Puppy Obedience Training: 3 Essential Tips for Starting Off on the Right Foot!
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Puppy Obedience Training: 3 Essential Tips
Congratulations on your new puppy! As with all babies, time flies by, and soon, your little one will be an adult dog who will give you many years of companionship and joy. If you’re like most new dog owners, you want to enjoy this special time with your puppy-but you also want to make sure you’re raising a well-behaved dog. To help you on the path to successful dog ownership, I’ve compiled some proven puppy obedience training tips that will help you and your new pet develop a working partnership that will “last a lifetime”.
Puppy Obedience Training Tip #1: Lay Down the Rules
One of the biggest mistakes new dog owners make when it comes to puppy obedience training is initially allowing their puppy to get away with undesirable behavior simply because the puppy is tiny, cute, and full of wide-eyed innocence.
As the puppy grows, those little “love bites” turn into painful chomps, those little paws scrabbling at your ankles become huge paws scrabbling at your knees, and those chewed house slippers become Grandma’s chewed Victorian sofa or Sally’s destroyed science fair exhibit. The problem is, you can’t suddenly decide that you don’t want your puppy to nip, chew, or jump up anymore and begin yelling at him for his bad behavior.
From day one, it is your responsibility to establish boundaries for your puppy. Obedience training is about so much more than “sit,” “stay,” and “come.” It’s about raising a good ‘canine citizen’. Your puppy may be too young at the outset to learn any actual obedience commands, but he’s not too young to learn that he shouldn’t chew on your hands, jump up on you when he’s excited, or gnaw on that which is not a designated toy.
**Check out my other dog and puppy obedience training articles and learn from the outset how to curb nipping, unwanted chewing, and jumping. You won’t regret it!
** Click Here to Cure Your Puppy’s Training Problems **
Puppy Obedience Training Tip #2: Think Like a Puppy
If you’ve ever had children of your own or interacted with someone else’s child, you probably realize two things:
a) Children have very short attention spans, and…
b) Simple concepts must be taught before more difficult skills can be learned.
When it comes to puppy obedience training, the same principles that apply to children can also be applied to puppies, as well! You may be ‘itching’ to teach your puppy to fetch you a beer from the fridge, but…….. not so fast! The more complex the action, the longer it’s going to take to teach, and at this stage puppies just don’t have the necessary attention span or cognitive ability to learn anything beyond the most basic commands.
A good place to start with puppy obedience training is the “sit” command. This command is not only useful; it is also very easy to teach.
The first step when training your puppy to “sit” is to make sure he has had plenty of exercise beforehand. This will calm him so he is more focused on the upcoming task.
Next, give your new puppy every opportunity to succeed, so find a small, quiet area free of visual or auditory distractions.
Now, with a pocketful of your pup’s favorite treats, stand facing your dog (make sure he’s standing, as well!). Then, with one hand, press down gently on your dog’s rump, slightly above the tail while clearly speaking the “Sit” command as your dog moves into the sitting position.
Once your dog is sitting, praise him lavishly and give him a treat. Congratulations! You have now started your puppy obedience training!!
While adult dogs can be trained in 15-20 minute intervals, your puppy obedience training sessions should be broken down into much smaller periods-perhaps five minutes, a few times a day. Try to imagine the training session from your puppy’s point of view. Is he getting bored? Playful? Distracted? If so, then ‘take a break’ for a snack, a nap, or a good old fashioned play session. After all, you wouldn’t expect a Kindergarten child to sit through 8 hours of classes, would you!!
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Puppy Obedience Training Tip #3: Positive Reinforcement
Hopefully, this tip comes as no surprise to you, but as I’m consistently shocked by the number of people who still think it’s good practice to smack a puppy with a rolled up newspaper, I decided to take a moment to debunk some of the more prevalent puppy obedience training myths.
For starters, hitting a puppy is never the answer to any obedience issue-ever. Chances are, your puppy won’t understand that he did something wrong; he’ll only understand that you, his owner, just hit him and hurt/scared him. Rather than learning not to do whatever it is he was doing, he’ll only learn that you’re someone who should be feared. Striking a dog is not training. It’s abuse !!
If your puppy is doing something you don’t like, you must replace that behavior with a more desirable one. Is he chewing on your favorite pair of slippers? Take them away and give him one of his own toys to gnaw on. Did he just have an accident on the floor? Take him outside immediately and praise him for being there. Speaking of accidents, you should never, ever rub your puppy’s face in his own “mess.” Would you rub a baby’s nose in its dirty diaper? No! All your puppy will learn from this experience is to fear going to the bathroom, which could result in housebreaking issues further on down the road.
Finally, shouting at your puppy when you’re upset will yield no further results than a scratchy throat on your part and terror on the part of your puppy. Puppies, no matter how badly we want them to, cannot understand English. Your puppy won’t know what you’re saying-he’ll only feel the anger in your voice and wish he knew how to make you happy again. Instead of standing there yelling at him, use positive reinforcement to gently show him what you’re looking for.
Puppy obedience training will be a fruitful experience for both of you if each session is driven by patience, love, and common sense. Done correctly, puppy obedience training will help you to forge a stronger bond with your dog that will establish you as ‘partners for life’, but if done wrong it will inevitably lead to larger behavioral problems in the future.
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