Puppies and tricks!

PuppyLove

Hey everyone,
So Holly is seven weeks old and I have been working on 'sit' with her. Mostly though she is more interested in chewing on me and sleeping but when I get her in a calm mood she will actually sit when I tell her to. I've been only working on it for 5 minutes or so a day because of her short attention span lol!

So, I was just wondering, when can I start introducing more tricks? Should I wait a couple of weeks until this one is perfected? Also which tricks are most important to teach her (I'm guessing stuff like 'come', 'stay'?) I want to join agility with her when she's a year old

Criosphynx

One trick doesn't have to be perfect to start on a new one. I often have 3-5 tricks in the works at any given moment...

try to work on only one trick per "session" tho for now, she'll be less confused that way. if you want her to learn it quickly...rather than one or two 5 minute sessions a day you can do TONS of 5-30 second sessions...these actually work better for the way a dog learns, but are harder to remember to do

fawkese1

come or recall is something that you should start now. everytime you have something pleasant for her, say her dinner, practice telling her to come. be careful that you know she thinks it is pleasant though.....you don't want to use the "come" command to call her to you for anything she doesn't like, for example a bath. "stay" may be difficult for her at a young age imo, but you could try very short spans of time for her to stay. i would recommend "down" you can also start teaching her to retrieve when you play with her....

Krazy4Pets

I agreed with fawkese1 that come when called should start now. For sitting, I normally force my Yorkies to sit for everything. I will hold their food bowl until they sit or I won't let them out unless they sit and wait by the door. You can apply the new tricks to your dog daily routine. This seems to speed up the training. No free treats around here! LOL