Puppies can be very fun to train. Though they have a lot of energy and tend to have short attention spans, they can learn quite fast if you can find out how to motivate them. However, it can be a bit daunting once you remember that they need a lot of training and education. To help you out, I am going to tell you where you need to start to set you and your puppy up for success.
Relationship Building
Believe it or not, you actually need to start with relationship building before you can achieve really effective training. Relationship building involves gaining a good understanding of your puppy and its personality, communication style, learning style, and what motivates it. Starting with this will help you with training because you will know what interests your puppy, how your puppy tells you that it needs a break or is overwhelmed, and how to motivate your puppy to learn and enjoy the process. You don’t have to spend a lot of time here before you get started with real training, but make sure to at least do a little bit of relationship building before you start training and continue it throughout your puppy’s life. I would recommend spending the first two days that your puppy is home focusing on getting to know your puppy and letting your puppy settle in before getting to work on clicker training. If you have adopted an older puppy from a shelter or another family, you may need to allow your puppy more time to settle in and adjust to the environment change.
Understanding Learning Theory
You also want to gain an understanding of how to teach your puppy. This is something that I would recommend you work on throughout your puppy's life, starting before you actually purchase your puppy. However, I have included it after relationship building because it is a good idea to review it all again before getting started training your puppy. Some things you need to know are how rewards work, how to mark behavior, and what behaviors to teach your puppy. To do this you can get the help of a trainer, read books, or talk to other people who have raised a puppy. Talking to a trainer and reading books can be the most helpful as talking to other owners, while it can be helpful, can also be quite confusing as different people will say different things work. As a result, it is best to start with professional advice. It is also important that you use positive reinforcement as this will promote a positive relationship, not only between you and your puppy, but also between your puppy and the behaviors you teach it to perform for you. Having this positive connection with behaviors can make behavior learning less stressful for both you and your puppy and lead to more reliable behaviors.
What to Train Your Puppy
Next, you want to train your puppy. To start, you need to train your puppy to be comfortable with people, places, animals, and experiencing new things. In short, you need to socialize your puppy. Next, which is a little bit of an extension of socialization, you need to introduce your puppy to basic husbandry training which involves being handled for vet visits and grooming. This is rarely taught by new puppy owners but extremely important as it will help you both in the vet’s office, and at home when you need to take care of your puppy’s health and grooming. You also need to work on basic obedience such as name recall and "sit", among other behaviors.
Closing Thoughts
Training a puppy can be fun but a bit tiring, so stay patient. To find out what you need to train your puppy and how to do it, check out The Ultimate New Puppy Course! This course covers all the above-mentioned topics and more! If you have a new puppy, or are about to get one, this course can help you and your puppy develop a strong relationship based on trust and learn important behaviors at the same time! If you have any questions about this course, please feel free to contact me at happyats@outlook.com!
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