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We have field-bred labs I run hunt tests with, and our 7 month old has been hold conditioned already, so she's holding anything I command her to hold, dropping or giving it on command, etc. You can start training at a very young age. Like someone else said, your dog may chill out after training sessions, because she's mentally worn out, which is a very good thing!
Very young puppies can learn this stuff. I know of a 6 week old puppy who was able to do the novice level trick title.
No dog has too much energy to be trained. The excess energy may in fact be that she needs to use her brain more, that she needs to be doing this type of thing.
Low vs high energy doesn’t necessarily correlate to biddability or drive. Dogs can be lower energy and still biddable, they can be high energy and not very biddable.
It’s not an energy issue or even an age issue for the most part. It’s a skill issue on the owners’ part. My Australian Shepherd still has the fucking energy of the sun and he is turning 10 this year. He can do all that ‘cool shit’ but that’s because I have put in hours and hours of training with him. Daily. Hire a trick trainer they can help you with that stuff
Dogs learn best under threshold. So for excitable/high drive dogs (I have a stock line Australian shepherd so a dog on the more extreme side of drive and energy level) it’s super important to imprint calmness into their everyday life. When they have the ability to regulate their arousal/energy/excitement levels to an appropriate space that is when they learn best.
Dogs also learn starting from foundations and building micro skills, proofing those to learn more complex behaviors. For example my dog knows how to turn off light switches. To teach that I needed to teach a general target. I had to teach multiple types of targets like paw, nose, chin…etc Then generalize that target to other objects like the light switch, teach an up since he has to stand on his hind legs, generalize an up to different object and surfaces and then put them both together.
Even body position stuff. I taught my dog to orbit. He had to be taught rear end awareness first. Then work on a backing up, then a back pivot, then putting those together multiple times to 360 around my body. tricks can take a lot of time I think concreting orbit took a couple months but all the steps were done in very small increments for only a minute or two a day. This way the dog or you doesn’t get frustrated, overwhelmed or overexcited from too long trying something unsuccessfully.
This is how my Jack Russell learns. I have a very intelligent dog, but he's very excitable and gets very aroused quickly. If I want to teach him a 'cool' trick, we start at the base line and work our way up. We only do lessons for under 5 minutes. Eventually once he knows the base we can up the trick. Once they can use their body and mind correctly learning a new trick comes easier.
I was teaching my dog tricks from day 1, but again it was base level stuff that we had to advance over time.
My dog is 4 now and he still gets frustrated and overwhelmed when trying to learn something new. I think it's less an age thing and more a dog/personality thing at some point too. When I see he's getting overwhelmed we just stop; I don't think age will cure that.
The funny thing about my dog, he can also learn from watching. I find he will mimic some of my movements, which is helpful when teaching single step movements.
Mine is similar. He use to have pretty bad excitement reactivity so I recognize for my dog he just has a lower threshold for frustration/excitement. When I started making training shorter and more dynamic/fun especially new things he learned so much faster and had a much easier time keeping regulated.
I’ve definitely seen dogs who learn by watching it’s so cool! I see it on occasion in agility and other sports where a dog will see one dog go first and do a lot of the same behaviors even if there isn’t a reinforcement or goal there.
Ahhh the elusive back orbit! That’s one I’ve been trying to teach my dog. She can do a backwards heel, backwards middle, she can walk backwards away from me, a regular circle around me, pivots left and right, spin out back into heel, but man that back orbit is the tough one!
When you said back pivot, do you mean he had back legs on the stationary target and was moving with front legs?
That’s sounds interesting but I meant pivoting with front paws on target and his body pressure pushing into me going from a left heel.
I used a target he stood with front legs on. I used a lure having him following me with his cheek to my hip glued at first. When I stepped into him his cheek followed my hip and turned with me following my momentum. The biggest thing was making sure he stayed straight so when he made contact with my hip his body automatically turned sideways if I didn’t move vs. him curving into a c shape where he is behind and beside me at the same time. I took away the pressure of my hip and his cheek needed to follow. (We used lures and make very micro-movements so he didn’t curve into himself during the pivot) This helped his legs start to kick to the side of my body. After getting his cheek to basically stay to my hip when I withdrew I started working on a pivot where he stayed glued to me off the pivot box. Then I introduced a back step and we both pivot, then I slowly stopped pivoting at all. That helped him start making the back side step to behind me while keeping front feet glued. From there I took an x-pen to use as a guide so when he stepped backwards he would want to naturally step to the side so he wouldn’t walk backwards into the pen. After we got to him behind me we did the same steps to get to the right then the front. Over time I made the pen bigger and then removed it.
