It doesn’t matter what you’re trying to achieve right now if you’re puppy training isn’t working, here are three big reasons why you could be hitting a ‘wall’.
#1 Lack of Consistency
‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’ and many reasons that puppy training isn’t working is because actually, you haven’t stuck at it long enough. The truth is, most puppies will be able to learn anything as long as you stick at it.
This doesn’t mean always do the same repetitive thing at the same time every day. But it does mean do little bits of training each day!
How to fix it: Try incorporating the training or behavior in different environments or in different ways. Persevere. Keep it up, and keep it fresh. Trust us, when you’re consistent, you start seeing consistent results.
#2 Reducing Treats Too Soon
For your puppy, treats or toys are the reward they need to see that what they are doing is a ‘good’ thing. And the next logical step is to reduce the constant feeding and start to train ‘length of duration’.
However.
If your puppy training isn’t working now, but it was before. This could be why. When you roll back on treats too soon, it gives a mixed message and what was once seen as doing something good, suddenly became something bad. Because the treats stopped.
How to fix it: Train duration by alternating between short and long, lots of treats, and a few treats. Rather than just cutting out or down altogether. Keep your puppy guessing and they are more likely to keep doing the behavior you want.
#3 Your Treat ‘Value’ Is Too Low
The harder a skill, trick or behavior is for your puppy to learn, the more incentive they will need.
If puppy training isn’t working with your current treats, it might be because your puppy doesn’t consider doing the behavior ‘worth it’.
How to fix it: Try out different treat types and mix it up in your hand so that you are giving them something different each time and they don’t know what to expect. Find out what treats are really high value to your puppy and save those for the extra tricky things to learn.
These things take time, but if you’re finding that your puppy training isn’t working, check out the training section here for more tips and help.