Reactive training

Ryan shares his puppy training methodology – including why you should adapt techniques and timescales to suit the dog, and the importance of lessening a puppy’s fail rate

- Ryan Kay KCAI (WG)

Last month, I introduced you to a singleton pup that we bred here at Farlavale. The suitably named Solo is the only surviving pup of a mating from two of our top cockers, Charlie and Seren. Born just before Christmas, as I write this, she’s just over 14 weeks old, has been to a couple of socialising classes at the vets, met different farm animals, other dogs, travelled in the car and explored new and exciting terrain around our land.

I promised to take you through her daily routine and training, the way we will teach her here. And as I stressed last month, although some of you will also be following this with your new additions, it’s important that you take away what’s relevant to your puppy, rather than to try and constantly emulate what we do with Solo. I always stress there are no real timescales when it comes to teaching a young dog – you shouldn’t, for example, plonk your dog in the beating line at exactly 10 months old, just because Fred down the lane says that’s the right time for it; it’ll beready when it’s ready – and in line with your training – so it could be much younger or older than 10 months.