Puppy Training Tips
By UniversityDog | September 21, 2007
They’re our companions, our buddies; they give us unconditional love, keep us entertained and bring great comfort. They’re our dogs and we love them. But left untrained and undisciplined, they can be nothing short of unwanted guests in our homes.
Hello and welcome; today we’ll be learning together some valuable tips about living with and successfully training man’s best friend. Here to help us with that is a Trainer and a Behavioral Consultant, as well as the owner of Day One Dog Training.
Training can and should start the actual day that your dog comes home with you. Now why is that so important?
Because puppies are learning - a lot of trainers and behaviorists call them little sponges; they’re learning from the time that their eyes open and their little feet start working and they start exploring their environment. So since they’re learning anyway we might as well step in and teach them what we want them to know. As many of our listeners, if they’ve had dogs will know, dogs are creatures of habit and routine. The question isn’t whether they will get into habits; the question is whose habits will they develop? the ones they come upon naturally, which are usually the things we don’t like, or the ones we teach them which are the things that make them great pets and companions?
So there isn’t actually an age that is too young to begin training dogs?
No, in fact, a lot of breeders will actually start doing a little bit of training when the puppies are six and seven weeks old and some people if they’re lucky and they get a puppy from a determined and diligent breeder will get puppies who are almost house-trained at about eight or nine weeks which is very rare, but it’s proof that they can learn that there are some places that are okay to go to the bathroom meaning outside or on paper and not other places like your carpeting.
Topics: House Training, Puppy Training Tips |
