How hard can it be to train a puppy?

I have a very good friend who acquired a puppy a couple of years ago and I remember all his stories about how having a puppy, and I quote, “ruined his life”. Every carpet in his house had been pee’d on or poo’d on. Skirting boards had been chewed. Kitchen cabinets destroyed. Constant anxiety about the pup nipping the kids and making them cry, doors being opened, or the doorbell ringing, sending the puppy into a frenzy.

I kid you not, this guy was an emotional wreck and was actively trying to convince his wife that the puppy had to go. They stuck with it of course and it all settled down in the end but I remember thinking at the time, Christ, there’s no way I could go through that.

When we decided to get a puppy, in my head, I already knew that we had to get our act together to make sure we invested in training. There was no way I was going to allow a puppy to destroy my house.

I blame Instagram for filling our heads with images of lovely playful pups that innocently bounce around the lounge with a soft toy in their mouth and then cuddle up in their owners lap for a 3 hour snooze. Aw, imagine that.

Meanwhile, back on planet earth, I’m counting the minutes until it’s bedtime and I can put puppy to bed in his crate and finally eat a biscuit in peace without having his arse in my face while he tries to bite my hand.

Before our pup came home, we spent ages looking for a training course which would give us structure. As first time owners, we really didn’t have a clue, so wanted something that would help us as well as the puppy.

We settled on an on line course which was probably half theory and half practical training demonstrations. It’s structure was designed around Manners, Obedience and Socialisation. Each week, we introduced new commands and as the weeks ticked by, we extended duration and distance.

There were some training drills I’d never even thought of such as Threshold training. This is when you go through a door, or a gate, puppy sits and waits for you to go through first before being called to heel. We drilled this from day 1 and I can honestly say, it’s an absolute pleasure to see our pup sitting at open doorways, in and out of the car, at gates outdoors waiting patiently to be called through.

Another thing we’d never even thought about was freedom and not allowing him too much freedom too soon. That included the house, the garden, his toys, his food, outdoors etc. The concept of everything coming through us was new, but once we understood why, it all started to make more sense.

The early weeks worked really well for us. Crate training, toilet training, sit, stay, recall, meal time manners, eye contact etc all seemed to be grasped quite quickly.

We started to introduce him to the slip lead at 10 weeks old. From 8-10 weeks old, we were luring him into the heel position with his food and walking back and forth in the garden. From 10-12 weeks old, we were doing the same drill but with the slip lead on.

I remember the debate in our house about the slip lead. My wife was terrified the slip lead would hurt him and perhaps we should think about a flat collar and lead or a harness. The training course we’d bought said if you want your dog to walk to heel, the only tool is the slip lead so that’s what we used. I did understand the concept that if you make pulling comfortable, they’ll just pull more. Why wouldn’t they?

After his injections at 12 weeks, our training went from the garden to the great outdoors. Jesus Christ, no one prepared us for this!

We went from walking beautifully to heel in the Garden to him pulling like a tractor. We had no idea why he was doing this and it really threw us. What we learned was that we went from a very boring and familiar environment to a completely new and exciting environment and it was too much too soon for him.

What we should have done, was popped him in a car and taken him to a quiet car park with low distractions and continued our heel work drills there and then built up the level of distraction slowly. You live and learn eh?

Now, when you’re out and about with a young pup, you get lots of attention. And most of that comes from other dog owners. I know they’re all well intentioned and want to help and for that, I’m grateful, but after just a short while, I got pretty fed up being told that I wouldn’t be able to train him to walk to heel on a lead.

I remember a guy we always used to see when we had him out heel walk training who stopped us and actually laughed at us. He said……

“You know that Spaniels can’t walk to heel on a lead don’t you. You’ll never be able to train him, it’s not in him, he wants to be off the lead”.

We were also stopped by another owner with a couple of Spaniels that told us that Spaniels will always pull on the lead as they can’t be taught to walk to heel, so we should definitely get a harness for him.

This also threw us, as the more we looked, the more we could see Spaniels being walked that were pulling their owners arms off. OMG! What should we do?

I came to the conclusion that they’d all basically given up on heel walk training and found it easier to make pulling more comfortable for their dogs.

I also made a promise to myself that if it was the last thing I did before I died, my pup was going to walk to heel on a slip lead and prove them all wrong! I hate being told I can’t do something!

By the time he was 4 months old, we had him walking to heel better in higher distraction areas, sitting when we stopped and staying while we walked away.

I still see the same people now when we’re out and about that told me it couldn’t be done. As they get pulled towards me with their Tractor impersonating dogs, pulling their arm out of their shoulder, I point to mine with great pride to how well our pup is doing.

“Look at him”, I say, “Not bad for a Spaniel is he?”. They don’t generally get a chance to answer as by the time I’ve finish my sentence, they’re normally 50ft away having been dragged to whatever their dog is pulling towards.

“I love your dogs harness”, I shout, as they go into the distance. Lol, sorry, I can’t help myself.

Seeing his progress each week gave us more confidence that we could actually train a puppy. When he was around 5 months old and had the basics, we took more advice and signed him up for some one to one training with a Gun Dog Trainer. I know this isn’t for everyone but I’d read that it’s a good idea to tap into their natural instincts and expose him to training which would come naturally to him. Afterall, he comes from a long line of Gun Dogs so we kind of owed it to him.

We felt really nervous for our first session as we had no idea what to expect. The good thing is that the work we’d done from the puppy course we bought seemed to have paid off as the trainer thought he was quite good for his age.

