Written By: Courtney Case

"How long will it take to train my dog?” This is a completely reasonable question that almost every client asks me as a professional dog trainer. The answer varies depending on the people in the household, the dog(s) and the situation. What I can always say is, “to a certain extent, you never stop training.”  

The truth is, training isn’t a thing we do with our dogs and then stop doing one day because they “know better.” A mature dog has roughly the mental capacity of a toddler. Not to anthropomorphize too much, but we don’t expect toddlers to remember everything we teach them in every situation, and we shouldn’t expect our dogs to always know what to do. Even a dog without special needs like behavior issues is going to need the occasional reminder of what we want in certain situations and is (hopefully) being rewarded for that behavior. Dogs are living, breathing, decision making animals and sometimes they’re going to get distracted, forget things, and want to do things you don’t want them to do.