INPUT ARTICLE: Article: German Shepherds are not necessarily any different than other dogs when it comes to training. If your dog does not know simple commands, such as sit and heel, then start with those. It is important to begin training by building trust between you and your dog. Keep training sessions happy and short and give the dog a break in between lessons for play and a drink. Food is a powerful motivator for most dogs. Other dogs, particularly those with a high prey drive, respond well to toys as a reward. Either way, praise, in addition to a reward that is valuable to your dog, is used to communicate to your dog that they have performed well. The timing of the reward is extremely important. Your praise and reward will need to come within two to three seconds of the behavior you are reinforcing. If the dog does something else in between the desired behavior and the reward, you are rewarding the last thing that the dog performed. For instance, if you want to teach the "sit" command, the praise and treat should be delivered when the dog is sitting with all feet on the ground. If you deliver the praise/treat with one paw up or as the dog starts getting up, you have just rewarded the dog for that most recent behavior. Treats should be small and tasty. Consider three types: Low, medium and high value treats. Keep these in your arsenal to help your dog learn commands. When they first learn a new command, you may need medium or high value to treats to start them off and treat for every success. As they understand the command more, start adding in lower value treats intermittently. You can always go back to high value treats at any time you want to let the dog know they did something exceptionally great and you want them to remember that so you get that behavior again and again. Gradually, you will phase out any treat and do more praise reward as the dog gets more consistent. You don't want to create a dog that will only work for food and ignore you the rest of the time. That could become a dangerous situation. Clicker training is a method where the dog learns to associate the sound of the clicker as a positive "marker" for behavior.[3] You start by clicking the device while feeding a high value treat over and over again so that the dog learns that the clicker sound means "very good." After that association is made in the dog's mind, you can create, or "shape," behaviors by clicking as the dog performs a behavior you like. You can click faster than you can praise or treat, so by clicking you reward the dog instantly and then follow up the click with a treat. Clicker training is an incredible way to train dogs because they learn so fast with such immediate feedback. Spend even less time (5 to 10 minutes) for younger pups. Multiple shorter training session are generally more effective than one long one, particularly for puppies under 6 months of age. Their attention span is short and puppies get tired; your patience will be worn thin trying to train an over tired puppy. Training has to be upbeat and happy in order to get the maximum response from the dog. Play with the puppy in between and help them understand that people are fun and not all about "school" all the time.

SUMMARY: Begin with dog training basics. Use food, praise, and toys as motivators. Consider clicker training. Spend no more than 20 minutes per training session without a break.

INPUT ARTICLE: Article: Think about which environmental factors and study skills help you retain information and do your best on exams. Decide whether you prefer to work in a quiet space by yourself or if a public place like a library or coffee shop helps keep you on task. Reflect on whether you remember facts better when for you to review your own lecture notes or when you skim the textbook and old class assignments. Figure out what combination of factors will bring out your most positive, productive, and focused self so you can implement this system into all future study sessions. Think back to past study sessions that went especially well, and others that didn't go well at all, to assess which factors help and hinder your progress. If you're able to develop a personalized study system, studying will be a lot less stressful for you. Studying day after day can be grueling, but rather than fixating on the negatives, get yourself in a positive frame of mind by visualizing all the good that your hard work will bring. Imagine yourself getting a good score on a test, receiving praise from your teacher, or feeling proud of your end-of-term grades. Let these good feelings wash over you as you reframe your perspective on studying. If you're hoping to attend college or earn a scholarship, think about how each small study session will get you 1 step closer to your dreams. Use your long-term goals as motivation to keep pushing yourself. Set concrete goals for your study session. Divide your larger studying goals into small, manageable steps. Identify specific, achievable goals that you can work on one at a time. This way, you can make good progress and achieving each goal will make you feel accomplished at the end of your study session. It's easy to get overwhelmed by a huge amount of homework and seemingly endless assignments. But rather than worrying, "How will I ever finish this assignment?" ask yourself, "How much of this assignment can I accomplish in 2 hours?" Instead of trying to read a whole book in 1 sitting, set a goal to read 1 chapter or 50 pages at a time. When prepping for a test, review your lecture notes from just the first week of the semester today, then focus your notes from the second week tomorrow. Depending on how much resistance you're experiencing, or how tough your subjects are, you can select an ordering system that lessens the stress and enables you to keep moving forward. Try working from the shortest to the most time-intensive task, work from easiest project to the hardest, or start by tackling the most difficult assignment first so things get easier as you go along. Or attack your subjects in order of your class schedule. If you've selected a logical system to follow, it will help reduce decision fatigue and you'll find it easier to shift from one task to the next. Once you've broken down your study load into bite-sized goals, it's time to fit them into a schedule that works for you. Those who prefer a more rigid schedule can assign a start and end time to each task. But those who prefer having some flexibility might want to budget out a time limit for each activity and determine the order based on how they're feeling. Whichever method you choose, reserve a specific block of time each day for studying. Telling yourself, "I'll have to study sometime this week" will encourage procrastination, but "I'm going to study from 6 PM to 9 PM on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday" will help you stick to your plan. Try sticking to a regular schedule, but feel free to break your usual routine if you need to shake things up. For instance, get a good night's sleep and set your alarm for 5:00 AM to study on Sunday morning. It might be easier to get up and get started right away since you've planned it in advance. The more specific and intentional you can be about scheduling out your study tasks, the more success you'll have with your studies and time management.

SUMMARY:
Assess which study habits bring you the most success. Focus on your long-term goals and what you'll achieve by studying. Break down your studying into smaller tasks or goals. Order your tasks from easiest-to-hardest or shortest-to-longest. Assign each task a time limit or a slot in your schedule.