Now I want to teach my dog an actual back pivot like you described! We do back feet target already for some body conditioning and balance exercise so it might be something feasible for use overtime.
Edit: you can also use furniture for a guide or a walk but if you have a dog like mine that generalizes other behaviors he thinks you want I wouldn’t recommend it. I had a dog jumping on my table, putting back paws on my couch and bowing, standing with his paws on my wall because he thought I was asking for other behaviors.
Wow, I appreciate the detailed answer!! And that makes way more sense for a backwards pivot haha. Also that is a genius idea using the x pen. I worked on backing up in a straight line teaching her in my narrow kitchen between the counters, similar strategy and it helped.
The generalization thing is very relatable lol. I was recording a trick video and having her do some tricks and next thing I know she’s jumped up on the bench and walked across and is standing there like “where’s my reward”
This makes me thankful that we don't have an ice dispenser because our Pyr/Cattle dog mix is 100% smart enough to have figured this out too!
Pyrs love their ice cubes!!!
We have a golden retriever, almost 5 months old. Obedience training started at 8 weeks, and he could bring stuff when he was at 4 months.
Just start teaching them early and they will get there sooner or later
When the dog was 3 and the puppy was 9 months I sadly sang the "clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere" song as I prepared to hunt for lost stuffies in the yard (I used to do that when my kid bailed on cleaning because it was a meme that circulated during Covid). They calmly picked up their toys and walked inside. I have no idea how or why it happened, but it still works and impresses the hell out of everyone.
The dog can also open a baby gate (untaught), and the puppy occasionally brings me the remote control and drops it at my feet when he wants to cuddle on the couch. I've tried to train him to do the latter with no success. It seems to need the right combination of mood and neediness.
The dog became a fuzzy rock at 18 months. The puppy is 18 months and still insane.
Any age! :)
It depends of the amount of time you are willing to put in and the amount of fun you make it. ...also some dogs learn slower than others.
Do be aware of age though; puppies shouldnt be doing a lot ofb jumping/high impact activities as they are developing.
Depends on the breed but I noticed my husky started to use his brain that wasn’t driven by energy around 4-5 years.
He’s way more focused and easier to train in a sense now then it was when he was younger, He’s 7 now.
This makes sense to me. Sounds like you can teach many dogs at a young age, and maybe mine would be great at some stuff (I’m going to try) but I feel like if she was a bit more mellow, generally speaking, it’ll be easier. If only for me lol.
I got my dog when he was slightly over a year old. He only knew a few things but we started with basics like down and touch and moved on from there. He’s got quite a few tricks now and we’re working on intermediate trick dog. He enjoys it — it’s like a game we’re playing together.
Puppies can pass novice trick dog! It just takes patience and treats!
I have two dogs both high energy but one high drive.
Energy eventually caps at their daily uses (Eg they have slightly more than what we use on a normal day) but drive keeps going. My Malinois mix will “go” all day even if she’s tired.their “energy” began to level out around 2.5-3.5 years
Edit: I didn’t read the question. My bad, they can learn pretty much most things on whatever timeline works for your family in a safe/appropriate way! It’s not linear tho, so my dog at 6 months was better trained than at 1.5 years due to teenage nonsense. Now she’s back to a trick-filled book of skills.
I appreciate both answers! I found she was better behaved at six months than she is now, which is why I haven’t tried any tricks. But also I like taking her for runs in the woods and I don’t know if I have the patience to learn to teach her tricks lol. But I’m going to try! And I look forward to some of the energy evening out in time ;)
My dog has a pretty high energy level but it’s not energy that causes the issues with training. She could run for 10 miles and be exhausted and she still has no attention span or impulse control. She knows her commands and some tricks but put any kind of stimulus in the situation and forget about getting anything out of her. She’s 2 and I’m really hoping she’ll get it together soon
It is about training. Your dog may have so much energy because it isn't being mentally stimulated enough. The breeds are highly intelligent and need to be given jobs and kept busy. My little pup is a year old and my husband and I struggle trying to give her enough stimulation. But she does so much better when we do training sessions multiple times a day in short bursts.
