I have a close-knit, large extended family. Every Christmas Eve, we get together, have dinner, visit and open our Christmas presents (we can’t wait until Christmas morning).
I fondly remember the Christmas Eve that I brought Benny home. I had been shopping for a new dog for nearly a year. My dog Kate was getting very old, and I knew that she wouldn’t be around much longer. So, when I picked up my new puppy, Benny, from the breeder’s earlier that day, I was so excited I could hardly stand it. Part of the thrill was that my secret hadn’t been revealed (except to my Mom and brother): that I had purchased a puppy.
Normally, we would have met at my sister’s house, but we had arranged that everyone come over to Mom’s house that night. We had everyone sit down in the living room and told them to close their eyes. I then carried Benny in my arms into the room, sat down in a chair across the room, and told them that they could open their eyes.
I’ll never forget my brother-in-law’s reaction. His eyes brightened up, and in a state of pleasant astonishment and surprise, said “Ooh, it’s a puppy!”
It was a wonderful night. We visited, opened presents, and spent time getting to know Benny. He was our new family member.
You are going to have fun getting your new puppy.
When I was a young man, I was into fast cars, stereos, and other types of entertainment. But, after I got a dog of my own, when I was 25 years old, I came to realize that a dog is the ultimate “toy.” They are more fun, involving and interesting than any other thing that you might own. They are almost like having a good human friend. In fact, I’ve known many dogs that were better friends than some people that I have known.
My one hope for this blog is that it helps you and your dog enjoy one another. For that’s what this is all about. I’ve done a lot of right things with my dogs over the years. I’ve also made many mistakes over the years with my dogs. I want to teach you what I’ve learned so you don’t make the same mistakes that I’ve made, and to help you not make the same mistakes that I’ve seen others make. My goal is to make fewer and fewer mistakes with each dog, knowing that I will still err from time to time. My goal for you is that this blog helps you have a dog you will enjoy.
There is an abundance of information on how to train an older puppy or adult dog, but not much has been written on how to get the right start with choosing and raising a puppy that’s under 4 months of age. That’s what this blog article is all about. People make more errors in raising a young puppy than they do when raising an older puppy or adult dog. Most people don’t know what is involved in choosing the right puppy or raising a young puppy properly. And, most people don’t know how to put all the small details together in order to train up a super adult dog.
Millions upon millions of normal and healthy dogs are put to death every year. Most of those dogs end up in shelters because of behavioral problems that could be easily solved by a competent dog trainer. You don’t want your dog to be one of those dogs that will be eventually put to death. Every dog deserves a good home and good training. Every dog owner deserves a good, healthy, trainable dog.
People have a tendency to expect untrained dogs to behave like trained dogs. They also have a tendency to expect immature dogs (puppies) to behave like adult dogs. It just doesn’t work that way. EXPECT YOUR DOG TO MATURE VERY SLOWLY, AND DON’T RUSH THINGS. In addition, you are going to have to make a decision that you will never get angry at your dog. EVER. Dog’s can’t handle rough treatment. It wrecks them, and it wrecks your judgment. You must always approach every situation as an opportunity to teach your puppy the correct way of doing things. Whatever your puppy does, it’s a direct reflection of what YOU have taught your puppy up to that moment, and an indication of your puppy’s level of training and natural development. If your dog isn’t doing it right, it’s because your dog isn’t fully trained and/or mature.
Most of our dog problems are really people problems. It’s going to be harder to train yourself than it will be to train your dog. I can train many dogs every day. But, I’ve found it’s a lot harder to train a lot of owners every day. People have a lot of misconceptions about behavior modification. And some people have emotional baggage that interferes with how they relate to their dogs. It’s my job, as a trainer and behaviorist, to lead them out of their psychological jungle into a new way of treating their dogs in a modern and civilized manner.
There are three things that you must do right in order to have a well-behaved dog. First, you must be very consistent in what you do and what you teach. The rules for everything must be the same. It can’t be a guessing game for the dog. You can’t just tell a dog what not to do and expect the dog to figure out what to do. In addition, the family must be consistent in what they do and what they teach the puppy. The rules can’t change from day to day or from person to person. That’s unfair. YOUR DOG HAS TO BE ABLE TO BE SUCCESSFUL. The second thing your dog needs is love. This can’t be overemphasized. Dogs can’t handle rough treatment, lack of companionship, lack of leadership, impatience, or a lack of love. It will wreck them. Third, dogs need Positive Reinforcement. If your boss stops paying you, you will find another job. If you stop paying your dog, in the form of praise, treats and activities, then you dog will stop working for you.
A lot of what good trainers learn about dogs doesn’t come from blogs, videos, or from listening to other people. It comes from listening to the dogs they work with, and realizing that they are just dogs. You are going to have to learn to listen to your dog if you are going to do a good job raising your dog. You are going to have to learn to think and talk like a dog. You are going to have to learn to love like a dog. You are going to have to learn to play like a dog. And, you are going to have to learn to forgive like a dog. This will come through sharing your life with your dog, and allowing your dog to share itself with you.
WHAT IS A PUPPY?
Every dog matures at a different rate. Some breeds of dog are adults at 1 year of age. Other breeds aren’t adults until 4 to 6 years of age. In early development, a dog is called a puppy. A puppy is a developing dog. It is being built into an adult dog by its experiences and genetics.
You have to treat a puppy like a puppy. You can’t train a puppy with the same intensity as an adult. They can’t take the pressure without permanently losing confidence and attitude. They also can’t take the physical stress like an adult dog without getting injured.
When a dog is an adult, it should be well adjusted mentally and ready for Advanced training. At that point, you can finish the training and work towards reliable off leash obedience.
Mental Maturity: With some breeds, they go through very predictable stages of mental development after 16 weeks of age. Other breeds seem to just grow up without any noticeable changes in mental development after 16 weeks of age. You have to ask your breeder when your breed of dog is an adult, and then adjust your expectations and training program to fit its genetically pre-programmed schedule.
