Effective dog training requires a plan. You can wing it and it’ll get you somewhere, but with a solid training plan, you’ll get a whole lot further in a much shorter time.
What are the elements of the plan?
An End Game: I like to start backwards when I make a training plan. I need to define my end result in order to get a good idea of how to get there.
A Timeline: When do you want to meet the goal? Depending on how big it is, you have to be realistic about when you can achieve it, but you definitely want to set a goal date. (Confession? As I type this, I am cringing, because this is the thing I am the worst at! I know the value of a time-bounded goal, but as a perpetual procrastinator, this is an area I have room to improve upon.)
Progress Benchmarks: This is not your end game but instead those points you hit along the way that let you know that you are making progress towards the goal. Think of them as mini-goals or steps to your ultimate goal.
Plan for Each Training Session: This is the nitty-gritty of the plan. It’s where you decide exactly what you are going to work on in each training session and which benchmark it is related to.
What is my end game?
I feel like I’ve beaten this to death a little bit in other posts, like this one, but to summarize, this is the picture you have in your head of what the completed, fully trained behavior will look like. Serious trainers tend to want this to include the ability to do the behavior always on cue, for an extended duration (or until released, if relevant), from a distance (dog doesn’t have to be standing right in front of you), and around a number of distractions. You might not want to go that far, but you’ll still have several elements to your goal. Each of those elements is a separate part of the goal and must be planned for accordingly.
What is my timeline for this training plan?
Take my word for this. Like I said, this is my weakness, but I have learned that when I have a solid date I am marching towards with my dog training, I am much more likely to stay on track and make progress. Luckily a dog training course I recently took forced me to train with a timeline, and I quickly learned that a goal date is a good thing, not some monster to be avoided at all cost.
Look, I’m not saying you’ll meet your timeline every single time. We have to be flexible, open to change in our plans, and able to roll with the punches. However, the timeline gives accountability that you otherwise do not have. Generally speaking, a huge training goal (for example, eliminating leash reactivity) is going to be something you look at in terms of months or even years, depending on the level of the problem. Behaviors (for example, sit or put away your toys) can have goals of weeks – maybe months if it involves a complicated chain of behaviors.
The timeline is going to contract or expand directly in proportion to the defined end game. Here’s an example. I want to teach my puppy to sit. But my end game is that she will sit in any environment, any time I ask her, where she is when I ask her to (even if it’s across a field), and I want her to stay in that sit until she’s released. That’s going to take much more time than teaching her to sit when I ask when we are in the kitchen and nothing is going on. If that’s my end game, my timeline is 1-3 days. But if she’s going to sit under the criteria I first outlined, that could take me several months to accomplish.
The timeline is also going to be dependent on the time you have available to train and, maybe most importantly, on your dog. The more you work with your dog, the more you will learn about their strengths and weaknesses (and your own) and you will be able to set more realistic timelines.
Those Benchmarks are Important!
It’s very hard to keep your head down and keep working at a huge training goal if you don’t find a way to mark and celebrate your progress along the way. That’s why I think benchmarks (or interim goals) are so very important. They are the smaller goals along the way that keep you focused, keep you motivated, and help you enjoy the process by seeing the progress. For my super-fluent sit example above, my benchmarks might look something like this:
- Sits on cue in house with little going on
- Sits on cue in backyard with other dogs out
- Sits on cue when we are at the crazy busy skate park (this is my example of the busiest place I usually take my dogs to train)
- Sits on cue from 5 feet away in the house
- Sits on cue from another room in the house
- Sits on cue from across the training center or yard
- Sits on cue and stays for 1 minute before released
- Sits on cue and stays for 5 minutes before released
- Sits on cue and stays for 1 minute in the backyard with the dogs out
- Sits on cue and stays for 5 minutes in the backyard with the dogs out
- Sits on cue and stays for 1 minute in the skate park
- Sits on cue and stays for 5 minutes in the skate park
- Sits on cue and stays for 1 minute in skate park from 5 feet away
- Sits on cue and stays for 5 minutes in skate park from 10 yards away
That is a lot of benchmarks, right? They are each important. They are building different elements of the final behavior in a way that makes it actually achievable, fun and full of visible progress. This is the trick to keep from getting frustrated and to stay on track. In my opinion, it’s probably the most important part of your training plan.
Training Session Planning
This is where you start executing on all that goal setting. You decide for where you and your dog are at in your training this moment, with the big goal in mind and the next (or first) benchmark to hit, what you are going to do right now. What is this training session going to look like, based on the last one (or knowing I’m starting from scratch), what I know about how my dog learns, and what the benchmark is that I am working towards?
Continuing in my example of teaching the puppy to sit, here’s what I know about where we are at today:
- She can only pay attention and train on one behavior for about 5 minutes before I need to switch it up or give her a break
- She is very distracted by her environment (imagine that?! puppies!)
- She loves to train and it’s pretty easy to get her attention if she knows we’re going to be doing some training
- She does know how to sit on cue in the house and will sometimes when cued out and about, as long as she’s not too busy doing something else
Taking all that in account, the benchmark I am going to work on is that she sit on cue in the backyard if the other dogs are around. But first we have to get there, so for today’s session I’m going to do two 5-minute training sessions:
- 5 minutes of multiple sits in backyard – no other dogs – might need to reinforce eye contact first to get her working
- 5 minutes of multiple sits in the house – with the other dogs around
If that goes well, then tomorrow I will try out in the yard with just one dog out. And so on…
Keep track of your progress
I’ll go into this in more depth at another time, but I strongly suggest you document your success! Keep a log, keep a journal, keep a video journal, tell your friends on Facebook, or whatever it takes so you know you and your pup are hitting those benchmarks and you are able to celebrate your success.
And all the parts make a training plan
All of these elements together create a training plan. It takes a goal and a plan to get where you want to go. That’s true for all goals, not just dog training goals. I’m using the same elements as I plan to grow my business, and I’ll use them as I tackle other goals. There’s no secret sauce to success in meeting your goals, in my humble opinion, just planning, hard work, flexibility, and a good sense of humor.
Your Turn: Are you working towards a goal? Have you set yourself up for success with these elements? Any other elements that I missed?