Why Puppy School Isn’t Enough to Train Your Dog

Hello, dog peeps. Jack here. Just a quick one before we get into this episode. You may or may not be aware that when I'm not talking dog stuff with Max, I in fact interview people who are incarcerated in prisons across the United States on a show called One Minute Remaining Stories from the Inmates. And that show has been nominated for an award in America. And I would love your support if you've got 60 seconds to click the link in the show notes of this episode and just vote for my show. That would be amazing if you could. Thank you very much indeed. Oh, and don't forget to verify your email address. Otherwise, the vote does not count.

Thank you.

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It's the Dog People Podcast with your host Jack Lawrence. Secretly, I decided to start this podcast for some free dog training advice. You know, Malinois seem to be like the dog at the moment. Like, I think people see them on Instagram doing these incredible things. Yeah, go, oh my God, that's awesome. And then I get one like, oh my God, what the fuck have I done? And Max O'Neill.

You would not believe how many people I meet and I go, what made you want to get, say, an Aussie Shepherd? They go, I don't know. I go, had you met one before? They go, no. If you want to ask me how often I walk my own dog a week, it's only twice a week.

It's the Dog People Podcast, the podcast hopefully giving you a no-nonsense approach to dog training so you never have to shout, it's okay, he's friendly. My name is Jack Lawrence, not a dog trainer, just a dog training enthusiast. But of course, Max O'Neill, the Down Under We've got a dog trainer here to answer all our questions, and I've got a question for you, Max. I took my dog to a puppy school, but it's not properly trained. What's going on? The puppy school have ripped me off.

No, surely not.

I went to puppy school for 4 weeks, did nothing again with the dog after that. Why has puppy school not fixed my dog? I'm being facetious, obviously. It is what we want to talk about, is the role of the puppy school, because People think that they take their dog to a puppy school for a few weeks, come away, go, job done.

Yep, exactly. What should you expect to get out of that realistically? Because it's something we get all the time is like, you know, the situation Jack just described then is you'd think he's taking the piss, but I honestly get that every single day multiple times. You'll see a dog who's maybe 4 years old. They've been having these issues for years. They're aggressive, they're anxious. They don't come back. They don't listen. And the owners go, we just don't know why. We took him to puppy school and he's still like this. And I'm like, do you need to say that out loud again so you can hear that? Like, that's— and, you know, we, we see all the time, you know, people go, don't humanize your dog, don't anthropomorphize— always struggle with that word— your dog. And on one hand, I agree with that. On one hand, though, I do think it's so handy to compare ourselves because it's so relatable in so many situations. And I'll say to people, go, imagine if your parents had sent you to kindy or preschool where you learned to cut and color and you made your first friend and then they went, cool, you're done. We're never going to send you to school. Do you think your life would have amounted to much? Do you think you'd be having behaviour problems? Do you think you'd have a lot of confidence?

Social anxiety.

Social anxiety. Like, yeah, exactly. You'd be a recipe for all that sort of stuff. And the same is true for your dog. Like, I understand that some people aren't super dog enthusiasts and don't want to subscribe to the whole training's a lifelong thing. I can get that. But at minimum, you need to do more than just the first 4 weeks, of course. And again, if we can kind of compare dogs to humans again, we know that in the first year of a dog's life, they'll age roughly 14, 15, 16 dog years. In the second year of their life, they'll age another about 10 years. So, but you can roughly look at it and go, by the time my dog's 1, they're 15. By the time my dog's 2, they're 25. So we kind of go halfway through that, about 18 months old, they're about 20-ish.

Roughly.

So you should be training from when you get your dog at 8 weeks, if you've got a puppy, right up until they're sort of 18 months old to a year old, right in that. Because that's about the same age that we stop school. At a minimum, you have to go from kindy to year 12, and we go, cool, you've learnt the skills necessary to, you know, live a life as an adult and be okay and do something with yourself. And it's the same for your dog. And I know that sounds like a lot, and people go, oh, 18 months of training. I'm like, well, try having a kid. That's 18 years of raising and training before you can send them off and they can fly. the nest. And it's the same for your dog. A 4-week course at a vet or a pet shop where your dog is basically just joining a glorified playgroup isn't going to cut it. Even with a puppy school like ours— our puppy school is 10 weeks long, it's very intensive on obedience, life skills, targeted socialisation and exposure, etc.— even that's not enough. We even say to clients like, hey, I know you've just gone to like puppy school on steroids, training's by no means complete. What puppy school should aim to do is help your dog through their socialisation or their critical period of development and give them some good positive or neutral interactions with things that they're going to encounter later on in life. And it should get us set a good platform where your dog goes, hey, I walked away from that and I like learning. I enjoy working with my handler and I picked up a couple of kind of skills. But puppy school, even one as good as, you know, hate to toot our own horn, but as good as ours, is not going to set you up for life. If that's where you leave your training, you don't pick anything up. Like, your dog will go backwards. In fact, just yesterday I had a client who did our puppy school. I was like, hey, so nice to see you. Haven't seen you in a year. Yeah, our dog's reactive. Okay, what have you done since? I didn't see you in our next level program for teenagers. Nah, we haven't done any private training since. Nah, have you guys done this? Like, nah. It's like, that's why you're kind of seeing these issues. If puppy school's it, and I get life gets in the way and I get it's a long thing, but puppy school just is a starting place. It's not a be-all end-all. I've done everything for my dog. There is no puppy school in the world that will give you the tools necessary. Like I said, I've been part of working organisations with guide dogs. I can't say which exact one in Australia, but I've been part of guide dog organisations in Australia. I've been part of Guide Dogs UK. And again, their training goes for 18 months to 2 years. They have their own little version of puppy school for socialisation, and that gives a dog the foundation, but it doesn't set everything up.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, I did, I was helping out Assistance Dogs Australia and they put a dog out for 12 months with a handler who is supposed to do, you know, the basic stuff, just the Yeah. And then after that, they can go to a training center.

