[Gabriele]

Hi Charlie,

I was struggling with teaching hold as well but below helped me.

Make sure your puppy is calm before you start the training. I used to wake my puppy from the nap and put her straight away on the table to train before she had time to get too excited. I used only dowel and didn’t use any of the toys as it would get her too excited. Also I think at least at first, you should put the dowel in the dog’s mouth instead of letting him grab it. Maybe it will keep him calmer.

Make sure you are very calm as well. Try not to get frustrated because he doesn’t get it. If you get too frustrated take a break and walk your dog on the table for a bit so that you both can restart.

Try to finish training session with a good note and don’t expect too much too fast. You should gradually built duration. My first session took 30minutes because my puppy didn’t want to hold the dowel calmly but as soon as I got 2 seconds of calm hold I stopped the training and threw a party.

Finally, watch again and again Robert’s ”hold” video. It has so much information that you do not need anything else.

[Cheri]

We struggle as well. Rio wants to chew, chew, chew. He’s picked up everything so quickly so maybe we expected a little to much from him. Good advice given here. We’re sticking to it with patience and treats!