Holding Yourself Accountable

When you first got your dog i’m sure you were all hands on deck with training (or so id hope lol), but then time passes life gets in the way. Before you know it your dog is destroying things, isn’t responding to commands, having accidents. Its like when you first brought them home all over again, or even worse!

Moab, Utah Poison Spider Trail 21’

Once our dog starts to do the things we like, sometimes we think awesome now I don’t need to keep up with it! Well that’s the complete opposite that needs to happen, you need to keep up with training, structure, routine. Once you begin to “slack off” your dog will take advantage, they cant help it. I am guilty of this myself. Now I incorporate commands in our daily routine, when feeding, when we are walking to the car, during a walk, during crate time, basically anywhere we can.

Arizona, Grand Canyon 21’

In order to hold them accountable you must first hold yourself accountable!

I recommend training with your dogs at least 30 minutes a week, that’s less then 5 minutes a day. The more you train the sharper your dog will be. Before you know it your dog will crave it!

You will crave it!

There’s always a good time to train, take advantage of your surroundings. I try to not miss an opportunity to train, if Wrangler is with me so is my treat pouch. But I find the best time to work with dogs is with their meals. Their hungry, eager, ready to work for every bit of food. If you feed them twice a day and work with their breakfast, and dinner lets just say that’s 5 minutes each, now you just worked with your dog for 10 minutes in one day!

I do understand that life sometimes throws a curveball where you will have less time to train, during this time your schedule might change, might become more hectic. The one thing that you can help ground you is train your fur-baby. Even when your busy you should be consistent with is the structure.

Hold yourself accountable.