Every dog is different. Their personalities vary, and their rate of emotional and mental development is very individual. What worked for your last dog won’t necessarily work for this one – or for your next dog. So, how do you determine when to start teaching which skill? Figuring out the differences are part of the adventure, and it’s what keeps us growing as trainers. 

My Farmdog, Daisy, is quite the wild child. Because of that I chose not to focus on much formal obedience work at first. We learned some basic skills, I promoted self-control with some mat work, we played at tricks and both of us had a good time. Meanwhile, without introducing a lot of pressure we did the CGC, Trick Dog through Advanced, and then took a break for her neurons to coalesce further. We went from play retrieves with toys to learning how to take the dumbbell, and how to pick up and deliver to hand anything I drop. Farm Dog Certification took one weekend, and she got her Virtual Rally Novice easily during the pandemic. 

I recently decided to start scent discrimination training early. The retrieve has become much more solid and Daisy had articles in her whelping box, so she was already familiar and comfortable with them. The retrieve now has Daisy going fast to the dumbbell, not kicking it, promptly picking it up, coming back fast to a relatively straight sit in front with no mouthing. Everything I could have hoped for in a solid retrieve. In the past I have waited too long to introduce articles. While I prefer to work on one level at a time, it is useful to introduce the dog to things he will encounter in the upper levels at a younger age, which makes the training more familiar later. So at 13 months with a solid dumbbell retrieve, I decided Daisy should get a preview of article training. 

I got out my tie down board and metal articles and tied down one metal article. Daisy learned pretty fast that she could only bring back the one with my scent – my scent and a little squeeze cheese rubbed into my hand. In one day we went to 5 articles tied down, and she’s 100% in checking articles until she gets to the right one, then happily bringing it back to me. It’s a great new game to her. We stayed on metal for a couple of weeks, and then I got another board and started with leather articles. Those took a bit longer. Daisy likes the leather ones and would prefer to bring them all back to me.  Now she’s working three sets of articles together – metal, leather and wood, and she’s extremely reliable. The next step was to take them off the board and tie them together with string. She already knows that resistance means she can’t bring it back, and this is working nicely so far. I have also introduced gloves, short go outs, and directed jumping. 

I think changing the rules once the dog believes he understands what we want is one of the biggest sources of confusion and lack of confidence for the dog. Let’s say a dog learns the retrieves for Open, and we choose not to teach articles until later. Now the dog is certain he knows what we want – go out fast, grab a dumbbell, return fast with it whether it is on the flat or over a jump. So we spend months teaching him this rule, competing to get his Open title, then we break out articles. Now, suddenly, we want the dog to slow down and choose an article. Everything the dog thinks he knows has shifted. It can be crushing to his confidence. Periodically the dog may return to the rule he learned so well – run out and grab an article. 

I’m not suggesting we teach all of Utility from the beginning, but there is merit in introducing parts and pieces of what you will need to teach later. Teaching scent games helps with article work later. Teaching go to a mat helps with go outs. Teaching random drops at a distance will help when you start the drop on recall. Taking an Agility class gives the dog jumping skills that can keep him safe. Even if you never plan to show in Open or Utility, each basic skill you teach your dog enriches his knowledge and personality, and you never know when those little extra games you shared together will pay off.