Puppy training should begin between 9-12 weeks old, starting with house training and basic obedience commands. Socialization is important between 3-6 months to ensure the puppy is comfortable in various situations. Consistency, patience, and practice are key to training - keep lessons short at 5-10 minutes for young puppies, and be consistent in your commands and expectations. Proper socialization and training will result in a well-adjusted dog.

1. How To Train A Puppy

2. A well-socialized dog will interact well with all types of people
and situations, even those it has never been in before. With
the appropriate social skills, your dog will show little or no
fear of most objects, people or other animals, and even if
startled, will recover quickly and won't panic.
Puppy training should begin when she is anywhere from 9
to 12 weeks old. While some early training can be started

3. as soon as your puppy comes home, it's often better to wait
until she is around this age. Keep in mind that training can
cover a wide range of topics. Start off with the basics - things
like house-training and teaching her to obey your NO.
Socialization skills are next. Experts tell us the best window
for your puppy to learn socialization skills is between 3 and

4. 6 weeks - that's the best time to ensure that your puppy
grows into a well-adjusted adult. Socialization is about
giving your dog the self-assurance to deal correctly with any
social environment it finds it's self in and is one of the most
valuable and lasting lessons you can teach it.
Bottom line, a well-adjusted dog is one that is comfortable
in a variety of situations and surroundings. It may be excited

5. in a new setting, but not fearful.The key here, is to create
positive experiences as you expose your dog to more and
more new situations.
Even training your puppy for 5 - 10 minutes per day as soon
as you bring it home will make a big difference in its social
skills and adaptability. Keep in mind that puppies have very
short attention spans, so keep your lessons short and fun.
How short an attention span? That depends on the age of

6. the puppy, its breed and how mature your individual puppy
is. However, a good rule of thumb is to keep the training
sessions within that 5 -10 minute range.
Depending on your puppy's age and maturity level,
sometime between 3 and 6 months of age, you should be
moving the training into the area of the basic commands
such as Sit, Heel, Down, etc. It's important you have

7. realistic expectations about your dog's capabilities at this
point - I don't expect a puppy to be responding to the
basic commands with any degree of regularity until they've
reached 6 months of age.
Puppy training (well, all dog training for that matter) has
three main components - known as "PCP" - that you need
to keep in mind day in and day out when you're training your

8. puppy:
1. Patience.
2. Consistency.
3. Practice.
Patience is the key to any training program with your puppy.
The level of patience you display while training your dog will
have a direct impact on whether you have a happy, well-
trained dog, or a miserable, misbehaving one.

9. You're the adult here, remember? You're the trainer, the
leader of your pack (the Alpha Dog), and the one doing
the teaching. You know that your puppy needs short and
positive training sessions. You know you can't teach it
everything in one session, or even in a week of sessions.

10. So, patience is the key. If you find yourself getting frustrated
when training your puppy, end the session on a positive
note, and stop the training. Don't lose your temper and take
it out on your dog. It's not the puppy's fault that you're getting
annoyed - ok, well, maybe it is, but it's up to you to maintain
control and restart the training on another day.

11. Consistency is the second most important component of
training. It is very important that everyone in the family gives
the dog the same commands and allow the same behaviors.
I can't stress this point enough. If your family is all on the
same page in terms of training, your puppy will be trained
more quickly and thoroughly than you can imagine. When
someone in your family says "Sit" to the puppy, it will know
that it means "Sit." Not "Lie Down," not "Ok, go eat your food

12. now," not "It's ok to chase the cat." Sit means Sit. Down
means Down.
It is equally important to keep the behaviors consistent. You
can't have one family member letting your dog get on the
couch and another trying to discipline it and telling it "No!" for
the same behavior. It will only confuse it, with the end result
that it won't learn which behavior is right. So it will either try
to do both, or neither.

13. Practice makes perfect. I really hate to use that old adage,
but it's true! Repetition is the way to teach your dog a lesson
- any lesson. Repeating the lesson over and over again will
make it stick so deeply in your dog's memory, that it's likely
that it will never forget it, and that's what you want. You want
the puppy's reaction to your commands to become second

14. nature, obeyed almost instinctively and certainly followed
immediately.
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