Some puppies go through one or more stages when they are very unsure of how to deal with new situations. It might occur at around 8 months of age. At these times, they might not be sure whether to approach strangers or run away or to bite. They might also demonstrate other confidence problems. It’s your job to see them through this stage, with their confidence and good attitude intact, and make sure they learn the right way to handle new situations.
Every puppy goes through a period of adolescence. Some breeds get extremely aggressive and pushy during adolescence, and then calm down as well-adjusted adults. Just like human teenagers, adolescent dogs can act like you never taught them a thing and resist everything you are trying to teach them. They will also try to chew up your house and all of your belongings. They are under pressure because of all the hormones racing in their veins and all of the changes happening in their brains. You are going to have to know how to get through adolescence without harming your dog, and without your dog hurting someone or hurting another dog. For the most part, you will do a lot of food training to Reinforce good behavior, and you will crate or kennel them when you can’t supervise them.
Physical Maturity: With some breeds, they are very susceptible to injuries during certain periods prior to being an adult. This is especially true of your larger breeds. Before you start working with your puppy, you should talk to the breeder and a knowledgeable trainer to understand what your dog will go through. When will the dog be a physical adult? When will the dog be a mental adult? Are there any stages at which the dog is most prone to injury? Are there any periods in which the dog is especially vulnerable to emotional damage?
IMPRINTING
I learned a very important lesson with my dog Kate. We had decided that Kate could go anywhere except downstairs into the lower level of our house. The first day I brought her home, she was exploring the inside of the house and approached the stairs that led to the downstairs. As soon as she tried to put a paw down the stairs, I told her “No” in a firm voice. She stopped and looked at me, and then walked away. For the next 12 years, she never went downstairs. I made a strong first impression on her. I never had to supervise her with respect to going downstairs. I had Imprinted in her mind that going downstairs was impossible. I also learned a very young puppy is extremely malleable to first impressions. Kate never forgot the first things we taught her during the first month that she was ours. That’s something I have never forgotten.
Prior to adulthood, a dog will pass through many critical periods “when a very small amount of experience will produce a great effect on later behavior” (Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog, by Scott & Fuller). It is during these critical periods that a dog is most likely to acquire permanent psychological damage. It is also the time when dog trainers purposefully attempt to influence these early experiences in order to maximize the trainability of their dogs. We all know that dogs can make connections between events and their outcomes. This is called conditioning or learning. The early conditioning of a young dog is called IMPRINTING. Imprinting is the process by which a young dog is “programmed” by many first impressions during these critical periods.
I liken Imprinting to pressing your hand into wet clay. You make an impression in the clay. Once the clay is fired in a kiln, the impression becomes permanent. Imprinting with a dog is a similar process. The young puppy is the wet clay. What the puppy first perceives and experiences is like your hand pressing into the wet clay. As the puppy matures into an adult, the clay hardens. Proper and complete obedience training of the adult then almost permanently hardens the mind clay of the dog. If you want to turn a piece of wet clay into a Masterpiece, you have to start out with the right kind of clay, you need to know what you want the final artwork to look like, you need a Master craftsperson, and the proper tools. Raising a puppy into a great dog is a similar process. Imprinting and training a dog are both an art and a science, just like clay sculpturing.
It’s these first impressions that lay the foundation a dog relies upon to make decisions. They Shape how the dog thinks the world works. Knowledgeable dog trainers attempt to control the Imprinting process in order to influence future behavior. trainers are especially interested in building confidence (approach/Avoid potential) and Bonding (Dominance/submission and Master image. When we combine purposeful learning with purposeful breeding, we get better working dogs). The following are some examples of Imprinting:
At 19 ½ days old, puppies become aware of sounds and will startle at new noises. If the noises are associated with positive outcomes, such as being fed, then the noises will come to mean something good. If the noises are continuous and not overly harsh, then the puppies will begin to ignore them. We can purposefully implement a puppy noise-Imprinting program so the adult dog will perceive doorbells or thunder as normal and non-threatening.
Starting at 5 to 6 weeks of age, a puppy begins to rank itself in relation to adult dogs and littermates. Once learned, this ranking impression will then influence, but not solely determine, how dominant the adult dog will be with humans and which species of animal the dog will be attracted to when it seeks to mate. For breeds that tend to be dominant towards people or dogs, we can influence the degree to which a puppy perceives itself to be a leader, or “alpha” dog,
A puppy has the ability to transfer its loyalty from its dog family to a human being. From that point forward, the dog will offer to the human all the same behavior patterns it would have to members of its own species. This is the Bonding process. We can best influence this process by adopting a puppy at an age of approximately 7 to 8 weeks of age, right in the middle of the dominance ranking process. Many people damage the bond with their dogs and then never understand why the dog doesn’t relate to them properly and is not as obedient as it should be.
A protection dog trainer will stimulate a 3 month old puppy to chase and bite an erratically wiggling piece of cloth. The purpose of this kind of work is to influence the dog’s desire to chase a moving object, and is then eventually channeled into teaching the dog to locate, chase and bite a fleeing criminal. Many novice dog owners don’t realize the impact they are having when improperly playing rough tug, wrestling or chase games with their puppies, and then are surprised later when the dog shows aggressive tendencies towards family members.
A hunting dog trainer will play fetch with an 8 week old puppy using a bird wing. This kind of work is used to develop a strong desire for the puppy to later retrieve real birds when the puppy is 8 to 9 months of age. Many dogs won’t retrieve because they weren’t properly Imprinted to retrieve when very young.
Finally, most good dog trainers like a dog that is food motivated because food is such a great reward for proper behavior. Smart trainers don’t let young puppies free feed, so that they build a desire and programmed hunger into the dog for later training purposes.
Many dogs that we train have been improperly Imprinted. Much of Imprinting takes place as part of your puppy’s Socialization program.
The most important first impression you want to make on your young puppy is that you are the one to Bond with, no one else and not another animal. You need to be seen, by your dog, as its best friend, but not its only friend. This requires that you try to spend all of your time, for the first 14 days home, with your young puppy. Other people can and should visit with the puppy every day, but you are there all of the time.
