Chapter 5
🐾 Give each step enough time
Even though the individual parts of this course follow one after another, it is important that you do not rush through them.
Each step needs enough time to become really stable before you move on.
🐕 Adult Dogs
If you are starting with an adult dog, you can use the following timeline as a rough guide:
✅ Food leading: at least 2 weeks
✅ Food driving: at least 1–2 months
✅ Only then start phasing out the hand
The exact timing can of course vary depending on the individual dog.
🐶 Puppies & Young Dogs
With puppies and young dogs, I recommend giving yourselves significantly more time.
For example:
✅ Food leading: around 2–3 weeks
✅ Food driving: at least 6 months – often even longer
Later, in Chapter 6, we will look at the complete phasing out of the hand.
The next step, however, is only an intermediate step, which you can already work on in parallel.
This means that food driving can remain part of your training for a very long time — sometimes even around a year, while you gradually build the other parts alongside it.
📈 Why does it take longer with young dogs?
Puppies and young dogs are still developing.
They:
➡️ grow in size
➡️ change physically
➡️ develop in character
➡️ and their position in heelwork may change as they grow
Every time the dog changes physically, the heelwork picture can change as well.
That is why there is no benefit in trying to finish everything too early.
💡 Stay relaxed and give your dog the time he needs. A strong and stable foundation is much more important than progressing quickly.