Training sessions can be less than a minute!

Training sessions can be planned to run for an hour with lots of breaks but often shorter training sessions make for better learning and its easier to fit short training sessions into a busy day!  An interesting study found that “...what this research was showing is that a dog who had gone through a training session, and then immediately after got another training session to learn a new task, was less likely to remember that original training. In comparison the dogs that had gotten a break of some sort, either to nap, exercise, or play, actually had better memory and performance a week later.”

Fitting in a short training session can be easy to do.  My short training sessions happen right after dinner.  After dinner is finished, both of my dogs always get a little something from the table.  The after dinner treat is something they look forward to each evening (a high value reinforcer!).  I use this to my advantage and will often conduct a one repetion training session with the reward being the treat from the table.  Here is one video of Marley(48 seconds) and one video of Loki (56 seconds) showing one of our short sessions.  They were resting while we had dinner so I had them perform a few hand touches and catch the treat to warm them up before I gave the cue ‘spin’.  The reward was the special after dinner treat and training was finished.

Thanks for reading and happy training.