Now, of course, there will be some times during that first 14 days when you must leave the house or take a bath or do house chores. During these times, put the puppy in a safe place to rest (its crate). DO NOT leave a young puppy unattended with another dog for long periods. The puppy will bond to the other dog, instead of you. When a puppy bonds to another dog, the puppy will then look to that other dog for leadership instead of you for the rest of its life. For some dogs, if they bond to another dog instead of a human, they become much harder to teach or train, or they can eventually form a dangerous dog pack mentality that’s not responsive to your control.
The purpose of the bond is to cause the puppy to look to you as the Alpha pack leader, to cause the puppy to become an individual instead of a member of a dog pack, and to cause the puppy to want to be near you. When the puppy recognizes you as the Alpha pack leader, it is easier to teach and train. When the puppy becomes an individual, it will be able to act and think independently of the other dogs around it. When the puppy sees you as Alpha pack leader and has become an individual, apart from the dog pack, the puppy will be able to be trained to a high level of obedience as an adult. Becoming your dog’s leader DOESN’T require you to boss your pup around! Just spend time with your pup, and the rest will fall in line as your pup matures and you start into formal lessons.
THE FEAR PERIOD
Fear is not a bad thing. It helps a dog to survive. Fear causes a dog to run away or fight. However, there are some things a dog shouldn’t be afraid of, such as being petted, going for a car ride, greeting a guest in your home, or meeting friendly dogs. There are lots of Fearful dogs out there. Don’t make your dog into one of them.
Between the 8th and 10th week of age, a puppy goes through a period when it is more likely to be afraid of persons, places, things and other animals. Fear/Avoidance responses are more easily Imprinted during this period of time than at any other in the rest of the life of the dog. In some dogs, the Fear Period is more obvious, in others, you won’t notice it at all. But, it is still going on. The puppy is more cautious and more easily stressed. You must make life easy for the puppy to deal with, yet continue the Socialization process. It’s a tricky balancing act. Introduce new things slowly. Don’t induce Fear, Avoidance or Aggression in the puppy. But, don’t isolate the puppy. Keep up the Socialization process.
Puppy Rules:
Eight Weeks Old
A new puppy that doesn’t know anything. It doesn’t know any commands, and it doesn’t know anybody. It’s somewhat afraid because it has just left its mamma and is now in a strange home. It needs your kindness and friendship to become a really good dog and to become your friend. Here are the basic rules for your pup for the first 2 weeks it is home. These first 2 weeks are the time when a puppy learns to bond with people. All it has known up to this point is other dogs. What it learns from you at this time will help determine what kind of dog it will grow up to be. Teach your puppy to like people. Make your puppy your friend.
Your pup is now going through the Fear/Avoidance Period of his life. This lasts between the 8th and 10th week of a dog’s life. During this period, a puppy will appear tentative and cautious. What the pup learns during this period, it will never forget! Therefore, be sure you become its friend, and don’t expose the pup to highly stressful experiences during this time. The pup needs to be introduced to new experiences and new people, however. The new experiences must be non-traumatic and easy for the pup to deal with. If your pup is chewing on something it isn’t supposed to, distract it with a toy, or by rubbing your hands on the floor nearby. When your pup looks at you, say its name in a cheerful, pleasant tone of voice that encourages your pup to make eye contact. Call your pup to come to you in a happy tone of voice, arms open wide, with you kneeling or sitting on the floor facing your puppy. The puppy should have a happy look and its tail held high and wagging. It must be a happy experience. If your puppy is growling at you or anyone else, the person is acting inappropriately, and in a way the pup sees as a threat. If that happens, back off and figure out what is being done to frighten your pup. Do not punish or yell at your pup for anything. Do not force or drag your pup around: it’s got to do things willingly and happily. We want your pup to become accustomed to the normal noise and movement around the house. Make sure your hands are clean when you are petting or handling your puppy (because it doesn’t have all his vaccinations yet). It will be good if we can teach your pup to chase a ball, so try to see if it will pick up a tennis ball that you roll in its direction. If you have questions on how to teach your pup to Fetch, then you should consider buying my article, called Fetch.
What your family must do:
1. Be sure to become a member of your pup’s family. The puppy needs to get to know you, your family and friends. Some breeds, as adults, don’t like strangers… so don’t let your friends and extended family become strangers. Your family and friends can do this by visiting your puppy many times over the next 3 months and spending about 5 minutes each visit giving your pup personal undivided attention. Your pup will get to know you and your circle of family and friends by your smell and looks and voice and how you behave. Your family will need to visit your pup on a regular basis, preferably petting and talking to him for at least 5 minutes, at least once every week, and preferably every day. Your pup is going to think your family and friends are great and will be much more affectionate over the years if they give your pup a little attention over the next few months! If any family member makes themselves a stranger to your pup, if your dog is a protection breed, your adult dog, some day, won’t let them in the house if you are gone, and will be unnecessarily suspicious of them when we they come to visit.
2. Gently pet the puppy. Don’t let people grab at the puppy. If your puppy wants to walk away, let it. Don’t grab the puppy by the paws, causing it to struggle, and making it worried about being handled.
3. Sit down to pet the puppy Let the puppy come to them. Encourage approach behaviors. You want to build your pup’s confidence in meeting people, so that your pup trusts your family and friends, and is not afraid of them.
Other Suggestions:
1. No smothering hugs, which cause the puppy to struggle to get away. Be careful about carrying the puppy around. It’s just like a little baby, and can be severely injured if the puppy is dropped on the floor.
2. Don’t force your puppy over onto its back, if you see that your pup is struggling to stay upright. If your pup trusts you, then it will allow you to do anything reasonable. Your pup isn’t some experiment, or a stuffed animal. This isn’t a game, and there is no need to force your dominance on this puppy. That kind of mentality will just scare your pup, not build the kind of bond and trust you will need and want.
3. No rough play. Some day, your dog will be an adult, and will resent rough play, or your dog will become too big to play rough with and it might, in fun, pin YOU or some kid to the ground! Some giant breeds are stronger, as adults, than their owners! Rough games aren’t perceived as fun by a young pup. They are scary.