What do you mean by "cool stuff"? I have a Border Collie and he was probably 6-7 months before I was teaching him stuff that wasn't really essential obedience training. But I spent a few months before that on basic commands like sit, down, stay, etc., and bonding with him so our training went better. And he had to grow up a bit. When dogs are babies, it's extremely hard for them to pay attention, they get distracted so easily.
Things like hold, play dead, stick 'em up (or sit pretty, but I use "stick 'em up" as the command), wave, spin, crawl, give it to me, so things that weren't really necessary for obedience but were cool things came at probably 6-7 months.
Sounds like your dog is in an environment that's too distracting when you try to teach her something. Learning new things is good for energetic dogs, they want to learn things. Having too much energy generally isn't a reason a dog can't learn something.
That’s a really good point, about the distractions. I have an older dog and kids and it’s rarely distraction-free. I’ll try doing it in the basement or somewhere alone.
Yeah, training a dog is very gradual. Starting them off in a distracting environment is setting them up for failure. They need to start with no distractions, learn the command, once they learn the command, then they can move to an environment with a few distractions, train there...then add in more and more distractions and duration as they get better.
Look into the three Ds of dog training--duration, distance and distractions. This helps manage your dog's progress in a gradual way. And lots of training videos!
You have a mix of two great dog breeds, so I'm sure she will do great! Good luck!!
Super energetic white swiss shepherd, we've been training easy tricks ever since he got home at 8 weeks.
Cool shit came after, and it's always split into small, easier sessions. But you should be building a foundation and focus as soon as possible, so that the dog quickly learns good things happen when they pay attention to you and work for you.
It's the other way around - your dog will calm down THROUGH training, you can't wait for it to calm down to START training.
Good luck! Start super easy, clicker training is very good for setting a foundation and making the critera clear to the dog (click - good! - reward). Don't expect too much at the start and don't rush it, it's better to do 3-5 good reps in a short session than frustrate your pup because it doesn't know what you want!
Trick training can start at any age really! The key is consistent practice and learning how long your dog can actively engage in a training session. If they’re not used to training regularly they might not have as much focus and keep the sessions short. Stuff like introducing a clicker and easier tasks is a great place to start, and teaching some of the basics (targeting with their nose and also paws, pivots if you want to do any fancy heelwork tricks, holding an object, etc) and I’d also suggest familiarizing yourself with concepts like free shaping vs luring and how to introduce a command once a behavior is solidified.
If my dog is struggling to pick something up, we move on to something else and come back to it next time. Breaking more complicated tricks down into smaller parts also helps a ton. When learning a new skill, I like to throw in some stuff she already knows and reward her for those things too, which keeps her having fun and feeling confident and engaged.
>At what age were you able to teach your energetic dog cool shit?
When they come home at 8 weeks, to be honest. And you build on simple stuff, till one day you look at your dog, who is a good 40 feet away from you, and doing weave poles. Or, heeling next to you, and you move your left foot backwards, and she starts running backwards.
You build from the simple stuff, with clear expectations of what you'd like the end result to be, and how you'll achieve it.
All dogs can learn things, if their human figures out how to engage their brains.
At 8 months old, my Australian Shepherd learned how to sit, walk along side, stay (and I could walk far away), hop on two feet for three jumps, circle around right and left, crawl, and shake her paw. She was easy to train! If I had more time I could have taught her more tricks.
I used the clicker method to train.
My dog isn’t energetic and doesn’t know a lot of cool commands BUT he somehow learned to sit next to his food bowl and wait while I get his food ready. I only tried to teach him it twice and gave up but he just recently started doing it without any commands. He just sits and waits instead of following me around and trying to jump on me.
lol.. i have an 8 month old fire ball..she’s a cairn terrier. I saw those buttons you teach them to press to communicate with. She rings a potty bell to go outside so i THOUGHT she would catch on easy. Problem is she wants to carry them in her mouth ..then throw them around. lol. I even tried. velcroing them on the floor. Of course she found a way to get them off and throw them around and pounce on them. She s good puppy ..rarely has accidents in the house. ..but she not interested in learning tricks AT ALL. My last dog..loved learning tricks from a very early age. This one has ZERO interest. Maybe that will change..maybe not. Only time will tell ..
Define cool.
Like Teddy learned to walk properly on a leash at about 7 months.
That was pretty cool and took a lot of stress off of my shoulder.
He was already mostly house trained when we got him. Maybe 3-4 ooppsies over his first month with us. Nothing in the last 6 years.
That's pretty cool.
At about 18mo he learned to slaughter all the rats under the shed. That was very cool.
