What Age to Start Brain Training

[SHARON BROEKE]

Hello. I have a new puppy, 8 weeks old. I have started with some basic luring, response to name etc. I just received my clickers and will try and “charge” it tomorrow. When should you try to progress through the brain training course. At eight weeks everything is so new and happy-dog frantic so I am wondering if you have any advice about how to proceed from these young ages.

[Adrienne Farricelli]

Hi Sharon,

Welcome to the forums!

Congrats on getting a new puppy! You can start basic training as early as you get your puppy, and I am glad that you have already started with some basics. With young puppies as such, the biggest factor is keeping in mind their short attention spans, so keep those sessions short and sweet and scatter them throughout the day. 

With a pup of this age, the elementary brain games are fun and easy so you can start with pre-school and elementary, while  the further brain games are likely to need to some fluency in basic obedience such as sits and stays so you may have to wait on that until your pup masters those. The treasure hunt game, you can have somebody hold your pup until he/she masters a solid sit/stay or down stay to hold as you hide the treats. 

There are really no rules set in stone as to when to progress. Each pup is an individual and will learn at his/her pace. What matters the most is that you don't make things too difficult or tedious. If your pup ever shows signs of frustration like (scratching himself, yawning, sneezing, licking) those can be signs things are getting too hard and you'll need to lower your criteria a bit. 

It's OK to therefore start the easiest brain games and then progress through as your puppy masters the obedience sections.

Here is a guide (with links) on important things to get started on:

Happy training!

[SHARON BROEKE]

Thank you. Do you suggest to move through your exercises one by one (especially with such a young dog) , with puppy understanding ‘sit’ before moving onto to ‘down’ and so on through the brain training course. Obviously you will revisit/reinforce previous skills but what I want to avoid is trying too much at once and causing confusion but don’t want to miss out in teaching new skills too.

[Adrienne Farricelli]

There are really no rules set in stone, meaning each pup is different and therefore whether we can proceed differently is based on individual factors.

For instance, for some pups it may be more important to start with training a leave it or drop it versus a sit. And for some others, leash manners or a recall may be priority.

To answer your specific question though in regards to sit and down, it is best to start with sit first, since you'll need your pup to be able to sit in order to lie down.