Starting Right With Puppy Training
The first week you have your puppy, her training should be focused on helping her feel safe and secure. She is stressed by leaving her family; bringing her into a chaotic, excited atmosphere will stress her even more. She needs security and routine.
Puppy training will be less stressful for you if you can remember a few principles:
- Your new puppy is a social animal that has just lost her mother and littermates
- Your puppy is not being naughty when she pees, chews or whines. This is natural behaviour.
- Puppies need the same things small children do: love and attention, physical care, safety and security.
- Puppy training will take a few steps backward whenever your puppy is stressed.
- Your puppy will cry and whine when she is left alone at night, but she needs to learn the routines of her new home to feel safe. A soft toy may comfort her, but she needs to be left alone. Do not return to her when she cries.
- It is normal for puppies to chew as their teeth develop.
- It is normal for your puppy to cry when she is lonely or afraid.
- It is normal for her to pee when she is excited. Like babies, puppies do not have the physical development to control their bladder and bowels until they are about 6 months old.
- In your puppy training, praise her when she does well, but don’t punish her for normal behavior.
Puppy training includes taking good care of your puppy and giving her plenty of love and attention. Security and routine are especially important for your puppy to feel safe. She needs a predictable routine. She needs to know that every time she chews on the furniture you will say “No!” sharply and redirect her. She feels safe when things are predictable, and she learns faster when she is safe.
Whenever she is stressed, puppy training will take a few steps backward. Regression is the normal puppy—and human—response to stress. If her behaviour regresses, your puppy training must revert to the stage before her regression. That’s the last stage she mastered, and you move forward from there.
Puppies are so much like small children, and puppy training is so much like teaching a child.
Love and consistency are the keys to puppy training that succeeds
