We love giving puppy training tips in Northern Virginia at our dog training facility!
A new puppy home is a massive moment in any dog owner’s life. They are cute and playful, and one can’t seem to get enough of them. Moving forward, you can’t wait to enjoy every milestone up to when you can go for walks with your 
well-behaved puppy. But that’s far from it. Puppies are a lot of work, something only a puppy owner who has woken up to a messy floor or chewed up shoes or clothes can attest to. Whether you’re getting a puppy for the first time or have been a dog owner all your life, training a new puppy can be physically and emotionally draining. There is so much to teach your new puppy, from proper socialization to basic obedience and potty training.
Why Puppy Training?
Training a dog should begin at the earliest possible time, and the best time is during puppyhood. The lessons your puppy will learn at this stage will follow him long into his adult life. Puppy training helps establish a line of communication between you and your new puppy. It also helps create a bonding experience like no other as your puppy learns to look to you as the pack leader and starts trusting and respecting your guidance.
If not addressed, unmanaged behaviors like potty training problems, nipping, barking, and chewing everything on sight could continue or worsen. An untrained pup can also display behavioral issues because you never taught them that walking beside you in a heel position is what they are supposed to do. Puppies have a short attention span and often won’t understand what you want with them or how to live around other people and dogs. With proper training, however, from early on, your puppy will learn how to act and behave when in public and private.
Mastering Basic Puppy Training: Teaching Your Puppy Life Skills
All interactions with your new puppy are potential life skill lessons and a foundation for higher learning as the puppy matures. So, while any training may seem basic at first, it’s a foundation for life-long lessons your puppy will carry into adulthood. Puppy training prioritizes some basics for an obedient and well-mannered dog.
Potty Training
The most critical stage for any puppy is potty training. A new puppy doesn’t understand where to go potty or how many times to do it, leading to a lot of mess on your floor. For many puppy owners, potty training is that dreaded stage in puppy training they would rather skip if they had a choice. But it’s one of the essential skills your puppy needs to learn from early on and one you can’t afford to skip. It provides a structure where your puppy understands where to do his business and when to go potty. If you don’t get this fundamental training right when your dog is still in puppyhood, you risk living with a dog who makes messes anywhere and doesn’t know when to do his business.
Boundary Training
Boundaries are about giving your puppy the rules of conduct to follow when in public and at home. They entail what your puppy can and can’t do, like whether they are allowed on the couch or not and how to greet strangers in public. By
establishing boundaries, you establish a good foundation that facilitates good manners in all walks of your new best friend’s life.
Socialization
Socialization is a very crucial part of basic puppy training. It involves taking your puppy to new places to explore new environments and meet new people and other dogs. Socialization lays the foundation for your dog’s activity for the rest of his life and temperament. A properly socialized puppy is calmer, friendlier, and happier. The best time to start puppy socialization is at 12 weeks. But here’s the thing; socialization is crucial but never force your puppy into situations they are uncomfortable with. If your puppy is uncomfortable with a situation, pull back and try some other time.
Biting and Nipping
Puppies are curious and want to explore the world around them any chance they get. One of the ways they do that is by biting and nipping. This behavior can progress through adulthood, leading to aggression and separation anxiety issues if left unchecked. To set up your puppy for success in the future, remove any items they might chew on. Instead, buy your puppy chew toys if you don’t want to keep replacing your clothes, shoes, and even furniture.
Handling
The truth is, there will come a time when you have to take your puppy to the vet. How they handle that session and behave during that time is determined by how you’ve been handling them. It’s vital to get your new puppy used to being handled by vets and other people by getting them used to being touched all over the body.
Basic Obedience
You can start working on basic obedience for your puppy as soon as you get them home. Commands and training cues provide a sense of structure that you and your puppy will follow going forth. Basic commands like “sit,” “come,” “no,” and “down” should be taught as early as possible. Such basic commands will go a long way in helping raise a well-behaved adult dog.
Enroll In Our Online Training Course: Raising the Perfect Dog
Bringing a puppy home is exciting, but there is no denying it’s also an added responsibility. Puppy training ensures your puppy lives a comfortable, safe, and happy life. Ideally, it’s also one of the best ways of ridding yourself of that new puppyhood overwhelm most dog owners have to go through faster. Puppy training allows you to have a well-trained puppy by your side in various activities and environments. Such a puppy is also confident and has the social skills to interact safely with other people and dogs.
It is the dream of any puppy owner to have a well-behaved puppy, but the reality is it takes consistent training, practice, and patience to see your puppy grow into the kind of dog you want. Many puppy owners, therefore, get discouraged
early on and don’t even consider professional puppy training. The outcome is a puppy who grows up with unchecked behavioral issues. Maturing without puppy training leaves many puppies at risk of finding themselves in a shelter or being re-homed which is just sad.
The solution; if you don’t have the training skills that, sadly, most dog owners don’t have, it’s best if you enroll your puppy in a training class with a professional. The good news is that your favorite dog training company, Off Leash K9 Training, just launched a one-of-a-kind puppy training course for first-time puppy owners and experienced dog owners who suddenly found themselves with a new puppy. The course is taught exclusively by Nick White, a former US Marine and Secret Service and founder of Off Leash K9 Training. White has extensive experience in dog training, having trained dogs of top celebrities like Ryan Reynolds and athletes like John Cena, besides hosting A&E’s hit show “America’s Top Dog.”
White created the course to give puppy owners the skills and knowledge they need to raise the perfect dog from puppyhood to adulthood. The course covers all the challenging areas puppy owners have to overcome like:
- Potty and crate training
- Socialization
- Basic obedience and commands
- Behavioral issues like jumping and barking at other people and dogs
- Marker and reward set up
- Touch point desensitization
- Confidence building
- Exploring new environments
- Pack leadership and more
What does the course contain? Here’s what you get when you enroll today:
- 3 hours of On-Demand Video Instruction broken down into manageable 24 instructional videos
- 8 Printable Worksheets
- Short Quizzes to check your learnings within the course
In the end, you get a puppy who is well behaved, who doesn’t chew everything on sight, and who knows where to do his business. By the end of the course, you will have all the tools you need to create a lifelong bond with your dog. If you are ready to raise the perfect dog, enroll now in The ONLY Course, You’ll EVER Need to Raise a Happy, Obedient Dog!
