New Year Dog Training Goals & Organization Ideas for 2023
The new year is a time when many people are setting all kinds of personal and lifestyle resolutions. This can also be a great time to set some goals for what you want to achieve with your dog in 2023. These include small goals like finding time each day for training and groomingor big goals like qualifying for nationals or getting ready to compete in a sport for the first time.
Define Your Goals
One of the big benefits of setting training goals is that you can use them to guide your training sessions with your dog for the year to come. They can help you structure your daily or weekly training time and prioritize which skills and behaviors to focus on and which new ones to teach next. By identifying the specific things you need and want to work on, you’ll be able to enjoy more productive individual training sessions with your dog.
Set Measurable Goals
It’s most helpful to think about setting goals that can be tracked and measured. For example, if you want to be ready for your dog to earn their Elite Performer Trick Dog title by the end of the year, you might want to make a list of how many tricks you need to teach your dog to achieve each earlier Trick Dog title. Then you can figure out how many tricks you need to teach them each month to achieve your goal.
Measurable goals are key to keeping you and your dog on target. It’s helpful to set smaller goals/intentions that can build toward a bigger goal. If you and your dog have been training in a sport, you might set a goal of being ready to compete by the end of the year. You can then set smaller, measurable goals like committing to training a certain number of times per week and taking your dog to a new place to train three times a month to work on focus amid distractions.
You might also set a goal of entering a certain number of fun matches to help you and your dog get used to what it will be like to compete. Achieving these smaller goals will help build up your dog’s experience, and your confidence, so that you’re both ready to achieve your big goal of being able to start competing by the end of the year.