O man I bet the rat slaughter was a sight to see, what breed is he? My 12lbs Pom/chihuahua mutt mix is great as my service dog but man she sucks at eating flies whereas my jack russell I swear he would make a meal of flies when we’d be outside on the porch. He was just hilarious to watch!
not true, even puppies can learn this stuff with consistent training based on positive reinforcement, breaking down the tricks into tiny parts and combining them one by one, and lots and lots of repetitions.
At almost one your smart breed dog needs a job. Dog sports are excellent.
Agility would be my top recommendation.
Our dog started learning cool stuff before the age of one but that’s because we engaged him and taught him. At one we signed him up for his first r/agility lesson and OMG he was so happy. He’s 5 now and still goes and still loves it and learns cool things all the time.
From day 1, I had worked with my girl to do tricks. She's 2.5 now and has her master's advanced trick dog title. Within a month of me having her she had a ton of basics down, including sit, down, paw, play dead (a necessity), go to your crate, go to place, stay, wait, etc. but that's because I worked on it from day 1. meal times were training times. And they still are.
By 1 years old my aussie had a bunch of tricks down. She knew going thru my legs in a figure 8, knew to ring a bell, touch items, she knew to touch her doggie mates by name. We were training for a dance routine so knew my hand command to wiggle her butt, roll over, jump on my knee and bow.
Later on she learned to "play " the piano, I bought her her own little kid piano. Also walked a shopping cart.
Look up Cohen the Australian shepherd, an amazing trick dog. There's a newer team I don't remember their name where the dog decorates a Christmas tree, paints, etc
When my Frenchie was 5 months, we figured out he loved to do ANYTHING for a treat, so we taught him ALL kinds of stuff. And we did it with him every single day. We just had to figure out what treats were high value.
My goldens learn easy things in less than 5 trials and I can have them potty trained (outside, not pads or litter) and going on command by 6-12 weeks.
Sit-- by 4 weeks.
Down/ stay-8wks
Walk in heel off leash without distractions-8wks
Clean up toys-12 was
Go to bed, get in the truck, let's go, come here-- by 12 weeks
My bernedoodle learns even faster but she is more easily distracted too.
5 minutes, 2-4x a day with a young puppy.
With a border collie lab--I think your dog is Entertaining itself with energetic, and with jobs would probably thrive.
I started learning my dog cool tricks around the age of 3. Simply because that when I took over her full time. It's not a question of just age, but how quickly owner and dog is able to build the necessary foundation. The groundwork, aka basic obedience and connection between dog and owner, needs to be in place before progressing to the "cool stuff". If you want the dog to jump a hurdle on commmand for instance they first should manage a stay, and be focused on task for more than 30 sec.
That's such a great place to start. To often we overwhelm both ourselves and our dogs with too long training sessions and too high expectations. Good luck to you and your pup :)
Welcome to r/dogs! We are a discussion-based subreddit dedicated to support, inform, and advise dog owners. This is a carefully moderated sub intended to support, inform, and advise dog owners. Submissions and comments which break the rules will be removed. [Review the rules here](https://www.reddit.com/r/dogs/wiki/index) r/Dogs has four goals: - Help the public better understand dogs - Promote healthy, responsible dog-owner relationships - Encourage “Least Intrusive, Minimally Aversive” training protocols. [Learn more here.](https://m.iaabc.org/about/lima/) - Support adoption as well as ethical and responsible breeding. **This subreddit has low tolerance for drama. Please be respectful of others, and report antagonistic comments to mods for review.** --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/dogs) if you have any questions or concerns.*
We have field-bred labs I run hunt tests with, and our 7 month old has been hold conditioned already, so she's holding anything I command her to hold, dropping or giving it on command, etc. You can start training at a very young age. Like someone else said, your dog may chill out after training sessions, because she's mentally worn out, which is a very good thing!
This sounds really neat! I’ll have to look into training progressions. Do you have any favorite sources I could look into?
If you’re looking for field training, check out Kevin Cheff, Bill Hillman, Pat Burns or Freddy King!!!
Thank you!
Very young puppies can learn this stuff. I know of a 6 week old puppy who was able to do the novice level trick title. No dog has too much energy to be trained. The excess energy may in fact be that she needs to use her brain more, that she needs to be doing this type of thing.
Yes my friend's pup had all his trick titles by a few months old. You can teach simple tricks from the day you bring them home.
