“How often should you train your puppy?” is a question people ask. Do you have a new puppy and you are wondering where to begin? ‘What do I do now?” you ask yourself. “Should I organise a puppy trainer as soon as possible?” is another question that is asked regularly.
If you are asking me, I will advise you to start putting into motion what you would first like to do as soon as you bring your new puppy home.
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A good time to teach your puppy new exercises slowly and consistently is when you are offering them their food, after all, a puppy is usually fed a minimum of three feeds per day, so this is an ideal time to teach them some basic slkills.
For example, I would use this feed time as an opportunity to teach them how to sit, how to drop and how to stand. I would maybe choose one exercise for each mealtime, or I may choose one simple exercise to repeat at each mealtime.
Your puppy will learn more easily if you make it fun, and usually feeding time is a fun time and one that your puppy looks forward to.
Mind you, some puppies can be quite conditioned to the time of day even when you bring them home at around the eight weeks of age mark.
At the time of writing I have three Australian Kelpies and each of these dogs when eight weeks old the second morning of their time home with me, they let me know it was most certainly time for their breakfast. The voice they used at this early age was very demanding.
What would you do here with a puppy demanding their breakfast?
If this is your first puppy you may hurriedly prepare their breakfast in the hope that this would satisfy their demands and help your puppy to know you are a great provider and want what is best for them. They want breakfast, so you comply ever so happily!
You will soon realise that this demand is is now voiced practically on the dot every day.
This provides another area where you can train your new puppy to understand that meal times are on your timetable and not theirs.
Are you getting the idea of “How often should you train your puppy?”
Training opportunities are an every day occurrence, because you are now moulding and training your puppy to become a much loved companion in your household.
So, we are not only taking the opportunity to teach your new puppy how to sit, how to stand and how to move into the down/drop position at every meal time. This is not like training to your puppy at all as it is a fun exercise, your puppy follows your hand with a small amount of his or her food held in your hand, and, your puppy gets rewarded for eagerly following your hand movements encouraging them to maintain these positions effortlessly.
You are also deciding on how long you delay the feed time or deciding to surprise your puppy with an early meal. You need to keep them guessing.
Next you may need to “train” your puppy to enjoy being crate trained. This can be done with food also, you can feed your puppy in a crate and as they are busily eating, you can shut the door, wait a short time after they have finished eating, then open the door and let them out.
You can also practice holding their collar if you have put a collar on your new puppy. Hold the collar gently, then let it go and then you can treat your puppy for being calm about this. You can also have fun by putting on the collar and taking it off whilst engaging your puppy with a toy.
You will think of many ways you can train your puppy without it being a chore to do, as it will be part of your every day life and so training becomes fun.
Of course, you can also have “formal” training sessions to teach your puppy new tricks whereby you set aside about 5 minutes, possibly three times a day to train your puppy with these new routines.
“How often should you train your puppy?” You can train your puppy three times a day with the above ideas and these ideas will not seem like a chore at all.
Would You Like to Continue Your Dog’s Education?
For My Series on Further Dog Training Use This Link
Until next time…
With Love, Success and Inspiration,
Robin Oliver
www.robinoliveronline.com/blog
