5 Things to Keep In Mind When Training your Puppy

Training puppies is said to be just as if not more intensive in the early stages as raising a child. The amount if misplaced energy they have has turned the most patient of us into Homer Simpson after Bart has made another bad decision. We wanted to make the process of training a puppy more straightforward for owners by sharing 5 things to consider when training your dog.

5. The Leash is your Best Friend

Make your puppy earn their freedom, yes that sounds a bit extreme, but it is the simplest way you can teach your puppy what they can and cannot do in any setting. Are they jumping onto strangers? They wouldn’t be able to if you had a leash on them. Are they jumping all over your countertops? If you tethered them to a leash that wouldn’t happen. Let them earn their freedom from the leash even in the house.

4. Set Your Puppy up for Success

Your pup can’t take food off your counter if there isn’t food there, they wont bark at anything outside if they cannot see out there. Put things in place to minimize the chance of bad behavior. Whether thats keeping food out of reach, or closing blinds so they can’t see the mailman. Also make sure you are tiring your puppy out. A tired pup is a good pup, so make sure you are also taking your puppy out to exercise as well.

3. Set the Time aside and be Consistent

Like building that dream gym body, training your dog takes daily consistent effort. Set aside the time daily, it doesn’t have to be a lot of time either. 30-45 minutes a day is more than good enough as long as you stay consistent.

2. Positive Reinforcement

Owners have a tendency to punish bad behaviours much more than celebrate good ones. If all a puppy knows is punishment it will not know what is wanted from them, making them feel like everything they do is wrong. Try to avoid saying “no” as much as possible, some owners even go as far as ignoring bad behavior as much as possible, in order to not get reactive behavior from their pups.

1. Train in New Settings

Puppy’s are not very good at applying behaviours they learn in one setting to another. teach them the same things in different places and for different reasons. You should be teaching them how to sit in the park, your front yard, and at your parents house.

With all that being said, the most important thing is to make sure you are treating your pet well and they will respond to you better.