Training puppies to disengage and recall

Disengaging from distractions is perhaps THE most important life skill for a puppy, and the sooner they learn, the better.

Of course, their brains are not yet capable of a lot of things – impulse control being one of them, because the parts of the brain that control activation develop faster than the parts that put the breaks on (to put it in simple, non technical terms!).

It shouldn’t stop us from practising because the more you do it, the better they get, and their ability for self-control in general is growing at the same time because even though now they’re disengaging from humans/dogs, very soon it will be birds, rabbits and whatever else catches their attention.

Especially for us, there are very few offleash areas in a 15min drive radius where you can be almost certain you won’t meet other people or dogs, and on some days I don’t have enough time to take them further than our local forest that is more or less busy depending on the day.

So, we have to practice – a lot. We’ve been training this more consistently for 2 weeks since Atlas has been here because by herself it’s easier to control Astra, but with two puppies they’re prompting each in every possible way and before you know it, they’re harassing an adult dog who snaps at them.

We go through a LOT of high value treats on every walk because these are difficult behaviours for young puppies, so I want to maximally reinforce them. The more challenging the situation for them to handle, the more treats it rains!