When to Start Training a Puppy
When To Start Training A Puppy?
What Age Can You Begin? You should start at 8 to 10 weeks, as soon as you get your puppy home.
When to start training a puppy and what can be accomplished.
They will be eager to please, can learn a surprising amount, it’s fun for both of you and it’s quality time spent together that works to build the love and trust your puppy has for you, building a strong relationship.
Every waking minute, of every single day, whether you mean to or not, you are training your puppy!
You Are Your Puppy’s Parent, Mentor, Leader and Teacher
When you get your puppy home at 8 weeks, they know nothing about the world… Nothing!
Know that once you have your puppy, everything you do, everything they see, every good experience, bad experience, taste, smell, sight, reward and punishment trains them in some way.
All of these experiences are granted to them by you and they will be looking to you for guidance through these experiences.
Puppies are exactly like children. They cannot take care of themselves and are naïve to the world around them. But they’re highly observant and will be studying your every move as they learn about our world.
They take their cues from you to learn where they can go, where they should not, what they should be scared of, what they should not, what they can play with, what they can not…and on and on.
You’re teaching them every minute of every day, whether you mean to or not.
You may as well take advantage of this innocence, when they have no idea of what life is with no preconceived ideas, no habits formed or needing to be broken, to start training them to fit into the life that they will lead with the skills that they will need.
It’s far easier to prevent problems occurring and bad habits forming than it is to solve them later in life.
They’re learning all the time anyway, so you may as well take advantage and throw in some useful training…but have fun with it along the way.
But I stress this important point, to make it fun!
WRONG “Never ‘Correct” You should Correct Your Puppy, however don’t ask too much of them.
You have to think of a puppy as a very young child. A puppy is just as impulsive, has just as little self-control and just as short an attention span.
You don’t expect a child to act all grown up, eating only what they’re supposed to, playing with only their toys, staying exactly where you ask them to and listening intently to your every word doing exactly as they’re told.
You need to think the same with a puppy. They are just like a child.
A puppy will eat what they like, when they like. Go where they can, when they can. Play with and chew on everything in sight whether it’s theirs or not. And they will not be able to listen to and act on your every word.
They will have a very short attention span and no self-control. But when you do have their attention, you’ll be surprised at what they can learn.
What Rules Should We Follow When Training a Young Puppy?
It’s very easy to expect too much too soon and end up causing your puppy stress, taking the fun out of it and doing more harm than good. So…
It’s very important that you correct your puppy even if they’re too young to understand or do not have the mental ability to control themselves. They will understand.
It’s very important to keep any training ‘game based’ and very short, just 2 to 5 minutes max. They have short attention spans and you don’t want to teach them to dislike training by making it hard and stressful.
It’s very important to keep training tasks simple, setting your puppy up to succeed while avoiding failure.
This means going slow and not expecting too much. Having many small wins is very encouraging. Many failures are frustrating and stressful and can kill a puppy’s enthusiasm for training and learning.
Just do very gentle training exercises for short periods of time. Hope you can have their attention but if they aren’t interested or make a mistake, let them be, don’t force it, play with them instead and try later.
What Can You Train A Puppy To Do?
But bear in mind to ‘go slow and not expect too much’, you can’t expect a puppy to put the laundry in the basket or perform a 3 minute sit with children running around. But you can train them basic things such as:
Sit
Down
Wait (for mere seconds…with no distractions! Keep it easy!)
Leash Work
Roll over
Crawl
…and more besides!
I Highly Recommended, In Home Puppy Training from Value Dog Training. Value Dog Training will give you Step-By-Step session showing you and your puppy every step along the way. Value Dog Training , not only trains your puppy but teaches you how to train your puppy too.
Conclusion
There’s differing opinions on the best age to start training a puppy and no one opinion or answer is correct. Ultimately it depends on you and when you wish to start.
You could leave your puppy to ‘just be a puppy’ and start training when they’re a few months old, or you could start right away when you get them home.
Usually if the dog is to live in a family unit, it’s best to start young as having even the smallest amount of control and manners in your puppy is important if you wish to take them places, meeting people.
Value Dog Training For more information, contact us at 916-201-7080.
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