4. Don’t scare your pup! Your pup won’t forget when it’s older and it won’t like those kinds of games… and you might just cause a future attack. Again, you wouldn’t purposely scare a human baby. Why would you want someone scaring your new puppy?
5. Don’t give your new pup any commands -- it doesn’t know anything! Puppy lessons will teach your pup what the words mean. Your pup didn’t come pre-programmed from its momma knowing what Sit, Down, Off, No Biting, etc. means. All of that has to be taught, step by step.
6. Don’t let anyone hit your puppy! If you hit a puppy, one day it is going to bite someone.
7. If your pup bites, say “OW”, then get up and walk away. This is the beginning step for teaching bite inhibition. Within 2 weeks, you can start a Puppy Manners lesson to teach your pup, in a more structured way, not to bite you. I have such a lesson available for sale, if you wish.
8. Don’t teach the pup to chase people by running at, or running away from, the pup. These aren’t good games to play.
9. No screaming or frightening movements. You want your puppy to trust people.
10. Don’t yell at your puppy for any reason. Your pup has no idea what it is doing.
11. Leave your puppy alone when it is eating. People who pester pups when they eat, cause the older dogs to become aggressive around the food bowl as adults.
12. Don’t growl, bark, poke at, or act aggressively towards your puppy. Do Not Tease! Teasing is irritating, and can provoke later aggression in the adult dog.
13. Pups shouldn’t be allowed in any bathroom, the garage, a baby’s room, in any room where there isn’t an adult present to supervise, or in the back yard without an adult present to supervise. Young pups put things in their mouths, and those things can kill a young pup.
14. Do not come up suddenly from behind to scare the pup. Dogs don’t like surprises, and that isn’t going to help you when this pup is an adult.
15. Do not feed the pup any unhealthy treats. You’ll make your pup sick. At first, you will give small tidbits of treats to acclimate your pup’s stomach to new foods. If you start feeding quantities of new foods, you’ll cause your pup to have diarrhea, which can kill a young pup.
16. Unless you know what you are doing: No tug of war! Rough games of tug can easily injure a pup because its jaws aren’t fully formed and his teeth are still growing in. I am not one of those people who oppose the game of tug… but there is a right way and a wrong way to do it.
17. Don’t “sic” the dog on anyone, even in play. He will remember this and might just knock this person down when he is an adult.
18. No tail yanking, ear pulling, or any rough handling.
A Training Plan for the second 2 Weeks: Young Puppy
1. House training. Teaching your puppy to potty outside and not in your home. A dog is not fully house trained until it is about 12 months old. If you don’t know how to do this, then purchase my House Training lesson online.
2. 3 to 5 minute lessons, 4 times a day. Puppies have very short attention spans. But, they can learn quite a bit if you know what you are doing.
3. Gentle tug of war, rag play, ball play, encouraging your pup to retrieve and carry things.
4. Introducing your pup to a wide variety of friendly people. I have a free article, at www.SamTheDogTrainer.com , which teaches you how to socialize your pup.
5. Play “Hide-and-Seek” and “Follow me”. I hide around a corner, and have a treat in my hand, calling the pup to find me. When the pup finds me, I give them a treat. I want to get the pup into watching me and looking to work with me, right from the very start.
6. Get him to bond with it’s adult masters, and to bond with the rest of the family. Bonding takes time, personal interaction, and good experiences. It takes most pups about a week to bond to a person.
7. Begin training journal.
A Training Plan Starting at 12 to 16 Weeks of Age:
1. Begin Basic Dog Obedience I: teaching all the basic commands: Heel, Sit, Stay, Down, Come, Up, Off, Leave It, Drop It, etc.
2. Begin Basic Tracking
3. Do exercises that build attentiveness, confidence, concentration, endurance, perseverance, initiative, and physical fitness.
4. Practice regular games of Fetch.
A Training Plan After Finishing Basic Dog Obedience I: Adolescence
1. Begin Basic Dog Obedience II: Intermediate lessons so your pup is obedient anywhere off leash.
2. Teach Agility Exercises
3. Finish Level I Tracking.
PUPPY AGGRESSION
Your puppy might growl, bite, or bark at people, animals, or objects. Aggression is a normal part of a dog’s being. The question arises as to when you have a puppy with an aggression problem that might make your adult dog unsafe to own.
I would get professional advice if my puppy (under 6 months of age) displayed any of the following
Guarding Territory Inside The House:
Guarding Objects From Family:
Growling When Being Picked Up:
Growling When Being Handled:
Hiding And Growling:
Refusal To Allow Handling By Strangers:
Animal Aggression:
SUPPLIES YOU WILL NEED
I fondly remember the Christmas Eve that I brought Benny home. I had been shopping for a new dog for nearly a year. My dog Kate was getting very old, and I knew that she wouldn’t be around much longer. So, when I picked up my new puppy, Benny, from the breeder’s earlier that day, I was so excited I could hardly stand it. Part of the thrill was that my secret hadn’t been revealed (except to my Mom and brother): that I had purchased a puppy.
Normally, we would have met at my sister’s house, but we had arranged that everyone come over to Mom’s house that night. We had everyone sit down in the living room and told them to close their eyes. I then carried Benny in my arms into the room, sat down in a chair across the room, and told them that they could open their eyes.
I’ll never forget my brother-in-law’s reaction. His eyes brightened up, and in a state of pleasant astonishment and surprise, said “Ooh, it’s a puppy!”
It was a wonderful night. We visited, opened presents, and spent time getting to know Benny. He was our new family member.
You are going to have fun getting your new puppy.
When I was a young man, I was into fast cars, stereos, and other types of entertainment. But, after I got a dog of my own, when I was 25 years old, I came to realize that a dog is the ultimate “toy.” They are more fun, involving and interesting than any other thing that you might own. They are almost like having a good human friend. In fact, I’ve known many dogs that were better friends than some people that I have known.
My one hope for this blog is that it helps you and your dog enjoy one another. For that’s what this is all about. I’ve done a lot of right things with my dogs over the years. I’ve also made many mistakes over the years with my dogs. I want to teach you what I’ve learned so you don’t make the same mistakes that I’ve made, and to help you not make the same mistakes that I’ve seen others make. My goal is to make fewer and fewer mistakes with each dog, knowing that I will still err from time to time. My goal for you is that this blog helps you have a dog you will enjoy.