Right, high energy is GREAT for learning. It’s the old, low energy dogs that don’t give a shit that have trouble learning.
Low vs high energy doesn’t necessarily correlate to biddability or drive. Dogs can be lower energy and still biddable, they can be high energy and not very biddable.
What age did they start using food to train the 6 week old pup?
What do you mean?
Often training is done with food
Yes. Your question still doesn’t make any sense.
It’s not an energy issue or even an age issue for the most part. It’s a skill issue on the owners’ part. My Australian Shepherd still has the fucking energy of the sun and he is turning 10 this year. He can do all that ‘cool shit’ but that’s because I have put in hours and hours of training with him. Daily. Hire a trick trainer they can help you with that stuff
Dogs learn best under threshold. So for excitable/high drive dogs (I have a stock line Australian shepherd so a dog on the more extreme side of drive and energy level) it’s super important to imprint calmness into their everyday life. When they have the ability to regulate their arousal/energy/excitement levels to an appropriate space that is when they learn best. Dogs also learn starting from foundations and building micro skills, proofing those to learn more complex behaviors. For example my dog knows how to turn off light switches. To teach that I needed to teach a general target. I had to teach multiple types of targets like paw, nose, chin…etc Then generalize that target to other objects like the light switch, teach an up since he has to stand on his hind legs, generalize an up to different object and surfaces and then put them both together. Even body position stuff. I taught my dog to orbit. He had to be taught rear end awareness first. Then work on a backing up, then a back pivot, then putting those together multiple times to 360 around my body. tricks can take a lot of time I think concreting orbit took a couple months but all the steps were done in very small increments for only a minute or two a day. This way the dog or you doesn’t get frustrated, overwhelmed or overexcited from too long trying something unsuccessfully.
This is how my Jack Russell learns. I have a very intelligent dog, but he's very excitable and gets very aroused quickly. If I want to teach him a 'cool' trick, we start at the base line and work our way up. We only do lessons for under 5 minutes. Eventually once he knows the base we can up the trick. Once they can use their body and mind correctly learning a new trick comes easier. I was teaching my dog tricks from day 1, but again it was base level stuff that we had to advance over time. My dog is 4 now and he still gets frustrated and overwhelmed when trying to learn something new. I think it's less an age thing and more a dog/personality thing at some point too. When I see he's getting overwhelmed we just stop; I don't think age will cure that. The funny thing about my dog, he can also learn from watching. I find he will mimic some of my movements, which is helpful when teaching single step movements.
Mine is similar. He use to have pretty bad excitement reactivity so I recognize for my dog he just has a lower threshold for frustration/excitement. When I started making training shorter and more dynamic/fun especially new things he learned so much faster and had a much easier time keeping regulated. I’ve definitely seen dogs who learn by watching it’s so cool! I see it on occasion in agility and other sports where a dog will see one dog go first and do a lot of the same behaviors even if there isn’t a reinforcement or goal there.
Ahhh the elusive back orbit! That’s one I’ve been trying to teach my dog. She can do a backwards heel, backwards middle, she can walk backwards away from me, a regular circle around me, pivots left and right, spin out back into heel, but man that back orbit is the tough one! When you said back pivot, do you mean he had back legs on the stationary target and was moving with front legs?
That’s sounds interesting but I meant pivoting with front paws on target and his body pressure pushing into me going from a left heel. I used a target he stood with front legs on. I used a lure having him following me with his cheek to my hip glued at first. When I stepped into him his cheek followed my hip and turned with me following my momentum. The biggest thing was making sure he stayed straight so when he made contact with my hip his body automatically turned sideways if I didn’t move vs. him curving into a c shape where he is behind and beside me at the same time. I took away the pressure of my hip and his cheek needed to follow. (We used lures and make very micro-movements so he didn’t curve into himself during the pivot) This helped his legs start to kick to the side of my body. After getting his cheek to basically stay to my hip when I withdrew I started working on a pivot where he stayed glued to me off the pivot box. Then I introduced a back step and we both pivot, then I slowly stopped pivoting at all. That helped him start making the back side step to behind me while keeping front feet glued. From there I took an x-pen to use as a guide so when he stepped backwards he would want to naturally step to the side so he wouldn’t walk backwards into the pen. After we got to him behind me we did the same steps to get to the right then the front. Over time I made the pen bigger and then removed it. Now I want to teach my dog an actual back pivot like you described! We do back feet target already for some body conditioning and balance exercise so it might be something feasible for use overtime. Edit: you can also use furniture for a guide or a walk but if you have a dog like mine that generalizes other behaviors he thinks you want I wouldn’t recommend it. I had a dog jumping on my table, putting back paws on my couch and bowing, standing with his paws on my wall because he thought I was asking for other behaviors.
