Puppy Training
Training a puppy can be an exciting adventure or an overwhelming endeavor depending on your experience and comfort with dogs.
To teach you everything you need to know about puppy training honestly goes beyond my expertise and the scope of the Puppy Prep Class. I do want to make sure you are equipped with a few tips to get started and to give you some other resources to further your learning. These will at least get you started for the first few days of owning your puppy.
Training Methods and Resources
Let’s start with the concept of training methods. Dog training is a science and profession that has existed for ages and has, thus, developed innumerable branches of theories, implementations, and methods. Most of the methods are perfectly fine and achieve excellent results, but there is a lot of variance in how they get there.
My first tip for training: no matter what trainer or method you follow, stick with it. Frequently switching the way you train will no doubt cause great confusion for your puppy.
Now, that being said, if something truly isn’t working after giving it a good try for several weeks to a month, then it’s ok to adapt and change what you are doing.
This is especially important for those of you who want to avoid paying for training classes or hiring professional training and want to learn from Google and YouTube. It’s fine if you want to do this, but I’d encourage you to pick one good website or channel and stick with it.
If you are open to investing a little money into a training class, but still plan to train your puppy by yourself, then we recommend Baxter & Bella. It’s an online puppy school made specifically for new puppy owners. There are videos, podcasts, games, and easy-to-follow instructions to make your dog the best trained dog around.
Training Endurance
When you take your puppy home at 8-12 weeks old, remember that they are still very young and won’t be able to handle long training sessions often. If you try to stretch a strenuous training session too long, it will actually have a negative effect on their learning and behavior.
Try to do all training sessions at a time when the puppy is well-rested, but not necessarily well-fed. You can use their hunger as a motivator for treats.
Training sessions should only last a maximum of 15 minutes or about 5-10 repetitions.
If you notice your puppy declining in attentiveness or acting out with negative behaviors, just stop the training session and try again another time.