If you’re looking for Puppy Training Tips, chances are you’re either a new pet parent or a dog trainer—and if you’re a dog trainer, you already know you have a pretty fun and fulfilling job. You get to train lots of furry companions and meet them regularly, which is every dog lover’s dream come true. On top of that, you experience the joy of watching a dog grow in manners and behavior over time. The gratitude and happiness of pet parents when they see their dog become obedient and easier to manage is another rewarding aspect of the job.
Most often, puppies are brought in for training more frequently than older dogs. This is because pet parents are usually encouraged to begin training at a young age. Puppies can start learning basic commands as early as 5–6 weeks old. As a trainer, this puts you in a unique position you’re working with young, curious minds full of energy, which you must manage carefully.
Despite their eagerness and quick learning abilities, puppies can present a few challenges during training. Additionally, you carry the responsibility of meeting the pet parents’ expectations and ensuring the puppy’s safety throughout the training process
Effective “Puppy Training Tips”
Start socialization early
We all know how important it is for puppies to get used to people early on. As a trainer, you can recommend to parents that they ensure that they are introducing their puppy to several different people early on. Of course, it becomes important to take precautions and tell them the right ways to do it in a controlled environment.
Be consistent
Consistency is extremely important to make the puppy feel secure and happy. While they are undergoing training, since they are quite young, they are also discovering living from scratch. This means they can be quite impressionable and when that is the case, being consistent when it comes to both commands and session durations becomes extremely vital for them. Do not leave too much gap between the sessions as they might forget the reason they come to you and often times forget what they have been taught. Additionally, teach them to respond to commands after saying it only one time – if you keep repeating commands until they follow it, they might end up learning that it is okay to (or that they are specifically required to) not follow the command until it is repeated several times.
Change environments
Instead of limiting dog training to the house of the pet parent, or any other particular location, you can always switch up locations so they are accustomed to following instructions in general and do not associate one particular location for following instructions.
Keep sessions short
Since the little ones’ attention spans are usually very short, if you want to ensure that they are learning and gaining the maximum out of your training sessions, keep them short.
Teach bite inhibition
This becomes one of the most important things during dog training, start teaching them to bite inhibition early on so they know how to control the intensity of their bite. One of doing it can be by using toys and reinforcing them positively when they learn to not put any pressure when they are biting it down.
