Top 10 Puppy Training Tips

1. Reinforce The Good, Ignore The Bad: Dogs are learning 24/7 from the second you get them home. It is all too easy to inadvertently train your puppy to do the wrong thing: this is called accidental reinforcement. A typical example of this is your puppy jumping up. One minute all is quiet, your puppy jumps up at you and immediately you start interacting with him. Eye contact, voice, touch: all of this is reinforcement to your puppy. Now your puppy knows that to get your attention, all he has to do is jump up. The best way is to totally ignore attention seeking or undesirable behaviour and to reward desirable behaviours: it is much better to focus on what you want your dog to do and always remember to reinforce the right behaviours.


2. Practice Little & Often: Puppies have a short attention span and can only take so much training in one go. They can get tired and therefore distracted and restless. Short sessions (5 to 10 minutes at a time, depending on age, 3 times a day works well as a guide) will get the message across successfully.


3. Consistency Is Key: Make decisions about what you expect of your puppy, as well as house and social rules, and stick to them.  Dogs are very black and white creatures and if you change your mind about what is acceptable and what isn’t, it will be very difficult for your puppy to understand what behaviour you expect of him.  Make sure all members of the family are following the same rules and use the same cue words/signals to achieve the same results. This also applies to visitors.


4. Be Crystal Clear: Puppies are not born speaking fluent English or programmed to do a sit on cue! Initially, puppies have to be guided in what to do, not told what to do.


5. Less Is More: Dogs do not find strings of words easy to understand. The more words we say, the trickier it is for the dog to work out what we mean. “Fido, sit!” is more effective than “Now Fido, will you please sit for me”.  Also, repeating a verbal cue louder does not mean your puppy will comply. Puppies have very good sharp hearing, your puppy heard you the first time round, the likelihood is, he just doesn’t know what you mean; he doesn’t yet understand the behaviour you’re asking for.


6. Start Simple & Build Progressively: Don’t expect too much too soon. It is infinitely better to get a simple behaviour right 100% of the time rather than to get a difficult behaviour right only 50% of the time. Repetition and reinforcement of successful behaviours is how your puppy learns best. So keep it simple to begin with and give your puppy plenty of opportunities for success.  Don’t jump steps either: if your puppy does a perfect “stay” with you in sight for one minute, it doesn’t mean that he will do a perfect stay with you out of sight. Take your time, don’t run before you can walk and consolidate on the basics.


7. Train Here There & Everywhere: If you want your dog to behave everywhere, then you need to train everywhere… dogs don’t generalise very well.  Of course you don’t need to literally train everywhere, but think about your lifestyle and places that you will frequently encounter with your canine companion. Dogs learn by cues associated with particular situations, signals, and locations. This means that if you only practice in one place, in the house/garden for instance, your puppy will associate compliance to trained behaviours with that particular location. When you change the location, you have to re-train the behaviour again in that (and every) new location. As time goes on, your puppy will learn more quickly every time a new place is added.


8. Set Up For Success: Although your training must be done in a realistic location, there is no point in starting in a place where there are too many distractions for your puppy to concentrate. Start off by training all behaviours at home inside, then in the garden, then re-train in realistic locations, gradually adding distractions.


9. Attention Please!: If your puppy is distracted by something, the likelihood is that he will not comply with your request.  To say “Fido sit” to a dog busy following a scent is doomed to failure. If you repeat the request again and the dog still doesn’t comply, all you are teaching your dog is to ignore you. Instead call his name cheerfully when you know he is listening then say your request, and of course reward for compliance.


10. Know Your Breed: What makes your dog tick and what job was he bred for? Most of our dogs are working breeds, bred for a specific job and purpose. Some behaviours are very much hard wired and will be almost impossible to eradicate. Understanding this and using your dog’s strengths in training will be much more effective than trying to make him what he is not.

And finally have fun and make training enjoyable, keep him wagging for more!