The Importance of Early Learning
Some Puppy Preschoolers
When first attaining a puppy, we often seek advice about when should start training a dog for obedience. The biggest mistake, is perhaps, the way we word this question. “Obedience” refers to a point in a dog’s learning where it is not only taught motions that are associated with words like “sit,” but they are also taught that these motions must be done when the word is said. Obedience is usually encouraged to be taken seriously after four months of age. This age is an important age in development. This is when a puppy is expected to follow the basic rules of the pack. Before four months, the rest of the pack views the puppy as a puppy, thus many of its “unacceptable” behaviors are written off as “just being a puppy.” They get what we may call a “free puppy pass” allowing them to commit to certain behaviors that are forbidden to older dogs. At four months, this ultimately forgiving attitude about puppy behavior begins to change, and older dogs in the pack raise the bar of expectation.
From 7 -16 weeks puppies go through the “socialization period” of their life. This is the age in which a puppy forms its general perception of the world. This includes what is considered “normal” in their environment. It is important that during the socialization period, we expose puppies to as much as possible in a positive manner. This includes sounds, people (various looks, ethnicity, gender, ages, etc…,) textures, light, dark, obstacles, other friendly dogs, different environments, etc. This is also the time we spend on housebreaking, leash and collar introduction, confidence building, crate training, and teaching appropriate playing.
So when do we just start training? During the 7-16 week old period there are many things we can do to put our dogs a step ahead of the rest. While corrections for obedience functions are not recommended at this age, we can begin teaching the motions as a fun thing. Generally, at this age, obedience motions are rewarded and lured by treats. This should be “just for fun.” We can save ourselves a lot of hard work by having our puppies familiar with the basic motions. We also should focus on discouraging jumping altogether at this age. This will be one behavior I do not encourage sparing corrections. We can do this by refusing to pick up our puppies when then paw at our legs whether they are seeking attention, comfort, or play. We should give an appropriate correction when they jump. Appropriate corrections may include a squirt in the nose with a water bottle, a snap of the leash away from us or others, ignoring for short periods, or a bump away with the leg. It is important that before or after a correction we encourage a correct behavior, like sitting, standing on all four paws, and/or lying down to be greeted. Unfortunately jumping can be extremely hard to break or change later in life. We must think of our puppies as the giants they may be later in life and thus not carry them around or foster them being on us. At this age avoid “softies” that say “OH, its okay, they just want love,” because these will be the ones you will thank for grandmas dislocated vertebrae when she is knocked over at the door.
Other helpful exercises may include things like “puppy races.” This is where we may set up a line of puppies, and have them follow a trail of treats. This doesn’t have to be a straight line. We may also just lure them with treats instead of making a trail. This gets our puppies use to passing other dogs without trouble, and getting rewarded for doing so. While this wont make the perfect leash trained dog, it will start to build a foundation of good habits. In all our puppies’ early development we must remember, that the good habits we create now will be the bad habits we don’t break later, and breaking habits is exponentially harder.
If you need some additional help with puppy advice, please join us for our puppy preschool.
Jonathan Brinkley