Yeah.

Where for another 12 months or whatever it is.

Yeah.

To, to train.

Yeah.

So as you said, I mean, obviously those dogs are going on to do some hardcore jobs.

Well, you can look at it and go, well, it takes 12 months to get a dog to a basic—

Yeah, just a basic pet level.

And then another 12 months to get to a higher level. And that's where we're at. Nelson has just turned 2. He's only just ready to start going for his PDC, his protection dog certification. Now, even arguably, it might even be a few months away. The whole first year was just getting up to a standard where he's a good pet dog. Now we're getting up to a standard where he's a good sport dog. That's what I'm saying. So with you guys, like, you guys might not have these lofty goals to train for 2 years and have this super high achieving thing, but minimum to get your dog to a standard where they're a good pet, like, you need to train them through puppyhood and you need to continue training through adolescence. Because if you stop after puppy school, you might have this little sweet sort of period where you go, oh my God, my dog's awesome. They're 4 or 5 months old. They're out of being a crazy puppy. They're not quite a teenager yet, and you go, "Hey, this is all right." But if you stop training there, not only will their training go backwards, but their difficulty level and all that will go through the roof as they reach teenagehood, and that next twelve months will be absolute hell for you unless you persist with training.

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You know, you could even look at it like this is like, if you're going, well, I don't want to be doing this from, you know, forever. It's like, well, you don't have to, but if you just go hard for 18 months, 2 years, then at the back of that, then you're just maintenance. And then, cause I'm at that stage now with Kira where I think where, you know, I went hard with her. For— she's now 2, and for the entire time I've had her, I think we got her at, I don't know how she was, about 13 weeks or something like that. But I went hard from literally the moment I knew she was mine to now. And even now I'm still, we're still doing intense training. But I could, if I wanted to, dial that back. And I do sometimes, like, because I've had the last couple of months I've been working on another project and I've just had, I've just been reamed with work.

Yeah.

And so we've had to really dial back what I'm doing with her. Her behavior hasn't got worse. It's not like she's, you know, she's decided just to stop listening to me. If anything, when we go out, she listens more. Yeah.

Which is a bit weird because she's craving that.

Yeah. Yeah. So, so because I go out going, oh God, here we go. She's just going to go mental. Yeah. But she's like, you know, she's on it. She's like, let's go, let's go, let's go. Support the band. So you could just go, you know what, let's just go hard for 2 years and then you will have an amazing family dog.

Yeah.

For the rest of the life of that dog.

Exactly.

With just maintenance, with just, you know, every time you're out doing your recalls and stuff like that and just the basic stuff. And you don't have to, you know, be hardcore. And it's not— 2 years is not much of your life, really.

I always find it insane when people complain about the length of time.

I'm like, it goes like that.

If you were to have a kid.

Yeah.

It's like that kid might not leave home till 20 or 21 years.

Yeah. Or the way things are going, 31 probably.

And we're talking about 18 to 20 months. Yeah, like in comparison, by the time you get a dog, let's say you get a puppy at 8 weeks and then by 18 months old you go, cool, we've ticked off that list, we're quote unquote trained, now it's just about maintenance. In that 18 months, like, your kid might only be just taking their first steps. It's like people think it's slow, like it is so fast. Your dog's life will flash by. But if you get a— have a baby and you get a dog at the same time, your dog will sadly pass away before your kid finishes high school. Like It goes by so quickly. And like Jack said, it's, it's just going hard and putting— it's, it's front-loading that energy. People see how well-trained Nelson is and go, God, that must be a lot of work.

I go, no, it's not.

My life is easier than yours now.

The difference is— And they're getting dragged down the street, the dog going mental barking. It's like, what?

No, it's investing in that sense. Front-loading. Yeah, that— yeah, this is not hard. I was like, my life was harder than yours for the first year because you coasted by, you were lazy, you did your thing, whatever. Where it was me that was getting home from work and going, let's just do 10 minutes. Let's just do 5 minutes.

That's the thing. People, I think people think you have to go, you know, hours and do— you don't. Just do 10, 15 of good solid, you know, obedience and recall and all that, you know, choose something for the evening. You've got the dog. Why did you get the dog otherwise? You know, if you're going to go out for a walk, screw the walk.

Yeah.

Go to a park, get a long line, do some training.

