Basic Obedience Training For Puppies: Where to Start

Obedience training equips your puppies with the necessary skills to fit into your home. It also teaches them how to interact with family members, strangers, and other dogs. It introduces desired behaviors and discourages, eventually eliminating negative habits. Puppy obedience training is essential in adapting puppies to your unique lifestyle or needs and can be efficiently achieved by a company for dog obedience training.

Guard dogs undergo different training from seeing-eye dogs or service dogs, all of which require professional dog trainers. Pet puppies only need to learn a few basic commands and require minor behavior modification. Ideally, you can train your puppy at home, but it is best to get a dog trainer whenever possible.

How to Start Obedience Training

Puppies have a short attention span but are eager to learn. Simplified training techniques can be applied as soon as you bring your puppy home. Anytime not spent training a puppy is spent acquiring negative habits like whining, begging, chewing items, or unnecessarily aggressive barking. It is hard to retrain puppies once they have learned negative habits; prevention is the best measure.

There isn’t a specified recommended behavior or method to start training your puppies. The essential thing is to establish a relationship where your puppy learns to listen to you, e.g., by responding to their name and eventually following your instructions. Puppies begin by learning to respond to simple instructions like ‘sit,’ ‘stay,’ ‘fetch,’ and as they grow up, they learn more complex behaviors like potty training.

Reward your Puppy

Dogs are eager to please, and this is even more true for puppies. They are highly motivated by rewards and praise. Verbally encourage or pet your puppy every time they follow a command or get a behavior right. Alternatively, you can give your puppy a healthy treat for every positive behavior. Puppies pick up on your energy and will quickly know if you approve of their behavior or not.

Watch out not to over-treat your puppy as it may cause unhealthy weight gain. Verbal affirmation and petting together with treats help puppies learn correct behavior best. The combination method trains your puppy not to expect a treat after every obedient action. Wean your puppy of treats once the commands have been mastered and stick to mealtime feeding only.

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Short  and Consistent Training Sessions

Five minutes is long enough for your puppy to concentrate on a singular task, so training sessions must not be extended. This is likely to frustrate your puppy and make them resent training. Concentrate on a single simple command such as ‘fetch’ and repeat it severally every day until your puppy has mastered the maneuver. Use firm verbal commands and reward your puppy for following directions. Do not get agitated when repeating the command, as your puppies will pick up on aggression.

Consistently have practice sessions and maintain the same level of reward. Do not give in to your puppy’s begging or whining! Hard as it may be to resist, there is no way to reinforce positive behavior if you reward negative behavior. Do not send your puppy mixed signals regarding obedience, e.g. do not feed your puppy scraps of the dinner table, or they will not learn to sit in their crate when people are eating.

Diversify Trainers and Training Environments

Issue commands to your dog in various environments and not just at home. This assures you that your puppy will not only ‘sit’ in the backyard but also when in highly stimulating environments like on a walk or at a dog park. When your puppy obeys commands against their better impulse, then obedience training is proved to have taken.

Teaching your puppy to obey other family members except the primary owner/trainer is an excellent place to start. A large p[part of obedience is teaching your puppy its position and role in your home. Your puppy must learn to obey even the children in your household. Exposing your puppy children is also vital as they often agitate each other. It is essential to teach your puppy to remain calm and playful around children by exposing them early.

Join a Professional Obedience Class

Whether you are having challenges training at home or wish for your puppy to learn in a dynamic environment, a puppy obedience class is wonderful for both you and the puppy. The classes enroll puppies as young as two weeks old, and there you can interact with others and learn by observation or imitation.

Trainers also make home visits if you wish for your puppy to be trained in their territory. Always check that a trainer is verified before hiring, or ask your vet for a recommendation. It is also advised to be present when the trainer is handling your puppy.