There is an abundance of information on how to train an older puppy or adult dog, but not much has been written on how to get the right start with choosing and raising a puppy that’s under 4 months of age. That’s what this blog article is all about. People make more errors in raising a young puppy than they do when raising an older puppy or adult dog. Most people don’t know what is involved in choosing the right puppy or raising a young puppy properly. And, most people don’t know how to put all the small details together in order to train up a super adult dog.
Millions upon millions of normal and healthy dogs are put to death every year. Most of those dogs end up in shelters because of behavioral problems that could be easily solved by a competent dog trainer. You don’t want your dog to be one of those dogs that will be eventually put to death. Every dog deserves a good home and good training. Every dog owner deserves a good, healthy, trainable dog.
People have a tendency to expect untrained dogs to behave like trained dogs. They also have a tendency to expect immature dogs (puppies) to behave like adult dogs. It just doesn’t work that way. EXPECT YOUR DOG TO MATURE VERY SLOWLY, AND DON’T RUSH THINGS. In addition, you are going to have to make a decision that you will never get angry at your dog. EVER. Dog’s can’t handle rough treatment. It wrecks them, and it wrecks your judgment. You must always approach every situation as an opportunity to teach your puppy the correct way of doing things. Whatever your puppy does, it’s a direct reflection of what YOU have taught your puppy up to that moment, and an indication of your puppy’s level of training and natural development. If your dog isn’t doing it right, it’s because your dog isn’t fully trained and/or mature.
Most of our dog problems are really people problems. It’s going to be harder to train yourself than it will be to train your dog. I can train many dogs every day. But, I’ve found it’s a lot harder to train a lot of owners every day. People have a lot of misconceptions about behavior modification. And some people have emotional baggage that interferes with how they relate to their dogs. It’s my job, as a trainer and behaviorist, to lead them out of their psychological jungle into a new way of treating their dogs in a modern and civilized manner.
There are three things that you must do right in order to have a well-behaved dog. First, you must be very consistent in what you do and what you teach. The rules for everything must be the same. It can’t be a guessing game for the dog. You can’t just tell a dog what not to do and expect the dog to figure out what to do. In addition, the family must be consistent in what they do and what they teach the puppy. The rules can’t change from day to day or from person to person. That’s unfair. YOUR DOG HAS TO BE ABLE TO BE SUCCESSFUL. The second thing your dog needs is love. This can’t be overemphasized. Dogs can’t handle rough treatment, lack of companionship, lack of leadership, impatience, or a lack of love. It will wreck them. Third, dogs need Positive Reinforcement. If your boss stops paying you, you will find another job. If you stop paying your dog, in the form of praise, treats and activities, then you dog will stop working for you.
A lot of what good trainers learn about dogs doesn’t come from blogs, videos, or from listening to other people. It comes from listening to the dogs they work with, and realizing that they are just dogs. You are going to have to learn to listen to your dog if you are going to do a good job raising your dog. You are going to have to learn to think and talk like a dog. You are going to have to learn to love like a dog. You are going to have to learn to play like a dog. And, you are going to have to learn to forgive like a dog. This will come through sharing your life with your dog, and allowing your dog to share itself with you.
WHAT IS A PUPPY?
Every dog matures at a different rate. Some breeds of dog are adults at 1 year of age. Other breeds aren’t adults until 4 to 6 years of age. In early development, a dog is called a puppy. A puppy is a developing dog. It is being built into an adult dog by its experiences and genetics.
You have to treat a puppy like a puppy. You can’t train a puppy with the same intensity as an adult. They can’t take the pressure without permanently losing confidence and attitude. They also can’t take the physical stress like an adult dog without getting injured.
When a dog is an adult, it should be well adjusted mentally and ready for Advanced training. At that point, you can finish the training and work towards reliable off leash obedience.
Mental Maturity: With some breeds, they go through very predictable stages of mental development after 16 weeks of age. Other breeds seem to just grow up without any noticeable changes in mental development after 16 weeks of age. You have to ask your breeder when your breed of dog is an adult, and then adjust your expectations and training program to fit its genetically pre-programmed schedule.
Some puppies go through one or more stages when they are very unsure of how to deal with new situations. It might occur at around 8 months of age. At these times, they might not be sure whether to approach strangers or run away or to bite. They might also demonstrate other confidence problems. It’s your job to see them through this stage, with their confidence and good attitude intact, and make sure they learn the right way to handle new situations.
Every puppy goes through a period of adolescence. Some breeds get extremely aggressive and pushy during adolescence, and then calm down as well-adjusted adults. Just like human teenagers, adolescent dogs can act like you never taught them a thing and resist everything you are trying to teach them. They will also try to chew up your house and all of your belongings. They are under pressure because of all the hormones racing in their veins and all of the changes happening in their brains. You are going to have to know how to get through adolescence without harming your dog, and without your dog hurting someone or hurting another dog. For the most part, you will do a lot of food training to Reinforce good behavior, and you will crate or kennel them when you can’t supervise them.
Physical Maturity: With some breeds, they are very susceptible to injuries during certain periods prior to being an adult. This is especially true of your larger breeds. Before you start working with your puppy, you should talk to the breeder and a knowledgeable trainer to understand what your dog will go through. When will the dog be a physical adult? When will the dog be a mental adult? Are there any stages at which the dog is most prone to injury? Are there any periods in which the dog is especially vulnerable to emotional damage?
IMPRINTING
I learned a very important lesson with my dog Kate. We had decided that Kate could go anywhere except downstairs into the lower level of our house. The first day I brought her home, she was exploring the inside of the house and approached the stairs that led to the downstairs. As soon as she tried to put a paw down the stairs, I told her “No” in a firm voice. She stopped and looked at me, and then walked away. For the next 12 years, she never went downstairs. I made a strong first impression on her. I never had to supervise her with respect to going downstairs. I had Imprinted in her mind that going downstairs was impossible. I also learned a very young puppy is extremely malleable to first impressions. Kate never forgot the first things we taught her during the first month that she was ours. That’s something I have never forgotten.