Still to this day, other than like going to a cafe and having him be in a park position for an hour. Or we go for a walk and I'm like, hey, don't do that. Don't do that. Still to this day, other than those sorts of things, I've never done a training session that's gone longer than 15 minutes. Like, in fact, I'd almost say 10 minutes. I don't think I've done anything longer than that.

Yeah.

And it's like, it's, it's not as much work. And when I talk about doing training for the first 12 to 18 months of your dog's life, or if you've got a rescue, you know, going hard for 6 to 12 months is— I'm not saying that every single week you have to be enrolled in a training school because that is going to be expensive if you want to do this course and that course. And I don't want people to go, oh well, I can't do that, it's completely out the question. Is what I'm saying is, let's use— I'll use an example of a very typical and successful client of ours. A good successful client of ours will get a puppy, will come to our Pro Pups Academy, do our 10 weeks. By the time they finish that, the dog will be 5 or 6 months. I'm like, cool, you've been given enough homework where— and we will talk more about that in a second, but you've got enough homework now where You can go away for a few months and really hone this. In a few months' time, you'll be ready for, say, our Puberty Blues course, which is for 6 to 18 months old. You come and do that 8 weeks of that. And then by that time, it's like, cool, we've given you all the skills you need. You don't need to re-enroll. Like, we've given you the toolkit now. Now it's just about you practising this and just getting in 5, 10 minutes a day and just being in some good habits, not letting your dog be a dickhead. And then you're done. So it's not like you need to spend thousands and thousands. You can do all that for well under $1,000 with us. And you're sorted. That's it. We've given you the tools you need. It was 18 weeks of actual enrolment in training. The rest you do yourself and you're sorted. So it's not going to cost you an arm and a leg. It's just about once you do your puppy school, once you then maybe go on to do a more formal obedience for teens or adults or whatever, it's just about staying in those habits. I see so many people who fall off the cliff. They're awesome during class and then they just kind of— you see some people kind of drop out and do their thing.

It's the honeymoon period really, isn't it? I mean, you get a puppy and it's all fun. exciting and new and they do tricks and stuff like that. And then it sort of slowly wanes a little bit and then until it's gone. I think the biggest thing people think is, oh, it's so much work. I don't know if I could put in that amount of work. And that's like, I'm part of this Facebook group where they, you know, it's a sort of, I think I've mentioned it before where people get, you know, they say, I can't handle this dog anymore. I need to rehome it. And, you know, it's one of these no judgment Facebook groups. Not that I'm looking to get rid of Kira, but I'm always looking to save a dog more than anything.

Well, some days.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got a photo ready to go. No. And I always see the same things time and time again. You know, these people put these photos of these high drive dogs and go, oh, I just don't have the time to give to this dog. I, you know, I take it for an hour-long walk every day. And we've gone through all of this before in all the other episodes, but it is, it's again, and I message these people privately and say, look, you don't need to do that. Like you don't need to put in that. And it's the same with the training. You don't need to spend an hour every day training your dog.

Yeah.

But if you just put in some good solid 10, 15 minutes a day with that dog for, as we said, 18 months to 2 years, The rest of your life is just going to be a dream. You'll be that person that everyone else looks at and goes, oh, I wish my dog was like that.

Yeah, exactly. And again, when— if that sounds like a lot to you, maybe a dog's not the right pet. Again, people go, oh, 10 or 15 minutes a day. I'm like, what do you think it's going to be like when your kid starts getting homework and goes, hey, I need help with my spelling, I need help with my math. And then when they get the L plates and they need to do 100 hours of driving, like, it's, it's all this stuff. It's, it's really not that big a workload. But like Jack said, like As long as we can sort of break that down and go, look, puppy school isn't everything. You're going to need to do more than puppy school, but also don't be daunted and overwhelmed by this. Like it's in reality, it's not that big of a workload. 10 to 15 minutes a day. Everyone's got, I don't care how busy you are. Everyone's got 10 minutes, 15 minutes a day. Honestly, I don't meet many people that are much busier than I am between juggling everything.

But at the same token, if you're getting a dog, the minimum you should be doing is walking that dog anyway. So, so if you're getting a dog, you're going to have to walk it. So as I said, instead of the walk, Yeah. Take it to the park, do some training. Yeah. Come home.

That's what we said. We don't need to keep adding to this.

No.

Because people go, what?

So I've got to do swimming, walks.

No, no. You got a 30-minute window every day. Yeah. Pack it into that. Your dog would rather, rather than being dragged around the same block for the 500th time in its life, is like in that 30-minute window, go for a bit of a walk, do a bit of training, do a bit of play. You're sorted. Like you don't need to keep adding to that list. So it's not that big a deal. But yeah, puppy school isn't everything, guys. You do need to do a little bit more than that. And If that's all you've ever done with your dog and haven't done much since, it is, it is a recipe for problems.

Yeah.

Problems later on.

Got any questions? As always, jump on the Facebook group, ask away, and we will get them answered for you. The Dog People Podcast is a Mashed Pumpkin production hosted by Jack Lawrence and Max O'Neill, edited, produced, and audio production by Jack Lawrence.

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