Imagine this: a young girl tells her parents that she would like to take up figure skating and they sign her up for classes.

At the first class, she wobbles and falls a few times but by the end of the class she is skating from one end of the rink to the other without grabbing the sides or falling.

She is stoked with herself! “Did you see me mum and dad? That was so fun!”

Her parents sigh. They look at her with a face full of disappointment. They tell her, “we were watching and you fell twice. You only skated in a straight line and you didn’t do a single spin. You didn’t even try skating on one foot. What kind of figure skater are you?”

Holy crap right? Wouldn’t that be horrible?

Everyone knows that it takes time and practice to learn a new skill for a child. It’s the same with a puppy.

They aren’t born knowing a single word of English and what we want from them. It’s up to us to teach them what we want and to practice in many different environments before we can expect them to just do it.

If your dog isn’t listening to a command, check first – have we spent purposeful training time on this, or are we expecting them to just know it?

For help with how to do this, visit the Dog Matters Academy and join the Virtual Dog School program.