Improve Your Training Skills with Timed Sessions
While there are many different types of training sessions, timed sessions are great when you are feeling stuck. Some of my best ideas for training skills faster have come from timed sessions. Not only are timed sessions a fun challenge, but they also unlock creative problem-solving.
Dog training sessions can be structured or more like a creative improv session. Short sessions are great for addressing one or two skills, while longer sessions help dogs learn to focus and work with you for longer. Variety is essential, so even if you prefer one type of session over another, it’s beneficial to change up the kind of session frequently when practicing with your dog.
Timed sessions are important to include in your session selection. It’s popular advice to end training sessions on a good note, but what does that mean? You could easily overtrain or undertrain, trying to stop the session at the right moment. While ending the session when your dog is doing well is great advice, sometimes it’s also necessary to end the session when the time is up. Working against a timer can help you develop new training strengths.
After a few timed sessions, you should start to notice that your timing and reward delivery are improving. You might notice that your dog is more focused on you because dogs thrive on clear communication. Your dog might even have learned a handful of new tricks after just a few sessions.
Successful timed sessions are all about the prep work. First, you need to select a goal and then define it as clearly as possible. You will need to break down skills into smaller components that build upon each other. Suppose you are training your dog to go to a target. In that case, you might want to start with landing on the target using the exact movement that will work for the finished behavior, whether that means hitting it with the front paws or running to the target and pivoting so that the back paws land on it. When you start to break down skills, you will realize they have many components to them. Before your timed session, you should also prepare treats into small pieces.
You can set the timer for three minutes, five minutes, or even ten. Duration variety is essential so that you don’t get stuck training the same way each time. Train your dog until the timer goes off, and end exactly where you are when it does.
End each session with a quick reflection. You can write your notes or record a voice memo. It’s essential to determine whether you reached the session goal, whether you generated new ideas, or if there was anything noteworthy about the training session worth mentioning.
Timed sessions are a fun challenge. With a bit of practice, you might soon find that training your dog new skills doesn’t take as long as you thought.
