# Chronological puppy training for Doberman. When and how much



## fastline (Mar 1, 2014)

Things seem to be going decent. Doby is 10 weeks. Sit works well. stay is brief and I use a hand signal (open palm) along with command as long as I want them to stay. Then slowly remove hand signal. Down for laydown is not working. She takes her head down but I force the body down and just not getting it. 

Also, she has puppy teething which is a problem with children I guess. Does not bother me much but probably now is the best time to train that any biting is a no-no. I use NO which usually stops her. I have had to tap her on the nose a few times to release from children. They run and the doby feels it is a game. 

I am curious how much I should/could expect at 10 weeks? It has been 9yrs since I trained our goldy so I am rusty but I seem to remember her being a PITA until probably 6-9mo. I have her trained with a hand command for come and sit and I give petting. Never before the sit though. It works well. 

I guess I am trying to think of HOW I need to train to suit our lives. Also being a Doby, I am unsure of the intelligence and how hard I should push and ensure that we do not end up with territorial or protective issues with her. As I understand it, the protective instinct might just kick in, which is fine in the right setting but not sure where I should take that. 

So in general, which commands and how much training for what age? Is 6-9mo a more realistic age for good training and just the basics should be used right now? I don't want to confuse with too much.


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## doggiepop (Feb 27, 2014)

don't expect to much from a 10 week old pup. i got my dog when
he was 9 weeks old. formal training started at 4 months old.
he was in a puppy class at 10 weeks old.


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## BostonBullMama (Apr 20, 2013)

At 11 weeks old, Toby knew sit and we had just started with lay down and roll over. Those were his 3 tricks that we worked on until he seemed to have them pretty down pat. After that, I just taught whatever I felt like.

We never used puppy classes.

After reading more of your post:
General rule of thumb, hands off. By pushing the dog down and then rewarding the down - you are essentially teaching your dog that when it feels the pressure 'here' it is to lay down and then it will be rewarded instead of "when I receive this cue I am to lay down". 

For biting, redirection is going to be your BEST friend. Get a good rope toy, a chewy rubber bone, something the puppy is allowed to chew and if teeth meet skin or any other inappropriate place, say a firm 'NO' and replace the object or limb with the toy. Repeat as necessary - trust me. Toby was a landshark, this worked fabulously. I would even reward him with treats for calmly chewing his toys. As a result, 18 months old and he hasn't destroyed a single thing in my house. Not even the kids toys which are left out frequently.


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## CptJack (Jun 3, 2012)

Just get her interested in learning. Load the clicker, teach her that figuring out what you want and then doing it gets her good things. As a puppy there's a lot going on at once: housebreaking, house manners (what is and isn't okay, like not getting into the garbage or jumping up), type stuff plus working on ANYTHING you want to teach her how to learn will give you a good foundation. Sit is easy. I always teach it and down first because it's easy and it gets the wheels in the dog's head turning and they figure out that DOING STUFF GETS THEM THINGS AND IS AWESOME. After that, sky's the limit. I tend to focus on stay and reenforcing the daylights out of recall, but honestly your priorities and mine will be different.

Most puppy classes follow about the same path. Sit, down, be polite, a little bit of stay and recall. Mostly it's all about the learning to learn and learning to love the game. 

And seriously, make learning a game and you have the best possible scenario for any further training you WANT to do.


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## petpeeve (Jun 10, 2010)

Personally, I wouldn't work much on stays with a 10 wk puppy. They're too young to have developed any impulse control yet and their attention span is very limited, even for a brief stay. I'd work on a few other things for now and introduce the stays at a slightly later date. Heel position is important, intro to leash walking (following), establishing eye contact / focus is crucial imo, basics like sit and down (without using ANY force), fun recall, those are what I'd be concentrating on for the near future.


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## goodgirl (Jan 14, 2013)

If I had a 10 week old pup I would be concentrating on socializing the heck out of him. Dr. Ian Dunbar recommends your pup meet 100 new people by age 3 mos. But also there is a big wide world out there. If you plan to take him camping, start taking him to the mountains now. Swimming, to the ocean, etc. Walks around the neighborhood? You can carry him around the neighborhood a bit now.

I would determine what his default behavior is and build on that. It's probably sit while looking up at you. Attention (to you) games. Impulse control games, like hand zen. These foundation things can be more important than sit, down, stay - which will be much easier to teach with good foundation skills in place. The last set of foster puppies I had we encouraged their default sit with eye contact from age 4 weeks or so. By 6 weeks when they wanted attention they would come up and sit and look at you. By handing a treat for this behavior, they happened to learn a hand signal for sit. They did not bite your hands unless really amped up, then just softly. They took treats politely. They came RUNNING when you called them from anywhere in the house, no matter what they were doing.

You could learn to use a positive interrupter, while throwing in a "touch" cue even. Works much better than saying no and tapping on the nose. The puppy will get it much quicker, too. It's never to early to start teaching recall. Clicker training is excellent.

A good book is "Control Unleashed-the Puppy Version" by Leslie McDevitt.


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## Kyllobernese (Feb 5, 2008)

I just went through raising a Doberman pup. I got her at 11 weeks and used clicker training. Kiko pups are good videos to watch. Rather than push your dog into a down, have your clicker handy and when the pup lies down, click and treat. I found everything that I taught with the clicker and treats is more easily understood by the dog. Kiko pup explains it better than I can.

They do take a long time to mature so do not expect a lot till they are six to eight months old. Up till then concentrate on socialization and manners. I don't mean not to train them, a good training class helps with the socialization as you are working around other dogs and people.


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