuel, you are burning glycogen that's stored in your muscles. Both of these systems are important to train, and you are not going to do any damage by being in either one of the systems when you planned to be in the other. But if you are trying to be aerobic and you go anaerobic, your body is no longer burning fat, and that is why it is important to know what your training zone is and to stay within the ranges of your training zone. If you go above 85% and you have not been training, you're probably going to shift into your anaerobic system for fuel, which means your body will stop burning fat.
So, each week your goal is to use about 180 minutes of your time cardiovascularly and about 90 minutes to 120 minutes of your time resistance training. When you're resistance training, you want to get full-body workouts. If you have time to do more than 2 days a week, 2 hours a week, you certainly can change that and do body parts, but usually with busy schedules, twice a week in the gym is a good goal and a full body workout is recommended.
The results you get are obviously guided by how consistent you are and how well you stick to your program. I would recommend that it be revised every month or two, so that your body is constantly getting the kind of challenges that it needs to continually grow stronger and progress.
Both Omar Williams & Julia Hall are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
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