I read a paper recently called An Investigation into the Impact of Pre-Adolescent Training on Canine Behavior by Dinwoodie and colleagues. The aim of the study was conducted to see whether training done prior to 3 months of age was more effective than doing training later. Here is what they found.

How was the study completed?

The study was completed online via a questionnaire. 641 dog owners took part with 1023 dogs in total. The age of the dog, neuters status, sex and methods used in class were researched as well as topics such as overactivity, reactivity and house soiling. 48 % of the dogs had attended a training class, while 51% had not attended class. The 51% were the control group.

What were some of the findings of this study?

The study found that aggression, compulsive behaviour and excessive barking reduced in puppies that attended class who were less than 6 months old compared to dogs who had not attended.

Training methods

They studied dogs who had been trained using reward based methods vs punitive based methods (slip leads, martingale and shock collars). They found that dogs who were trained with positive reinforcement had less aggressive behaviour.

You can read the study here.

References

Dinwoodie, I.R.; Zottola, V.; Dodman, N.H. An Investigation into the Impact of Pre-Adolescent Training on Canine Behavior. Animals 2021, 11, 1298. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11051298