Prior to adulthood, a dog will pass through many critical periods “when a very small amount of experience will produce a great effect on later behavior” (Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog, by Scott & Fuller). It is during these critical periods that a dog is most likely to acquire permanent psychological damage. It is also the time when dog trainers purposefully attempt to influence these early experiences in order to maximize the trainability of their dogs. We all know that dogs can make connections between events and their outcomes. This is called conditioning or learning. The early conditioning of a young dog is called IMPRINTING. Imprinting is the process by which a young dog is “programmed” by many first impressions during these critical periods.
I liken Imprinting to pressing your hand into wet clay. You make an impression in the clay. Once the clay is fired in a kiln, the impression becomes permanent. Imprinting with a dog is a similar process. The young puppy is the wet clay. What the puppy first perceives and experiences is like your hand pressing into the wet clay. As the puppy matures into an adult, the clay hardens. Proper and complete obedience training of the adult then almost permanently hardens the mind clay of the dog. If you want to turn a piece of wet clay into a Masterpiece, you have to start out with the right kind of clay, you need to know what you want the final artwork to look like, you need a Master craftsperson, and the proper tools. Raising a puppy into a great dog is a similar process. Imprinting and training a dog are both an art and a science, just like clay sculpturing.
It’s these first impressions that lay the foundation a dog relies upon to make decisions. They Shape how the dog thinks the world works. Knowledgeable dog trainers attempt to control the Imprinting process in order to influence future behavior. trainers are especially interested in building confidence (approach/Avoid potential) and Bonding (Dominance/submission and Master image. When we combine purposeful learning with purposeful breeding, we get better working dogs). The following are some examples of Imprinting:
At 19 ½ days old, puppies become aware of sounds and will startle at new noises. If the noises are associated with positive outcomes, such as being fed, then the noises will come to mean something good. If the noises are continuous and not overly harsh, then the puppies will begin to ignore them. We can purposefully implement a puppy noise-Imprinting program so the adult dog will perceive doorbells or thunder as normal and non-threatening.
Starting at 5 to 6 weeks of age, a puppy begins to rank itself in relation to adult dogs and littermates. Once learned, this ranking impression will then influence, but not solely determine, how dominant the adult dog will be with humans and which species of animal the dog will be attracted to when it seeks to mate. For breeds that tend to be dominant towards people or dogs, we can influence the degree to which a puppy perceives itself to be a leader, or “alpha” dog,
A puppy has the ability to transfer its loyalty from its dog family to a human being. From that point forward, the dog will offer to the human all the same behavior patterns it would have to members of its own species. This is the Bonding process. We can best influence this process by adopting a puppy at an age of approximately 7 to 8 weeks of age, right in the middle of the dominance ranking process. Many people damage the bond with their dogs and then never understand why the dog doesn’t relate to them properly and is not as obedient as it should be.
A protection dog trainer will stimulate a 3 month old puppy to chase and bite an erratically wiggling piece of cloth. The purpose of this kind of work is to influence the dog’s desire to chase a moving object, and is then eventually channeled into teaching the dog to locate, chase and bite a fleeing criminal. Many novice dog owners don’t realize the impact they are having when improperly playing rough tug, wrestling or chase games with their puppies, and then are surprised later when the dog shows aggressive tendencies towards family members.
A hunting dog trainer will play fetch with an 8 week old puppy using a bird wing. This kind of work is used to develop a strong desire for the puppy to later retrieve real birds when the puppy is 8 to 9 months of age. Many dogs won’t retrieve because they weren’t properly Imprinted to retrieve when very young.
Finally, most good dog trainers like a dog that is food motivated because food is such a great reward for proper behavior. Smart trainers don’t let young puppies free feed, so that they build a desire and programmed hunger into the dog for later training purposes.
Many dogs that we train have been improperly Imprinted. Much of Imprinting takes place as part of your puppy’s Socialization program.
The most important first impression you want to make on your young puppy is that you are the one to Bond with, no one else and not another animal. You need to be seen, by your dog, as its best friend, but not its only friend. This requires that you try to spend all of your time, for the first 14 days home, with your young puppy. Other people can and should visit with the puppy every day, but you are there all of the time.
Now, of course, there will be some times during that first 14 days when you must leave the house or take a bath or do house chores. During these times, put the puppy in a safe place to rest (its crate). DO NOT leave a young puppy unattended with another dog for long periods. The puppy will bond to the other dog, instead of you. When a puppy bonds to another dog, the puppy will then look to that other dog for leadership instead of you for the rest of its life. For some dogs, if they bond to another dog instead of a human, they become much harder to teach or train, or they can eventually form a dangerous dog pack mentality that’s not responsive to your control.
The purpose of the bond is to cause the puppy to look to you as the Alpha pack leader, to cause the puppy to become an individual instead of a member of a dog pack, and to cause the puppy to want to be near you. When the puppy recognizes you as the Alpha pack leader, it is easier to teach and train. When the puppy becomes an individual, it will be able to act and think independently of the other dogs around it. When the puppy sees you as Alpha pack leader and has become an individual, apart from the dog pack, the puppy will be able to be trained to a high level of obedience as an adult. Becoming your dog’s leader DOESN’T require you to boss your pup around! Just spend time with your pup, and the rest will fall in line as your pup matures and you start into formal lessons.
THE FEAR PERIOD
Fear is not a bad thing. It helps a dog to survive. Fear causes a dog to run away or fight. However, there are some things a dog shouldn’t be afraid of, such as being petted, going for a car ride, greeting a guest in your home, or meeting friendly dogs. There are lots of Fearful dogs out there. Don’t make your dog into one of them.
Between the 8th and 10th week of age, a puppy goes through a period when it is more likely to be afraid of persons, places, things and other animals. Fear/Avoidance responses are more easily Imprinted during this period of time than at any other in the rest of the life of the dog. In some dogs, the Fear Period is more obvious, in others, you won’t notice it at all. But, it is still going on. The puppy is more cautious and more easily stressed. You must make life easy for the puppy to deal with, yet continue the Socialization process. It’s a tricky balancing act. Introduce new things slowly. Don’t induce Fear, Avoidance or Aggression in the puppy. But, don’t isolate the puppy. Keep up the Socialization process.
