Puppy Training

The Most Influential Period For Your Puppy's Growth is between the age of 7 and 14 weeks, after a puppy is weaned from its mother. This is when many of its habits and social skills are formed. So it's never too soon to start puppy training. If you start right away, you'll form good behavior and habits from the very start, and create a treasured, lifelong bond between you and your dog. Puppies naturally bond more closely and strongly than older dogs do, which makes them even more receptive to training.

Puppies are like children--it's best to train them early what's expected of them and how you want them to behave.

The Behavior They Exhibit Now,
Is The Behavior They'll
Continue As They Get Older.

You want your puppy training to start off right. The trick is to recognize that what may appear cute now when the dog is small may not be so cute when the dog is bigger and heavier. If you encourage a puppy to jump on you because you think it's adorable, your dog will not understand later on, when you want it suddenly to stop. It will be very difficult to break your dog of what is now a BAD HABIT! If you wrestle with your puppy and encourage it to nibble and bite, it will think it's okay when it's bigger and a lot stronger. By then, you won't think it's so cute when your dog nips you.

You Must Stop The Bad Behavior
As A Puppy, Before Your Puppy Grows Up
To Be A Dog With Bad Habits.

The key to puppy training is to envision the kind of grown dog you want—how you want it to behave when it's older, and start training your puppy to be that dog now. This is when it's easiest to teach your puppy. It's important, too, to consider not only what you want your dog to do but what you don't want your dog to do. And one of the things you don't want your dog to do is exhibit aggressive, dominant behavior.

For example, how do you want your grown dog to behave when it's feeding time? This is more serious than most new owners realize. Grown dogs can become quite aggressive around food, even Dangerously so, if they are not trained while still a puppy to be calm and well-behaved around food. Ideally, you want your puppy to learn to sit and wait patiently and quietly while you prepare and deliver its food.

You Must Train Your Puppy
To Wait Until You Give It
Permission To Eat.

Sound silly? Not at all. In fact, it's one of the most Fundamental Lessons in puppy training and is the best way to ensure your puppy knows that you are the top dog and that he depends upon you for its food.

You want to train your puppy to wait until you give the command to eat before it approaches the food bowl. A SHARP "ah, AH!" may be all that you need to do. Or a quick tug on the scruff of its neck just like its mother would do. As your puppy learns to wait, you can begin taking the food away every other day when he is only half-finished, and make him wait patiently until you put it back down and permit him to resume eating. This will stop any food aggression when your dog is older and help create a positive bond with your dog.

For more information on puppy training and other dog training and obedience tips you can sign up (at the top right of the page) for our informative, Free e-book where you will Discover how to turn your Disobedient, Noisy and Frustrating dog into a well behaved member of the family that you can be PROUD of and others will ADMIRE!