Train your dog effectively or train your dog expediently - an interesting article. How Much Time Does It Really Take to Train a Dog? Bonnie Weinhold Is “more” better when it comes to training your dog? So many of us think the more frequently we train our dog, the faster he’ll learn and perform better. This is why we see trainers, who are getting ready for obedience competitions, training their dogs for an hour or more every day. However, your average pet owner may spend an hour on a weekend day training their dog with the possible addition of an hour a week in a dog training class. Is the competitive dog trainer getting it right while the typical pet owner is short changing their dog through lack of time sent training? Until recently, there was no scientific date on the issue however researchers from the University of Copenhagen addressed the question in a course of studies and the results appear to be contrary to what many trainers may think. With these two studies, we have the information to tell us how often we should train our dogs and the length of time for each session. The first study compared the performance of dogs who were trained for one session per week to the performance of dogs who were trained almost daily for five sessions per week. Beagles were the breed of dogs tested and the task involved the dog walking to the end of a table to a mouse pad and placing their paw on it. Food was used for rewards and a clicker to signal a correct response. Each training session was made up of 15 repetitions or “trials”. The researchers then monitored how many training sessions it took before the dogs mastered the skill at the highest level. Results showed it took fewer training sessions to teach the dog to perform the task when he was trained one session once a week. It took the weekly trained dogs 6.6 sessions to learn the task compared to the dogs who were trained five times a week at an average of 9 sessions. Therefore, the daily training schedule involved nearly 50% more teaching time spent by the handler for the dog to learn the task. Then again, the dog undergoing daily training sessions, mastered the task in just under two weeks of training while the weekly training session dog took 6 to 7 weeks to master it. The second study, also using Beagles, was more elaborate. This study compared the performance of dogs who were trained one to two times a week with dogs trained five times a week while looking at the effects of the length of each training session. The task was more complicated, requiring the dog to go some distance to a basket then sit and stay in the basket while the trainer walks away for a distance, then returns to the dog. The task was broken into 12 stages of performance; each training session involved 6 trials and a clicker and food rewards were used. The dogs were divided into four training scenarios. One was a single training session (6 trials) once or twice each week while another involved three back to back sessions (18 trails) once or twice a week. A third group received one session (6 trials) five times a week and the fourth group involved three training sessions (18 trial) five times a week. Each dog got 18 training sessions (108 trials). The dogs receiving one training session once or twice a week showed the highest level of performance, averaging around level 11 out of 12 levels, which was almost perfect. Dogs receiving 3 sessions in a row once or twice a week averaged only around level 8. The dogs receiving one training session 5 times a week only averaged level 7, and the dogs receiving the most intensive training, 3 back-to-back sessions a day for 5 days a week, had the worst overall performance, averaging only a level 5. Of course, there is a trade-off. The dogs receiving the daily long sessions will complete the course in under 4 weeks while those receiving the short session twice a week will take around 9 weeks. So now we have data to show that the casual pet trainer with one or two short sessions a week will end up with a well-trained dog so dispose of the guilt already.
Posted on: Sat, 05 Oct 2013 01:34:54 +0000
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