For a long time, I never really taught young animals the benefits of working at a younger age for various reasons with the main one being I was lazy. I try to instill a work ethic in all of my young dogs now simply to make it easier for me.

I begin teaching them how to flirtpole which the majority of them absolutely love. After they have that down to a puppy science, I move them over to a spring pole. Whatever bait I start off using with the springpole is the one I always keep for that particular set of dogs. Once they're rocking and rolling those two particular exercises, I move them over to my catmill. This is the one exercise that I've found a great majority of dogs will do even if they won't run a regular slatmill. They're on the ground, feet planted firmly. It makes very little noise, and they can run it exactly how they want.

Once I have them doing those three, then I move on the slatmill as it's usually the hardest one for them to get used to doing for reasons already listed.