This month we have been chatting to dog behaviourist, trainer and general dog guru, Simon Goodall about puppy training.
So Simon, is there a specific time frame to train a puppy in?
The younger the better. Anywhere between eight weeks up until about nine months for a dog. Once you hit nine months a dog is well on its way to being grown up. If you teach your puppy how to behave early on, by the time it hits nine months you’ll have a very pleasant dog to be around. Sadly, not starting training early enough is the reason why a lot of dogs are given away at the nine to twelve month stage because without the right training, this is when they can start to become big problems.
So, at eight weeks you start from scratch, getting the talking and biting under control. As your puppy gets older you learn how to walk them on leads, you learn some techniques for that. Then they get a little older still and you teach them hand signals, how to handle different people, just things like that. By the time you hit eight months they’re well rehearsed in what they should be doing and they are actually enjoying themselves!
If you could give three tips to a puppy owner, on maintaining a relationship with their puppy, what would they be?
I think the first one is if you feel like you are about to get angry at your puppy, put it outside or in another room like the laundry and take five minutes to relax. Your puppy won’t learn if you yell and scream at it.
Another tip would be that your puppy will grow out of it, if you do the training. Even though it’s licking and biting and jumping around, there is light at the end of the tunnel, your pet will get there eventually.
My third tip is to tell your puppy what you want it to do. Rather than saying ‘no, no, no, no, no’, tell it what you expect it to do. For example, if it’s on the couch tell it to ‘hop off’. It may take a few weeks for a puppy to learn what hop off means, but don’t just tell it ‘no, no, no’ because it won’t learn.
Thanks Simon!
Make sure come back and visit next month for more useful puppy insights from Simon. In the meantime, have you got any puppy tips or stories – why not share them below?