{"id":6410,"date":"2021-12-09T12:37:04","date_gmt":"2021-12-09T11:37:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/?p=6410"},"modified":"2025-09-11T17:44:58","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T15:44:58","slug":"training-frequency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/training-frequency\/","title":{"rendered":"How often should you train the animal?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Updated September 2025. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this post, I&#8217;m sharing a chapter from my extensive online course <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/illis.se\/education\/courses\/getting-behaviour\/\" target=\"_blank\">Getting Behaviour!<\/a> The video below is one of the 108 similar chapters from the course. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The video discusses why training sessions should be shorter rather than longer, and why training more than once a day may in some cases actually hurt your training; sleep consolidates memory, so a second same-day training session may interfere with the consolidation of the first training session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-vimeo wp-block-embed-vimeo wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/230265709?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"580\" height=\"435\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Lisa shared the following: &#8220;I totally agree with the concept of allowing the animal time to \u2018sleep on it\u2019. When working with my ponies, if we have had a session that has seemed to be less productive, on returning to training the next day, it just seems to \u2018click\u2019 the next session!&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With regards to ways of ending training sessions, I should also clarify that if you can, ask for another behaviour rather than walk away if things are not progressing. Sometimes though, for instance in the case of aggressive behaviour, negative punishment may be warranted &#8211; or, if you will, a cool-down period. But, if you have to resort to that, you should ask yourself: how can I avoid this situation in the future? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Generally, I wouldn\u2019t be too concerned if you end the session with a frustrated animal on rare occasions, as long as it\u2019s not the norm &#8211; and as long as you take such occasions as learning opportunities to understand how you can avoid them from recurring. Sometimes it\u2019s better to quit than continuing a session that&#8217;s not working &#8211; and getting frustrated yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I had one great question to this chapter: \u201cIf sleep is important to consolidate learning, is it only extended sleep (overnight sleep)? Many animals have short sleep periods during the daytime. Don\u2019t naps contribute to learning consolidation?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here\u2019s what the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/16647282\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">research says:<\/a>&nbsp;&nbsp;<em>\u201cAfter a comparatively brief sleep episode, subjects that take a nap improve more on a declarative memory (knowing what) task than subjects that stay awake, but that improvement on a procedural memory task (knowing how) is the same regardless of whether subjects take a nap or remain awake. Slow wave sleep was the only sleep parameter to correlate positively with declarative memory improvement.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Extended sleep is also needed for&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/23984946\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">procedural memory consolidation,<\/a>&nbsp;though..!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are three sleep stages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Stage 1: eyes closed, easy to wake.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Stage 2: light sleep. Heart rate down, temperature drops.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Stage 3: deep sleep \u2013 this is when declarative memory consolidation occurs \u2013 and we typically <em>don\u2019t get to this stage during short naps.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>***<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Curious about courses, blog posts, free masterclasses and silly experiments on the topic of animal behaviour, learning and welfare? Sign up below, and I&#8217;ll keep you posted!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>References: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1002\/ajp.20659\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Positive reinforcement training in rhesus macaques: Training progress as a result of training frequency.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/chrome-extension:\/\/efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj\/viewer.html?pdfurl=http%3A%2F%2Fscentdogsaustralia.com%2Fuploads%2F3%2F3%2F0%2F6%2F3306503%2Ffrequency_and_duration_of_training_on_memory.pdf&amp;clen=368351&amp;chunk=true\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The effect of frequency and duration of training sessions on acquisition and long-term memory in dogs. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Updated September 2025. In this post, I&#8217;m sharing a chapter from my extensive online course Getting Behaviour! The video below is one of the 108 similar chapters from the course. The video discusses why training sessions should be shorter rather than longer, and why training more than once a day may in some cases actually [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6410"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6410"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8150,"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6410\/revisions\/8150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}