From 7-8 weeks old: Use until formal obedience training starts -The Learning String

The Mannerly Puppy

THE LEARNING STRING

From 8 weeks to approximately 12 weeks old, keep a soft, nylon puppy collar OR a leather buckle collar on your puppy. From 12 weeks old to 16 weeks old, keep a flat, leather buckle collar on your puppy (no quick release collars). To that collar attach a length of 550 parachute cord that is about 6 to 7 feet in length and burned on both ends. This cord needs to be firmly knotted to the collar and the only time you will remove it is when your puppy is kenneled or when it is necessary to put a new and larger collar on you puppy. This cord will simply trail around behind you puppy all the time.

When you need to lead or guide her from one area to another it is very easy to simply pick up the end of the cord and gently guide. When you need to reinforce a Come command or any other command it is very easy to simply pick up the string and “make it happen”. When you need to stop an unwanted behavior, like jumping up on guests, it is so easy to simply step on the cord. You don’t have to say a thing. Your guest doesn’t have to say or do anything, the cord does the work for you.

There are many, many other times when you will find that piece of cord to be a real blessing and it will always make it so much easier for you to feel like praising. Don’t sell its magic short. Use it,you will learn to love it.

Most importantly, you are laying a foundation with your puppy, the psychology that you ALWAYS are there to ‘help’ the puppy do the right thing – even when the puppy doesn’t want to you are there to help and guide. The Learning String is laying this mental foundation so your dog, in time, will believe the string is always there, even when it no longer is there. It’s a great way to introduce the concept of off-leash training many months before that training will begin.

Here’s how to tie the knot.

Feed the loop through the ring on the collar, then feed the end of the line through the loop and tighten. If you do this when the line is wet, then the weight of the collar will tighten the knot so it dries. Puppy is to wear The Learning String at all times, except when kenneled.

  OR...you can have a small snap bolt attached to a piece of cord (here I have old cotton webbing). This is exactly the same principle as The Learning String, just faster to snap on/off as needed. Not quite as handy though as having 5' dragging on the ground when you need it.