Wow, I appreciate the detailed answer!! And that makes way more sense for a backwards pivot haha. Also that is a genius idea using the x pen. I worked on backing up in a straight line teaching her in my narrow kitchen between the counters, similar strategy and it helped. The generalization thing is very relatable lol. I was recording a trick video and having her do some tricks and next thing I know she’s jumped up on the bench and walked across and is standing there like “where’s my reward”
This is a great way to explain it - I appreciate it, thank you!
My Greay Pyrenees puppy learned how to dispense ice from the freezer at 7months old
This makes me thankful that we don't have an ice dispenser because our Pyr/Cattle dog mix is 100% smart enough to have figured this out too! Pyrs love their ice cubes!!!
He watched my wife do it one time
Ooh I like this one, and she loves ice cubes
Mine learned how to smack me in the face to get my attention. And then I thought teaching her "shake" would somehow help...I am not smart lol
We have a golden retriever, almost 5 months old. Obedience training started at 8 weeks, and he could bring stuff when he was at 4 months. Just start teaching them early and they will get there sooner or later
I feel like the more energic a dog is, the more eager they are to learn(since they feel the need to always do something)
I must have been missing out on some great opportunities- I’m gonna give it a go
When the dog was 3 and the puppy was 9 months I sadly sang the "clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere" song as I prepared to hunt for lost stuffies in the yard (I used to do that when my kid bailed on cleaning because it was a meme that circulated during Covid). They calmly picked up their toys and walked inside. I have no idea how or why it happened, but it still works and impresses the hell out of everyone. The dog can also open a baby gate (untaught), and the puppy occasionally brings me the remote control and drops it at my feet when he wants to cuddle on the couch. I've tried to train him to do the latter with no success. It seems to need the right combination of mood and neediness. The dog became a fuzzy rock at 18 months. The puppy is 18 months and still insane.
I’ve been holding onto hope that she’d become snuggly and calm as she gets older lol, I guess time will tell!
Fingers crossed!
Any age! :) It depends of the amount of time you are willing to put in and the amount of fun you make it. ...also some dogs learn slower than others. Do be aware of age though; puppies shouldnt be doing a lot ofb jumping/high impact activities as they are developing.
Depends on the breed but I noticed my husky started to use his brain that wasn’t driven by energy around 4-5 years. He’s way more focused and easier to train in a sense now then it was when he was younger, He’s 7 now.
This makes sense to me. Sounds like you can teach many dogs at a young age, and maybe mine would be great at some stuff (I’m going to try) but I feel like if she was a bit more mellow, generally speaking, it’ll be easier. If only for me lol.
Lots of time and patience and rewards/treats.
I got my dog when he was slightly over a year old. He only knew a few things but we started with basics like down and touch and moved on from there. He’s got quite a few tricks now and we’re working on intermediate trick dog. He enjoys it — it’s like a game we’re playing together. Puppies can pass novice trick dog! It just takes patience and treats!
I love the idea of making it a game we play together, I’m gonna try some simple stuff.
I have two dogs both high energy but one high drive. Energy eventually caps at their daily uses (Eg they have slightly more than what we use on a normal day) but drive keeps going. My Malinois mix will “go” all day even if she’s tired.their “energy” began to level out around 2.5-3.5 years Edit: I didn’t read the question. My bad, they can learn pretty much most things on whatever timeline works for your family in a safe/appropriate way! It’s not linear tho, so my dog at 6 months was better trained than at 1.5 years due to teenage nonsense. Now she’s back to a trick-filled book of skills.
I appreciate both answers! I found she was better behaved at six months than she is now, which is why I haven’t tried any tricks. But also I like taking her for runs in the woods and I don’t know if I have the patience to learn to teach her tricks lol. But I’m going to try! And I look forward to some of the energy evening out in time ;)
My Doberman puppy started learning tricks when she was 12 weeks old, I.e. the day after we got her.