Puppy Rules:
Eight Weeks Old
A new puppy that doesn’t know anything. It doesn’t know any commands, and it doesn’t know anybody. It’s somewhat afraid because it has just left its mamma and is now in a strange home. It needs your kindness and friendship to become a really good dog and to become your friend. Here are the basic rules for your pup for the first 2 weeks it is home. These first 2 weeks are the time when a puppy learns to bond with people. All it has known up to this point is other dogs. What it learns from you at this time will help determine what kind of dog it will grow up to be. Teach your puppy to like people. Make your puppy your friend.
Your pup is now going through the Fear/Avoidance Period of his life. This lasts between the 8th and 10th week of a dog’s life. During this period, a puppy will appear tentative and cautious. What the pup learns during this period, it will never forget! Therefore, be sure you become its friend, and don’t expose the pup to highly stressful experiences during this time. The pup needs to be introduced to new experiences and new people, however. The new experiences must be non-traumatic and easy for the pup to deal with. If your pup is chewing on something it isn’t supposed to, distract it with a toy, or by rubbing your hands on the floor nearby. When your pup looks at you, say its name in a cheerful, pleasant tone of voice that encourages your pup to make eye contact. Call your pup to come to you in a happy tone of voice, arms open wide, with you kneeling or sitting on the floor facing your puppy. The puppy should have a happy look and its tail held high and wagging. It must be a happy experience. If your puppy is growling at you or anyone else, the person is acting inappropriately, and in a way the pup sees as a threat. If that happens, back off and figure out what is being done to frighten your pup. Do not punish or yell at your pup for anything. Do not force or drag your pup around: it’s got to do things willingly and happily. We want your pup to become accustomed to the normal noise and movement around the house. Make sure your hands are clean when you are petting or handling your puppy (because it doesn’t have all his vaccinations yet). It will be good if we can teach your pup to chase a ball, so try to see if it will pick up a tennis ball that you roll in its direction. If you have questions on how to teach your pup to Fetch, then you should consider buying my article, called Fetch.
What your family must do:
1. Be sure to become a member of your pup’s family. The puppy needs to get to know you, your family and friends. Some breeds, as adults, don’t like strangers… so don’t let your friends and extended family become strangers. Your family and friends can do this by visiting your puppy many times over the next 3 months and spending about 5 minutes each visit giving your pup personal undivided attention. Your pup will get to know you and your circle of family and friends by your smell and looks and voice and how you behave. Your family will need to visit your pup on a regular basis, preferably petting and talking to him for at least 5 minutes, at least once every week, and preferably every day. Your pup is going to think your family and friends are great and will be much more affectionate over the years if they give your pup a little attention over the next few months! If any family member makes themselves a stranger to your pup, if your dog is a protection breed, your adult dog, some day, won’t let them in the house if you are gone, and will be unnecessarily suspicious of them when we they come to visit.
2. Gently pet the puppy. Don’t let people grab at the puppy. If your puppy wants to walk away, let it. Don’t grab the puppy by the paws, causing it to struggle, and making it worried about being handled.
3. Sit down to pet the puppy Let the puppy come to them. Encourage approach behaviors. You want to build your pup’s confidence in meeting people, so that your pup trusts your family and friends, and is not afraid of them.
Other Suggestions:
1. No smothering hugs, which cause the puppy to struggle to get away. Be careful about carrying the puppy around. It’s just like a little baby, and can be severely injured if the puppy is dropped on the floor.
2. Don’t force your puppy over onto its back, if you see that your pup is struggling to stay upright. If your pup trusts you, then it will allow you to do anything reasonable. Your pup isn’t some experiment, or a stuffed animal. This isn’t a game, and there is no need to force your dominance on this puppy. That kind of mentality will just scare your pup, not build the kind of bond and trust you will need and want.
3. No rough play. Some day, your dog will be an adult, and will resent rough play, or your dog will become too big to play rough with and it might, in fun, pin YOU or some kid to the ground! Some giant breeds are stronger, as adults, than their owners! Rough games aren’t perceived as fun by a young pup. They are scary.
4. Don’t scare your pup! Your pup won’t forget when it’s older and it won’t like those kinds of games… and you might just cause a future attack. Again, you wouldn’t purposely scare a human baby. Why would you want someone scaring your new puppy?
5. Don’t give your new pup any commands -- it doesn’t know anything! Puppy lessons will teach your pup what the words mean. Your pup didn’t come pre-programmed from its momma knowing what Sit, Down, Off, No Biting, etc. means. All of that has to be taught, step by step.
6. Don’t let anyone hit your puppy! If you hit a puppy, one day it is going to bite someone.
7. If your pup bites, say “OW”, then get up and walk away. This is the beginning step for teaching bite inhibition. Within 2 weeks, you can start a Puppy Manners lesson to teach your pup, in a more structured way, not to bite you. I have such a lesson available for sale, if you wish.
8. Don’t teach the pup to chase people by running at, or running away from, the pup. These aren’t good games to play.
9. No screaming or frightening movements. You want your puppy to trust people.
10. Don’t yell at your puppy for any reason. Your pup has no idea what it is doing.
11. Leave your puppy alone when it is eating. People who pester pups when they eat, cause the older dogs to become aggressive around the food bowl as adults.
12. Don’t growl, bark, poke at, or act aggressively towards your puppy. Do Not Tease! Teasing is irritating, and can provoke later aggression in the adult dog.
13. Pups shouldn’t be allowed in any bathroom, the garage, a baby’s room, in any room where there isn’t an adult present to supervise, or in the back yard without an adult present to supervise. Young pups put things in their mouths, and those things can kill a young pup.
14. Do not come up suddenly from behind to scare the pup. Dogs don’t like surprises, and that isn’t going to help you when this pup is an adult.
