You’ve heard it a million times. “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” So is it true?
Most of the older dogs I’ve trained wouldn’t have had the opportunity to be trained if it wasn’t for their owner’s younger dog or new puppy. Unfortunately, people rarely call for help with their older dogs, since they believe the old adage and think it’s too late to get help with obedience training or behavior problems for their older dog. Usually they call me to help with the young dog, and tell me, “I don’t want my puppy to turn out like HIM.” They think it’s too late to address problems with their older dog, but they’re determined to do things the right way with the puppy so he doesn’t end up with the same problems they’ve put up with from the old dog for years.
Or sometimes the older dog isn’t bad, but has just never had any training. When I’m teaching a lesson with a client’s younger dog, almost without exception, the older dog will come over and try to get in on it. They think that training looks like fun and they push their way in, as if to say, “I can do it, too!”
In either case, I do my best to convince the client that the older dog will benefit from training and will do as well as, or even better than, the younger dog will. Some clients choose to do a full training program with their older dogs, I convince others to at least apply what we’re doing with the younger dog in lessons to the older dog outside of lessons. Just giving the older dog his “turn” after practicing training exercises with the younger dog can yield remarkable results.
I got a call a several years ago that I’ll never forget. It was an owner who was seeking help with her 13-year-old Lab mix. I expected to hear that the dog had developed a new behavior problem, which is the most common reason for a training inquiry about an older dog. So I asked what specific problem they needed help with. “Well, he doesn’t listen when we tell him to do anything, he jumps up on people, he bites us when we play with him, he barks all the time, he gets on the furniture and he digs under the gate and runs away.” HUH? It sounded like a list of problems I would hear from an owner of a puppy. I asked if they had just gotten the dog. Nope. I asked if these were new problems. “No, he’s always been like this.” I asked why they’d waited 13 years to train him. “We just never got around to it.” Amazing.
So we started a training program for this senior citizen who did, in fact, act like a 10-month-old puppy. He was a smart guy, which is what allowed him to rule the roost for all those years, and he did great with his training. We corrected his behavior problems, on- and off-leash obedience trained him and made him a civilized gentleman. Which, of course, led his owners to say, “Man, if we’d known how well he would do, we’d have done this a long time ago!”
“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” It’s disheartening to think that a little phrase that we’ve all heard a million times stops many people from seeking help with their older dogs. And the problems caused by this common phrase go beyond that. The idea that older dogs aren’t trainable discourages people from adopting older dogs that need homes.
I’m a HUGE fan of adopting older dogs. I’ve adopted a 14-year-old Lab, a 17-year-old Chihuahua and a 15-year-old Toy Poodle over the years, and I’ve trained them all… even the blind one and the deaf one! So of course, I encourage people to adopt adult or senior dogs. Sadly, I meet with a lot of resistance from people who think that “there must be something wrong with the dog” if it’s up for adoption, and think that any problems the dog has won’t be fixable, since he’s no longer a puppy.
The truth is that many older dogs that are up for adoption are housebroken and trained, and those that do have problems can benefit from training just as a younger dog would.
The fact is that dogs can be trained at any age. Very old dogs may have some limitations due to declining health or may be more established in some of their behaviors, but most older dogs not only respond to training, they love it. In most cases, older dogs are very enthusiastic about training… it’s as if they’ve been waiting for years for somebody to say something that makes sense. Remember, a big part of training is building understanding and communication between owner and dog and teaching owners to speak a language that both they and their dogs will understand. What dog wouldn’t respond to that?
Meet Pudge, a distinguished 9 1/2-year old gentleman who’s living proof of the fact that you can definitely teach an old dog new tricks! He had some training on the basics when he was younger, but was a highly distracted fellow who liked to do his own thing, so the training wasn’t holding up in real-life conditions.
His owner, Anita Fromholz of Pasadena, was referred to me by a client and I was so happy to get her call, since I LOVE working with the oldies! Anita has done an amazing job working with Pudge and he’s now great at all of his commands! He’s even able to hold a “place” command in his bed when visitors come in the door (and when he’s tormented by the family cat, who loves to distract him during training!). He’s now civilized and responsive when he’s out for his walks and he loves to show off his new tricks, “shake” and “high five”!
Good boy, Pudge!!