Owning a puppy comes with a lot of fun and a lot of responsibility. While most people think that fetch is the first thing you teach a new puppy, the reality is not quite as fun. There are many things you have to teach a puppy in order to help them feel comfortable in their new surroundings. It takes some patience, but teaching a puppy their first important lessons is necessary.
Potty Training
There are many ways to potty train your puppy, so you can choose the method that seems most effective to you. If you find that your puppy is not responding to potty training, then either switch tactics or talk to someone from an obedience school.
Boundaries
Play is important to a puppy for many reasons. One of the biggest tasks associated with play for a puppy is learning their boundaries for behavior. You can use play to let a puppy know when it is being too aggressive, and when it is playing in an area of the house where it should not be playing. This will also help your puppy to understand how to play with children.
Name Recognition
Your quest to train your puppy becomes much easier when your puppy can recognize its own name. By using your puppy’s name in a variety of situations and being sure to address your puppy directly by their name, you can get your puppy to recognize their name and come when you call.
Paying Attention
If you have ever seen a dog’s attention span represented in cartoons, you are probably familiar with the idea that a puppy is easily distracted. It takes time, but by rewarding your dog for being patient and paying attention when someone is talking to them, you can get your puppy to stay focused long enough for you to finish a sentence.
Stay
A part of getting your puppy to pay attention is to teach them basic commands such as stay. Call your puppy over to your and place your hand in front of its nose and tell it to stay. After a couple of seconds, you can reward your puppy. Over time, you won’t need to place your hand in front of your puppy and the treat will be optional.
Sit
Puppies want to experience as much of the world as they can all at once. A good way to help your puppy to learn to relax is to teach the puppy to sit. There are a lot of ways to teach a puppy to sit, but a visit to an obedience trainer is often the best solution.
Heel
Some people tell their puppies to heel, others tell their puppies to sit. The common desired result is to get your puppy to respond to your command by calmly sitting by your side and waiting for its next command. This will help you keep your puppy out of trouble for the rest of its life.
Speak
The theory is that if you can train your puppy to speak on command, then it becomes easier to get your puppy to quiet down when it is barking uncontrollably. The results of the theory can be mixed, but teaching your puppy to speak is still an important lesson.
Here
Dogs often respond differently to certain types of words, and here is a word many people use in place of come. It is completely up to you which word you use, but the desired result is to get your dog to stop whatever it is doing and come to you.
Down
If you can teach your puppy how to stop jumping on visitors by using the down command, then you can save your friends and yourself some embarrassing moments.
