Benefits of Puppy Training
Does your dog or puppy sit, down, stay and come the first time you ask?
Or does your canine family member act more like a thief by stealing food and shoes or remodeling the furniture?
If this is your situation, you either have a young puppy or a bored adult dog who has been given too much freedom and too little puppy training and guidance!
These free puppy training tips will provide you a jump start in your new life together.
Did you know it is far easier to prevent bad habits in the first place, than to correct negative behaviors already in place after the fact?
For Puppies
If you have the luck of having the opportunity to mold a new puppy, you can potentially prevent your puppy from forming bad habits in the first place! By training your puppy, and filling his time with new and exciting things and activities there will be little time left over for getting into trouble. But what do you do if you have a life, work, kids and more?
As I like to say, short-term pain, long-term gain! Remember that this puppy thing won’t last forever, but the training you do, or don’t do will make or break your happy times together.
- Crate train your puppy or confine him to a safe area when you cannot be watching him-By not allowing him to find out how yummy it is to steal from the counters or trash can you will save yourself a lifetime of struggles. Your dog will NEVER unlearn this once he discovers the fruits of his misbehavior!
- Spend house time together on leash-If you want your dog or puppy with you inside the house, keep a leash on so you will notice if he ventures off to get into things or make potty mistakes. Prevention is the best medicine for jumping up or stealing. Hi-value items like your remote control, shoes or car-keys are likely to make you chase him which would be a really rewarding game so don’t let it happen in the first place by using the above strategies.
- Fill your new dog or puppies time with socialization, play, exercise and a little training.
- Rule of thumb for exercise– Two or three times per day is fine for maintenance but puppies will require more outings because they are growing and learning. If you are giving your puppy or new dog plenty of exercise there is no reason to feel guilty about three or four hours confined during the day until your puppy becomes trained.
Grown Dogs
For adult dogs the idea is the same but the concept is a little different. Likely a grown dog has picked up some undesirable habits that you would like to stop. Since you cannot expect your dog to be a statue dog and do nothing, you will need to back-fill the void with new positive behaviors, also known as replacement behaviors created through training.
- A quick example would be if you don’t like your dog to jump up, simply teach him to sit first for petting instead!
- Another example-Lunging at the end of the leash towards other dogs does not create a very pleasurable walking experience, so teach your dog to walk at your heel and to ignore the dogs you pass.
