Skip.
The boring stuff is usually the important stuff
Arrow’s attention span lasted about five seconds.
I could get him to sit just fine, but if I asked him to wait while I walked his owners through the next step of training, he was gone, off to find something more interesting.
I wasn’t used to this.
I was used to a dog waiting patiently, whether I was holding a treat or not.
But I was also used to working with dogs with a lot more training, and we were trying to jump straight into loose leash walking that day, without any prior training.
I had forgotten, so easily, what it was like for me when I first started learning how to train. I was working at Philly Unleashed, and everything felt weird, especially those first few months. I didn’t know how to hold a leash, guide the dog, hold the treats, mark the behavior quickly enough, and reward in time. It all felt like a really weird game, and I had no idea how to play.
But then I started doing it all more and more, and about six months in, everything clicked.
And as much as I wish there were quick fixes, or that it was easy to train, it all takes time. It took quite a few months for me to get it, and it takes dogs a few tries to understand, as well.
And as I collected Arrow from the kitchen yet again, I realized we had to start completely from the beginning. There was no way we were going to be successful with loose leash walking if he couldn’t even bother to pay attention or be patient.
It’s something I notice happening more and more as well — every time I try to push someone or a dog too far beyond where they need to be, I see the breakdown happening. Then we need to stop, wait, try again.
What works for one dog doesn’t work for another.
As much as there are foundations and understanding and techniques that work really well, there’s also an element of adjusting and trying something and then seeing if this other technique or approach would work better for an individual dog.
But all of that is moot if the dog isn’t used to training.
So we pulled it back. Arrow started to learn the basics.
And I started to see that he actually does have an attention span of more than five seconds.