15. Do not feed the pup any unhealthy treats. You’ll make your pup sick. At first, you will give small tidbits of treats to acclimate your pup’s stomach to new foods. If you start feeding quantities of new foods, you’ll cause your pup to have diarrhea, which can kill a young pup.
16. Unless you know what you are doing: No tug of war! Rough games of tug can easily injure a pup because its jaws aren’t fully formed and his teeth are still growing in. I am not one of those people who oppose the game of tug… but there is a right way and a wrong way to do it.
17. Don’t “sic” the dog on anyone, even in play. He will remember this and might just knock this person down when he is an adult.
18. No tail yanking, ear pulling, or any rough handling.
A Training Plan for the second 2 Weeks: Young Puppy
1. House training. Teaching your puppy to potty outside and not in your home. A dog is not fully house trained until it is about 12 months old. If you don’t know how to do this, then purchase my House Training lesson online.
2. 3 to 5 minute lessons, 4 times a day. Puppies have very short attention spans. But, they can learn quite a bit if you know what you are doing.
3. Gentle tug of war, rag play, ball play, encouraging your pup to retrieve and carry things.
4. Introducing your pup to a wide variety of friendly people. I have a free article, at www.SamTheDogTrainer.com , which teaches you how to socialize your pup.
5. Play “Hide-and-Seek” and “Follow me”. I hide around a corner, and have a treat in my hand, calling the pup to find me. When the pup finds me, I give them a treat. I want to get the pup into watching me and looking to work with me, right from the very start.
6. Get him to bond with it’s adult masters, and to bond with the rest of the family. Bonding takes time, personal interaction, and good experiences. It takes most pups about a week to bond to a person.
7. Begin training journal.
A Training Plan Starting at 12 to 16 Weeks of Age:
1. Begin Basic Dog Obedience I: teaching all the basic commands: Heel, Sit, Stay, Down, Come, Up, Off, Leave It, Drop It, etc.
2. Begin Basic Tracking
3. Do exercises that build attentiveness, confidence, concentration, endurance, perseverance, initiative, and physical fitness.
4. Practice regular games of Fetch.
A Training Plan After Finishing Basic Dog Obedience I: Adolescence
1. Begin Basic Dog Obedience II: Intermediate lessons so your pup is obedient anywhere off leash.
2. Teach Agility Exercises
3. Finish Level I Tracking.
PUPPY AGGRESSION
Your puppy might growl, bite, or bark at people, animals, or objects. Aggression is a normal part of a dog’s being. The question arises as to when you have a puppy with an aggression problem that might make your adult dog unsafe to own.
I would get professional advice if my puppy (under 6 months of age) displayed any of the following
Guarding Territory Inside The House:
Guarding Objects From Family:
Growling When Being Picked Up:
Growling When Being Handled:
Hiding And Growling:
Refusal To Allow Handling By Strangers:
Animal Aggression:
SUPPLIES YOU WILL NEED
- Get some good Chew Toys for your dog. There is a difference between a Chew Toy and a Play Toy. Chew Toys are for chewing, Play Toys are for playing with a person. Chew Toys are safe for the dog to chew when unsupervised. Play Toys are not safe for dogs to chew on when unsupervised.
Here’s how to use the toys. With Play Toys, you only put them out when you are directly playing and interacting with the dog using the toy. When you are finished, the toy is put away. Before you play with a Play Toy, you examine it for damage. If it is getting worn, or if a piece could break off and be swallowed, then you throw it away. With Chew Toys, you always have variety of 8 or 9 of them. You put one down today, and pick it up at the end of the day and put it away. You put a different one down the next day, and pick it up at the end of the day and put it away. You never put all of them on the floor at the same time, or the dog will find its favorite one and ignore the rest. Then, you will have wasted your money on all of the rest of the toys.
Play Toys: squeeky toys, tennis balls, stuffed animals, bird wings, retrieving bumpers, and tug toys.
Chew Toys: Nylabones, Booda Bones, tough and thick real beef shank bones, Kongs, and rope toys (used for chewing, not for tug of war). Pit Bull Terrier, Staffordshire Terrier, and Bull Terrier owners report that these toys aren’t tough enough for their dogs. They have such powerful jaws, and need to chew regularly, or they will eat up your furniture. I can’t recommend the following toys, but I’ve heard of them using hockey pucks, bowling balls, and other very tough materials for their dogs to chew on. If you own a pit bull Terrier or bull Terrier, or another chewing breed with extremely strong jaws, then join one of their local breed clubs and ask them what they have found to be good Chew Toys. Breed clubs can be of great benefit to you.
KIDS, FAMILY, FRIENDS AND YOUR NEW PUPPY
I always assume that most people don’t know what they are doing when they interact with a dog. They have to be shown. Some people think they are experts at everything, and will harm your dog with their stupid tactics. Here are the main rules that you should enforce with a young puppy:
DO:
Pet, play, handle
Feed small bits of treats
Toss small retrieve toys and encourage pup to bring them back
Wash hands and remove street shoes in the house to prevent infections
Introduce your puppy to other pets in the family & let dogs form pack order
Spend lots of time with the puppy during the first two weeks
Ignore nipping, and give them a toy to play with instead… most pups will out grow this by 4 to 5 months of age, especially if you begin Puppy Lessons with your pup around the 12th week of age.
Let puppy eat and sleep in peace
Have puppy drag around a leash, which is attached to its buckle collar
Encourage puppy to chew on a Chew Toy
Encourage puppy to approach people
Supervise all children
Begin Housetraining
Begin crate training
DO NOT
Rough up, wrestle, hit, poke, play tug of war, growl, or hurt the puppy
Let puppy get injured
Make pup sick: Wash hands and keep shoes very clean
Let other dogs rough up your puppy
Leave your puppy with older dogs for more than 30 minutes a day
Exhaust the puppy
Irritate or tease puppy
Encourage barking or whining
Scare puppy
Expect obedient behavior
If you have any questions, or want lessons, I have quite a bit of information available for you. I have purposely developed e-Lessons that you can download, so you do things right from the very start.
Enjoy Your Puppy!
Merry Christmas!
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