Raising a puppy to be a happy, confident and sociable adult dog

These cute little bundles with needle sharp teeth they love to sink into our soft skin!

As a new puppy owner, I would say your main focus should be on management! Management of the environment your puppy has access to, management of their toileting behaviours and providing the puppy with ‘errorless learning’.

When we take a puppy into our homes if we manage their access correctly, we in effect prevent the puppy from getting it wrong (errorless learning). There are no shoes lying in the hallway that the puppy has free access to, it is not possible for the puppy to produce a puddle on the living room rug, as he was not allowed access unattended. No one is perfect but with good management you can get a lot done in a short time!

As humans we often make the mistake of assuming things, we assume the puppy knows that he is supposed to toilet outside! It makes perfect sense to us but not to the puppy. Leaving the door open doesn’t communicate that going to the toilet in the garden is what is required, in order for the puppy to learn that we need to be there to reinforce them when they get it right.

Human beings are not great at offering reinforcement for behaviour that we like; we tend to focus on the behaviours we Don’t like! Ask any Husband if his wife points out how delighted she is with him for managing to put his laundry in to the laundry basket, I bet the answer is no but if he misses, he hears all about it!

To help a puppy succeed we need to remove all the temptation that could lead them down the wrong path and ensure that there are no ‘illegal chews’ within their reach for them to get it wrong. If your puppy does get hold of something they shouldn’t, you need to tell yourself off, not the puppy.

Our puppies learn what we want from them by reinforcement, we don’t need to use punishment, it doesn’t work, and the puppy doesn’t actually learn from it. If you hear yourself saying ‘he knows not to do that’, stop and think about the actual possibility that a puppy has outsmarted you and decided to defy you and deliberately do something wrong, sound silly? It is! If your puppy is doing something you don’t like, what do you want them to do instead?

It is not possible to train a dog to NOT do something. Think of the things you would like to change in your puppies behaviour, do most of them start with I want him to stop, I don’t want him to……..

OK so what do you want him to do instead? Don’t want him to jump up? What can he do instead to let you know he wants you? Would a nice polite sit work for you?

Let’s talk about teething and what you can offer your puppy, so they are not biting you. Much like human babies they explore the world by putting things into their mouth. Puppies need to bite things as they don’t have hands they play with their mouth on toys. They need lots of different textures to help them through the painful teething process and just like human babies they often seek out cold items to ease that pain.

There are hundreds of different products out there for your puppy, and it can get quite confusing and expensive. There are lots of things you can do to help your puppy, you can use an old tea towel lightly wrung out, spread with treats and frozen makes a great chew. Kongs are fantastic as they can be filled with all sorts and frozen, including their dinner which is a much more beneficial way to feed your puppy!