The advice was shared in an educational video posted on social media by a Clinical Canine Behaviourist
Most dog owners understand the importance of training their puppy. Yet, an expert has warned that dog owners could be wasting their time by focusing on ‘useless obedience training’ with their puppy.
Will Atherton is a Clinical Canine Behaviourist (MSc) and the creator of The WA Academy, who regularly posts training advice for dog owners on his social media channels, where he has over one million total followers. In a recent TikTok post shared under the username @iamwillatherton, Will issued a warning for dog owners.
He told viewers: “Don’t waste your time with useless obedience training until your puppy has mastered the basics! Tricks like spin or play dead won’t help in the real world if your puppy is dragging you down the street or jumping up strangers when they get excited. Get the basics mastered under any and all situations, then you can bring in the fun stuff if you want to.”
In his video, Will explained: “Another puppy training mistake that I see people make all the time with their dogs is teaching them useless obedience that they don’t actually need, especially when your dog isn’t perfect in all situations.
“Once you’ve got a dog that is absolutely perfect, has no behaviour problems, is not causing you any issues whatsoever, then at that point, teach them whatever you want. I really don’t care.
“But until you have that dog, don’t waste your time and energy on teaching tricks that you never need to use. Spin, play dead, paw are irrelevant if your dog pulls like a freight train every single time you go out for a walk or jumps up at everybody that they ever meet.”
Will then turned his attention to a dog he had been training, who he used as an example. “For my mate Bruno here, all of the obedience that we’ve been doing in the entire month has been this.
“Teaching him how to walk on a loose lead by my side, so that when we meet people out in public, he doesn’t jump up them. We’ve started to work on a bit of a down, just so that we can help him stay in relaxed positions to help his manners inside.”
He continued: “We’ve worked on a place command again so that we can have him calm down whilst being a part of the family, and we started working on some recall. Outside of that, I don’t need him to know anything else.
“To keep him out of shelters and get him transitioned into a home long-term, that’s all the obedience he needs.
“He then just needs to be able to do those pieces of obedience, no matter where he is or what situation he finds himself in. Because if he can do that, I can use that obedience to navigate him through any and all situations safely and under control.”