One of the most common questions most dog trainers receive is “What age should we start training out dog?” If you have adopted a young puppy, you might be tempted to wait for a few months until she is a little bit older to start training. If you have adopted an adult or even elderly dog, you might think that the time for training is past. The truth is that if you have a dog, the process of training has already begun, whether or not you are actually actively trying to. Your dog starts learning habits from you the moment she arrives in your home.
According to most reports and research about puppies, they start learning as young as three weeks of age. So while some people might recommend waiting until your puppy is five or six months old to start training, if she is already in your home, she is probably already learning behaviors and it is time to start working actively to make sure that she is learning the behaviors you want her to learn. Because most breeders and shelters will not sell or adopt puppies that are less than three weeks old, she is already smart enough to begin training.
This goes the other way, too. You’ve heard the oft-repeated cliché, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” It’s simply not true. Even a dog that is well beyond the age that we would normally start training is fully capable of learning just about anything you want to teach her. While it is easier to train a young dog, before any bad habits had been made, it is still more than possible to break a dog of bad habits and put great ones in their place. While older dogs are usually lazier when it comes to learning, even the oldest dogs are still eager to please their owners.
One of the biggest reasons most trainers and training books will tell you not to start training your puppies until they are a few months old is because puppies younger than this probably have not had all of their vaccinations and there is some risk of contracting a disease. While this should concern you when you take your puppy out into the world, it should not worry you when you are taking your dog into a training class that will be comprised entirely of dogs that have had their vaccinations. If you are training your puppy at home, you do not need to worry about this at all.
In reality, the best time to start training your dog is right now. Don’t wait until she is six months old and don’t worry if she is already six years old. Older dogs, especially those that have not lived in a home with structure before actually crave this kind of structure and will be ready, willing, and more than able to learn not just basic commands, but everything they need to know to be great dog citizens.
The truth is that your dog is going to start learning from you the moment she arrives in your home. If you are not actively training her to do what you want her to do, she is going to be learning bad habits that you will have to train out of her. She will practice those bad habits over and over and because she is not being taught the good habits, she will become confused and frustrated when she is suddenly scolded for things that were perfectly fine a month ago. Start training right now, no matter your dog’s age!
