The following is a “pass along” article from the Retriever Journal.
RJ Pass Along
The “In-Between” Stage
By Jason Smith
So I have a puppy, Ginny. Almost seven months old, growing up fast… and I have a young family. The kids dote on Ginny; Ginny terrorizes the 14-year-old English setter in the house; and life, in general, is just moving way too fast.
But one thing that is not moving very fast is training. And now I find myself in that “in-between” stage.
What’s the in-between stage? It’s past the raw puppyhood, but before the “teenage” years. It’s after a spaying and with a full set of adult teeth, but before force-fetch training. It’s being able to hold it in the crate for more then three hours, but before having the run of the house. In other words, it’s that stage every trainer faces: At what point do I stop reviewing basic obedience and start introducing new concepts?
I pretty much wrote off this hunting season for Ginny; we knew her surgery was going to happen right in the middle, and she wasn’t going to be trained up enough to jump right into it when she recovered. So I found myself slowing down on the front end, not wanting to push her and possibly create a bad experience for her with a negative association.
But now, now she’s ready, even though she doesn’t know any better, even though she’s still so much of a puppy. Now is the moment of truth for every trainer: how much pressure do I apply? How much obedience do I review and refine? Is she going to have a problem with blinds? Force-fetch? She already does marks fairly well and loves feathers, but will she handle? Pop? Can I get her to whistle-sit? She does it at my side, but what about when shes away from me?
So many questions, such a blank slate.
November 10, 2011 at 4:48 am |
This is how much we did not know with Thunder. He was hunting his first season. We never worried, (or didn’t know to worry), about all of that stuff. It all fell into place on its own.
November 11, 2011 at 4:56 pm |
I’ve always started hunting my pups before they were a year old and never noticed the in-between stage. I think a lot of it was that I didn’t know much about training and trained so infrequently that they passed through this stage without me ever realizing it. I’ve heard various trainers comment on how dogs “go stupid” for a few weeks or months, but haven’t seen it myself.