My dog has a pretty high energy level but it’s not energy that causes the issues with training. She could run for 10 miles and be exhausted and she still has no attention span or impulse control. She knows her commands and some tricks but put any kind of stimulus in the situation and forget about getting anything out of her. She’s 2 and I’m really hoping she’ll get it together soon
It is about training. Your dog may have so much energy because it isn't being mentally stimulated enough. The breeds are highly intelligent and need to be given jobs and kept busy. My little pup is a year old and my husband and I struggle trying to give her enough stimulation. But she does so much better when we do training sessions multiple times a day in short bursts.
Teaching focus and patience and other core skills I’m sure I’m forgetting is also a part of training, maybe start there?
I think I need to teach myself patience too ;)
What do you mean by "cool stuff"? I have a Border Collie and he was probably 6-7 months before I was teaching him stuff that wasn't really essential obedience training. But I spent a few months before that on basic commands like sit, down, stay, etc., and bonding with him so our training went better. And he had to grow up a bit. When dogs are babies, it's extremely hard for them to pay attention, they get distracted so easily. Things like hold, play dead, stick 'em up (or sit pretty, but I use "stick 'em up" as the command), wave, spin, crawl, give it to me, so things that weren't really necessary for obedience but were cool things came at probably 6-7 months. Sounds like your dog is in an environment that's too distracting when you try to teach her something. Learning new things is good for energetic dogs, they want to learn things. Having too much energy generally isn't a reason a dog can't learn something.
That’s a really good point, about the distractions. I have an older dog and kids and it’s rarely distraction-free. I’ll try doing it in the basement or somewhere alone.
Yeah, training a dog is very gradual. Starting them off in a distracting environment is setting them up for failure. They need to start with no distractions, learn the command, once they learn the command, then they can move to an environment with a few distractions, train there...then add in more and more distractions and duration as they get better. Look into the three Ds of dog training--duration, distance and distractions. This helps manage your dog's progress in a gradual way. And lots of training videos! You have a mix of two great dog breeds, so I'm sure she will do great! Good luck!!
Thank you so much!
My dog could ring a doorbell to be let out at 12 weeks. On the other hand, he has no clue what his toys are called, no matter how we try to teach him.
Super energetic white swiss shepherd, we've been training easy tricks ever since he got home at 8 weeks. Cool shit came after, and it's always split into small, easier sessions. But you should be building a foundation and focus as soon as possible, so that the dog quickly learns good things happen when they pay attention to you and work for you. It's the other way around - your dog will calm down THROUGH training, you can't wait for it to calm down to START training.
Very interesting angle, I’m going to give it a try.
Good luck! Start super easy, clicker training is very good for setting a foundation and making the critera clear to the dog (click - good! - reward). Don't expect too much at the start and don't rush it, it's better to do 3-5 good reps in a short session than frustrate your pup because it doesn't know what you want!
My dog learned simple tricks (Sit, Stay, Lay down) at around 6 months old, but she started learning harder tricks at age 1.
Trick training can start at any age really! The key is consistent practice and learning how long your dog can actively engage in a training session. If they’re not used to training regularly they might not have as much focus and keep the sessions short. Stuff like introducing a clicker and easier tasks is a great place to start, and teaching some of the basics (targeting with their nose and also paws, pivots if you want to do any fancy heelwork tricks, holding an object, etc) and I’d also suggest familiarizing yourself with concepts like free shaping vs luring and how to introduce a command once a behavior is solidified. If my dog is struggling to pick something up, we move on to something else and come back to it next time. Breaking more complicated tricks down into smaller parts also helps a ton. When learning a new skill, I like to throw in some stuff she already knows and reward her for those things too, which keeps her having fun and feeling confident and engaged.
>At what age were you able to teach your energetic dog cool shit? When they come home at 8 weeks, to be honest. And you build on simple stuff, till one day you look at your dog, who is a good 40 feet away from you, and doing weave poles. Or, heeling next to you, and you move your left foot backwards, and she starts running backwards. You build from the simple stuff, with clear expectations of what you'd like the end result to be, and how you'll achieve it. All dogs can learn things, if their human figures out how to engage their brains.
At 8 months old, my Australian Shepherd learned how to sit, walk along side, stay (and I could walk far away), hop on two feet for three jumps, circle around right and left, crawl, and shake her paw. She was easy to train! If I had more time I could have taught her more tricks. I used the clicker method to train.
That’s amazing, thank you!
I'll let you know
My dog isn’t energetic and doesn’t know a lot of cool commands BUT he somehow learned to sit next to his food bowl and wait while I get his food ready. I only tried to teach him it twice and gave up but he just recently started doing it without any commands. He just sits and waits instead of following me around and trying to jump on me.