The veil of ignorance was soon lifted though as the trainer said….

“Great, ok, sit him up and take the lead off”.

“Take the lead off?” I said.

“Yes, take the lead off”.

“Ah, we haven’t got that far yet”, I whimpered. Never in my life have a felt so exposed.

“Ok, so take the lead off”.

“Erm, ok”.

The next part of this story seemed to happen in slow motion. I bent down to remove his slip. As I bent down, the dog looks me right in the eye as if to say “This is my moment, watch this Dad” and it was.

Woosh, off he went on victory laps of the field. Tail wagging, head up high. He was having the time of his life as I stood there in utter shame. As my pathetic attempts at recall failed, I watched as the trainer effortlessly recalled him to a lovely sit right in front of him. Clearly, this was some sort of dog voodoo.

We’ve since moved on to group Gun Dog training which is a whole different ball game for him. He can easily do things while we’re training him on his own in a field but mix 20 dogs into the equation and all his skill goes out of the window as he runs about like a menace trying to say hello to all the other dogs.

Fortunately, the other owners understand what we’re experiencing as they went through similar and are really great at helping us. They’re such a super bunch of people.

This was another big part of training which I personally struggled with. Off lead training, including recall. I can’t explain the despair I feel at group training as my dog runs about the field like an idiot having the time of his life, ignoring the recall whistle, while all the other dogs sit beautifully (off lead) for their owners.

One of my biggest training fears was getting him off lead in case he legged it and got lost. Our training course had encouraged the use of the long line for recall training which we did from the start. He was really good in fairness but looking back, we were luring ourselves into a false sense of security.

With a long line, we had a guarantee. There was no risk, we could recall him whenever we wanted and enforce it. When the long line was off, we entered into what we felt was like the abyss. Would he? Wouldn’t he? Our anxiety was off the scale.

We had some scary moments when we first started as once, he clocked a Magpie and woosh, off he went into the distance. What we learned was that he knew the long line wasn’t on and could do what he wanted. We also let him off in an environment with too many distractions. That’s on us.

So, we had to re do all the training we did on the long line but off lead. So, we started renting a paddock which was fully enclosed and repeated our training. We got to the same end point, it just took us longer than it should have.

Looking back, I wish we’d of started group training way earlier to get him used to training in a pack. We now have a lot of conditioning to do to catch up.

Some months on, he’s still improving. He’s recalling away from other dogs, rarely bothers to approach other dogs when out on a walk off lead and even recalls away from some birds and rabbits. The training is definitely paying off by being consistent and him knowing what we expect.

I think the hardest thing for us to get right is the method, timing and strength of corrections when he’s ignoring us. Isn’t training puppies all about happy clappy good boy, here’s a treat, well done, job done?

Er, no. We’ve since learned that it’s about consistency, clear commands, timing and lots and lots of practice. Tone of voice, body language and timing are key and I think we’re finding it harder to grasp than the dog! We’re getting there though, we see the improvement in him and us as the weeks tick on.

We’ve kind of signed up to an ongoing commitment of group training now and just accept that if we keep going and trust the process, he’ll be like the other dogs in time.

We were chatting the other week about the fact if we had not of started Gun Dog Training, I think we’d be genuinely convinced that we have a fully trained dog and to a pretty good standard.

I can tell you now, we haven’t even scratched the surface with him, or us for that matter.

The biggest wind up of all is seeing our dog at training and the trainer says “Give me the lead”. And you watch in disbelief as the dog parades around for the trainer like a show pony in an Olympic dressage competition and you realise at that point that it’s not the dog, it’s the handler.

We often talk about what we would have done differently if we knew then, what we know now and I think our list is…..

1.     Socialisation is not about getting him to meet people and other dogs, socialisation is about getting him used to the environment and being indifferent to it.

2.     Forget going on “walks” focus on heel walking in different environments and getting it right. Even if that means you only travel a few meters. That’s better than pulling for 30 mins.

3.     Group training, and getting him used to training with other dogs and knowing the difference between training time and play time. (Sit means sit, TM Poppy!)

4.     Instilling the basics of a retrieve and getting him right up onto us from the start. We stupidly played fetch with him as a young pup which baked in the wrong message when he returned.

5.     When he has something he shouldn’t have, DO NOT CHASE HIM! In the early days, we had no idea how attractive the Sky remote would be. (I’m on my 4th one!)

6.     Getting him off lead heel walking much earlier than what we did. We used a long line and although it worked for us, once that came off, we had to repeat the training anyway so should have done it from the start when he couldn’t run so fast!

So, we’re on our training journey and intend to stick with it. I look at some of the dogs at group training which are 2 years old and started at the same age as ours did and crave that level of obedience. It’s impressive to watch.

Whether we can achieve that, we’ll see. To be clear, the dog can, I have no doubt, it’s whether we can!

Oh! I almost forgot……

Now that we’re engaged in Group Gun Dog training, we had to buy even more stuff! Training vests, whistles, dummies etc. It’s endless!

The wife told me the other day that she “needs” (not wants) a pair of Le Chameau’s. Now, me being stupid, I thought she meant a pair of designer shoes for going out. How was I to know they’re Wellies? ££££’s for a pair of wellies! I mean, I’m all for wellies in the winter, I understand how important proper footwear is. But come on, seriously?

I’m off to Sports Direct to see what they have in the sale! I hear Dunlop make good wellies at affordable prices. Plus, the dog doesn’t care what wellies she wears, he’s still going to ignore her to chase Rabbits.