Twelve hours. In those twelve hours dogs will learn some neat 'tricks', such as 'sit', 'watch me', 'down', and 'spin'. They will also begin to form the basis for the concept of walking on a loose leash (some dogs do this better than others, and some owners are better than others at training it). We will work on 'fixing' common problems: pulling, barking at strange people and dogs, lunging at other dogs, house breaking issues, recall issues, and the like.
Mostly, though we will set the dogs up to learn. Most dogs come into my beginning class with nearly no skills. They have never been asked to do anything.
Dogs want to please us, and so training, where the dog understands that something is expected of it, but doesn't know what that something is, can be stressful to dogs and owners. Many dogs come to class largely divorced from the actions of their owners. They live fairly independently of the person on the other end of the leash, and have never seen that person as terribly relevant outside of fulfilling basic animal functions such as companionship, food, water and shelter.
The first six weeks teaches the dog that his owner is relevant, and pleasing his owner, even if he is uncertain how at first, has tremendous rewards. The first six weeks sets the dog up to understand that learning is fun, that it is worth seeking out, and that mistakes are ok. It allows the dog to try new things, it opens up their personality, it lets them understand the basic structure of their lives, in many cases that understanding brings confidence and comfort.
Yes, six weeks is a very brief time. Six weeks will do little by way of producing cool tricks to show family and friends, but those first six weeks opens the door to a world of possibilities, and nothing pleases me more than watching the dogs 'get it' for the first time, knowing that everything to follow will be that much easier for them.
