Online puppy training.
So you've placed a deposit on a beautiful new puppy! What's next?
For some, beginning puppy training is the next logical step but for others there is a belief that the puppy has to be older. Some even believe training doesn't start until the puppy is a year old. The truth is that puppy training is happening the whole time your puppy is awake and interacting with its surroundings. The most critical period in a puppy's development is between 8 and 20 weeks old. This is the time which the puppy is the most receptive to change as permanent behaviors or habits have not been set yet. During this period they are constantly doing things and then seeing your reaction to them. Behaviors which are reinforced by you are learned by the puppy as behaviors that get the puppy some of your attention.
So the trick to raising a cute puppy into an adult who is well behaved is to know your stuff before bringing your puppy home. Your interaction with your puppy in the car ride home and the first walk around the house all set the initial boundaries of how your puppy should act toward you and other humans.
Potty training, house training or crate training all start now, so why would you wait for one year to train your puppy? Potty training for example is the art, and I use the word art loosely ha! But it is the art of catching your puppy just before they have to go, whooshing them outside and then rewarding with praise and attention or a treat once they go at their spot outside. Obedience training is no different.
Obedience training, just like potty training is catching your new puppy in the act of doing something good and rewarding it with your praise, attention or a treat! Same Same! It’s for this reason that you absolutely cannot wait until your puppy is sixteen weeks old before you bring him/her to a formal training class. Online puppy training focuses on the one key participant in the puppy training process—you!
Yes even if your puppy attended obedience classes with someone else, you would have to continue the exact same rituals at home. If you didn’t then your puppy will return to doing puppy things and not the trained behaviours you desire. Taking a good online puppy training program not only shows you what motions to go through it will explain why you do things a certain way and helps you to understand how your puppy learns. That's right, training a puppy properly first involves training you!
This understanding during the online puppy training will help you go beyond the five or six commands your puppy would have learned in puppy school at 16 weeks old and will allow you to facilitate training your dog for their entire lives. A good positive reinforcement puppy training program via an online puppy training video series will allow you to understand how to go about training your puppy to sit or take his/her “place” when the doorbell rings even if the online puppy training did not specifically address that command. Your new understanding of how puppies learn will allow you to train them to do whatever your heart desires. Yes, you can even train them to bring you a bottle of water out of the fridge and close the door behind them.
I address the topic of how puppies learn in my online puppy training program here. I do this through showing you how to teach sit, stay, come, down, off, fetch, heel and more. Along with articles on how to address play biting, crate training, potty training, bell training to go potty, addressing the puppy crying through the night, and much more. It is all teachable once you understand how. The old saying “he won’t stop jumping up” or “he barks like crazy when someone comes to the door” will be transformed into thinking “I don’t stop him from jumping up” and “I allow him to bark when someone comes to the door.”
Train, Don’t Complain.
Trainer Dan
