I often hear people say they find it harder to train their puppy when they reach about six months old.
Six months is around the time when the puppy is pretty close to adult size, stronger and impulsive.
I’ve heard it many times “My six-month-old puppy acts like she’s forgotten most of what I’ve taught her the past few months!”
“That is really common for this age,” I’ll say reassuringly and follow up with a pep talk reminding them to “be consistent and don’t take it personally”. In other words, their puppy is becoming a teenager.
They look at me, suddenly deflated upon hearing the “teenager” reference. I will then ask them to remember why they got a puppy in the first place.
What was the motivation that made you want to get a dog?
For some, it’s the beloved memory of a dog from their childhood. For others, it’s for companionship. Some want their kids to grow up with a dog.
These were my reasons for wanting a dog when I became an adult.
I grew up twenty minutes outside of Boston, in Burlington, Massachusetts. Back in the ‘70s, it was a small town whose biggest attraction was the Burlington Mall. The town has since exploded with office buildings, restaurants and people but there is, however, a jewel in the south end of town that is still protected called Mary Cummings Park.
In the 1930s, Mary P. C. Cummings donated a 216-acre parcel of land to the city of Boston (and funds to maintain it) located in Burlington and Woburn, MA. When I was a kid, I would accompany my dad and our young golden retriever, Barney, to Cummings Park to teach Barney how to work the cover to flush wild pheasants.
According to my dad, there was a sponsored program for kids to grow vegetable gardens in the summer. When autumn came, the corn that wasn’t picked became great feed for the animals. Dad would point out the deer and fox tracks in the mud and we’d often come across large circles of grass that had been flattened from deer bedding down. Those walks with my dad and Barney made the nature around me come to life.
Fast forward to when I became a mother, I wanted my own kids to have a love of nature and fond memories of their childhood dogs. My kids were six and four years old, so too young to take the brunt of the training that had to be done when our first puppy came home in 1995. I knew the responsibility of our puppy, Bailey, would fall upon me.
Was it a lot? Sure. Raising two young boys and a puppy at the same time was sometimes frustrating. The puppy grew much faster and weighed more than both of them by the puppy’s first birthday. I was also teaching my kids how to be around the puppy and give basic commands.
Because the dogs were both well trained, they could come with us on nature hikes.
Today, I find my motivation still goes back to my love of walking in nature together in the fields and the woods as I did as a kid. I want to be able to have my dog trained and socialized so I can enjoy my dog to the fullest. Somehow sharing the walk with another being who appreciates their surroundings as much as I do makes the walk even better.
Exploring the reason you wanted to get a dog in the first place can be fuel to draw upon when you are lacking in motivation during your puppy’s all-important first year. Puppy training isn’t linear, it can be two steps forward one step backward. Remember, it’s during the first year when you are providing the social and emotional framework to help create a bond between you and your dog that you will cherish for years to come.
Susan Lynch is a former competitive dog trainer who has been training, competing and volunteering with her Golden Retrievers since 1995. In 2020, she founded Life with Rune, a Facebook community that documents the socializing and training of her own puppy Rune. In 2021, she was awarded the Rachel Page Elliot Lifetime Achievement award by the Golden Retriever Club of America. Her memoir Life After Kevin: A Mother’s Search for Peace and the Golden Retrievers that Led the Way is available here . To learn more, visit: www.susan-lynch.com.
For socializing ideas and training tips go to the Life with Rune Facebook group and click on the Guides tab at the top of the home page.