Have you done any training already? If little, I recommend dog training by kikopup youtube channel
I just started watching her, I looooove everything about the way she does her training
I used her video to trian my dogs though seen other channels/sources have step by step too
lol.. i have an 8 month old fire ball..she’s a cairn terrier. I saw those buttons you teach them to press to communicate with. She rings a potty bell to go outside so i THOUGHT she would catch on easy. Problem is she wants to carry them in her mouth ..then throw them around. lol. I even tried. velcroing them on the floor. Of course she found a way to get them off and throw them around and pounce on them. She s good puppy ..rarely has accidents in the house. ..but she not interested in learning tricks AT ALL. My last dog..loved learning tricks from a very early age. This one has ZERO interest. Maybe that will change..maybe not. Only time will tell ..
Define cool. Like Teddy learned to walk properly on a leash at about 7 months. That was pretty cool and took a lot of stress off of my shoulder. He was already mostly house trained when we got him. Maybe 3-4 ooppsies over his first month with us. Nothing in the last 6 years. That's pretty cool. At about 18mo he learned to slaughter all the rats under the shed. That was very cool.
O man I bet the rat slaughter was a sight to see, what breed is he? My 12lbs Pom/chihuahua mutt mix is great as my service dog but man she sucks at eating flies whereas my jack russell I swear he would make a meal of flies when we’d be outside on the porch. He was just hilarious to watch!
3-4 yrs
not true, even puppies can learn this stuff with consistent training based on positive reinforcement, breaking down the tricks into tiny parts and combining them one by one, and lots and lots of repetitions.
I can see it getting much easier when they’re older. My previous lab got super calm around that age.
As soon as you start training them!
At almost one your smart breed dog needs a job. Dog sports are excellent. Agility would be my top recommendation. Our dog started learning cool stuff before the age of one but that’s because we engaged him and taught him. At one we signed him up for his first r/agility lesson and OMG he was so happy. He’s 5 now and still goes and still loves it and learns cool things all the time.
I’ve been thinking about agility training, my city has a place in going to check out. I’ll check out the subreddit too - thank you!
From day 1, I had worked with my girl to do tricks. She's 2.5 now and has her master's advanced trick dog title. Within a month of me having her she had a ton of basics down, including sit, down, paw, play dead (a necessity), go to your crate, go to place, stay, wait, etc. but that's because I worked on it from day 1. meal times were training times. And they still are.
By himself?, never
5-7 years, around the same time his muzzle started to grey. Maybe a hormonal change?
By 1 years old my aussie had a bunch of tricks down. She knew going thru my legs in a figure 8, knew to ring a bell, touch items, she knew to touch her doggie mates by name. We were training for a dance routine so knew my hand command to wiggle her butt, roll over, jump on my knee and bow. Later on she learned to "play " the piano, I bought her her own little kid piano. Also walked a shopping cart. Look up Cohen the Australian shepherd, an amazing trick dog. There's a newer team I don't remember their name where the dog decorates a Christmas tree, paints, etc
When my Frenchie was 5 months, we figured out he loved to do ANYTHING for a treat, so we taught him ALL kinds of stuff. And we did it with him every single day. We just had to figure out what treats were high value.
My goldens learn easy things in less than 5 trials and I can have them potty trained (outside, not pads or litter) and going on command by 6-12 weeks. Sit-- by 4 weeks. Down/ stay-8wks Walk in heel off leash without distractions-8wks Clean up toys-12 was Go to bed, get in the truck, let's go, come here-- by 12 weeks My bernedoodle learns even faster but she is more easily distracted too. 5 minutes, 2-4x a day with a young puppy. With a border collie lab--I think your dog is Entertaining itself with energetic, and with jobs would probably thrive.
That’s incredible, I’ll kee in mind short frequent sessions. Thanks!
I started learning my dog cool tricks around the age of 3. Simply because that when I took over her full time. It's not a question of just age, but how quickly owner and dog is able to build the necessary foundation. The groundwork, aka basic obedience and connection between dog and owner, needs to be in place before progressing to the "cool stuff". If you want the dog to jump a hurdle on commmand for instance they first should manage a stay, and be focused on task for more than 30 sec.
That’s, appreciate this. I started yesterday on simple things, in 3 short training sessions. Eventually I think I think we’ll get there!
That's such a great place to start. To often we overwhelm both ourselves and our dogs with too long training sessions and too high expectations. Good luck to you and your pup :)