Not seeing training progress? Try these 3 things.

As I was compiling blog topics from the members of our community, I had a great message come in from Pack Member Allyson.

She wrote that she feels like her dog isn’t making good enough progress in training because it is hard to see changes in the moment.

I’ve found this to be a struggle of my own as well. So I thought it would be fun to share all of the things that I do to help my brain recognize the progress that we are making, even if it is slow!

My brain needs to see the growth and improvement to stay motivated, so this topic is especially important to me and my pups.

Here are my favorite methods I have tried to help see slow progress:

Data Tracking

This is probably the most in depth option, but I do find it very helpful to quantify the data to see improvements. For example, if your goal for the month (or year or whatever) is to work on decreasing your dogs’ barking, you can track that in a spreadsheet or even just in a journal! Keep a notepad near you and make a tally for every bark. If you keep at it, you should be able to quantify your results, even if it just decreases by a few per week. Or you can always get a tracker for their collar to make it more tech-y.

Any goal you have can be quantified if you get creative: number of pulls, number of outings with no reactions, reaction intensity, distance of distraction success, etc. (I also have multiple different downloadable goal tracking sheets available in my Pack Membership! You can sign up for a free trial here.)

Human-Dependent Goals

Sometimes, we have the wrong end goal in mind. If we focus on the dog’s results, we may be disappointed if our dog hasn’t reached the milestone in time. But a lot can influence those results outside of our training (things like illness, genetics, etc).

If we instead make our goals dependent on us, we can see progress and celebrate it for ourselves!

I like to make 30 day sticker charts to put a sticker on every time I work on my goal. For example, I might set a goal to work on nail trims five times per week. Each time, I put a sticker on the chart. When it’s full, I will have worked for a whole month, and I can then even reward myself with something fun!

VIDEO EVERYTHING

This is one of the biggest for me. When I create a goal to work towards, I like to film where I am currently before beginning. For example, Quimby sometimes struggles with slick flooring. When I really started prioritizing that, I took a baseline video of her on the slick floor. I film every few weeks, and then I go through my folder of those videos. It is incredible to see the difference over the few weeks in just a few short videos.

Neurodivergent people (people with autism, adhd, ocd, DID, schizophrenia, and more) struggle already with setting habits and keeping them.

Add on not seeing progress, and most of us are likely to quit before long.

But when we know we don’t want to quit and it’s for our health or our dogs, adopting some of these strategies can help keep our motivation high and our training drive strong!

Which of these strategies will you try?

PS if you like thinking about new ways to motivate yourself to train and see progress, you'd love the Pack, my membership for puppy, adult, or senior dog owners who want to train their dogs to listen to every cue joyfully. Read more about it here.