Preschool Puppy Training and Little Treats and Praise

When you’re working on preschool puppy training, it’s important to have your puppy trained to expect a 10 minute walk daily and you should have taught him that treats and positive praise go together. As you take your walks, you should try to notice if he is paying attention to you or if he’s absorbed in his surroundings and not noticing what’s going on with you. If he’s distracted, you can work to get his attention by getting down on his level and saying your puppy’s name. After you say your puppy’s name, you should tell him to “come”.

If he looks like he is confused, gently pull him to you and give him his treat while offering him lots of “good boy’s”. Try about four treats and give it about 10 minutes. At nine weeks old, this is all the time you have before your puppy loses focus, so work with him in this time to train him well.

It may seem like four treats in ten minutes is an awful lot, but you are working to teach your puppy the basic command, so by giving him all these treats, you are reinforcing that listening to you is a good thing. At this point, you are showing your puppy how to learn and realizing that offering all the “good boy’s” and love alone aren’t going to get your little friend’s attention very well. So, this is why you are making sure to teach him the basics of learning to obey you.

By the time your puppy is nine weeks old, you will have taught him that he doesn’t get to play until he will let you make him sit. When he sees playing as a reward, it will become easier for you to train him and easier for him to learn what you are trying to teach him. As he learns that you will toss his toy for him when he listens to you, he will also know that by playing nicely with you he will get a treat when the game is over.

Don’t begrudge your puppy his treats for being a good boy and working to learn with you because otherwise, you will find that you don’t get the results you would if you used the treats. Much like children, puppies need a big reward for working to learn; it’s a lot like offering a small child ice cream if they finish all their homework or clean up their room, so make it worth it for your puppy and keep the treats on hand for him, but make sure he does what you want him to first. Keep the praise for after the treat, because as he gets older, praise will be enough, but for now, it’s just not.

Preschool Puppy Training With The Leash and Collar

Because all of your puppy’s formal obedience training will be accomplished with the assistance of a leash and a training collar, its pre-school training should include familiarization with similar paraphernalia. Initially the puppy should be fitted with a comfortable leather or nylon collar.

Care must be taken that the collar is not fixed too tightly, or too loosely. The puppy will immediately make attempts to rid itself of this new “thing”. A loose-fitting collar would allow the puppy to slip its lower jaw underneath the collar. In this situation it could easily panic; or even if it remained calm, it could chew the collar in two.

By the end of its first day of wearing the collar, it will have adjusted to the device and it will no longer attract its attention. You can then attach a light leash to the collar and allow it to drag the leash periodically during the day under your supervision. By exposing the puppy to a leash and collar in this systematic way, no traumatic experience will develop.

You must always bear in mind that you are working with the mind of a living creature. You must always exercise care and loving understanding. To abruptly place slip-chain training collar and leather leash on an eight-week-old puppy cannot possibly accomplish anything, except to create a very negative experience. Negative experiences are the instruments from which trauma develops.

Let Your Puppy Walk

When your puppy is accustomed to wearing the collar and has had the pleasure of romping around the house with the leash attached, carry it outdoors, a few hundred feet or so away from the house. With the leash attached, set the puppy down.

Let it walk you wherever it wants to go (within the bounds of safety, of course). Let it explore for ten or fifteen minutes while you follow it, holding the other end of the leash. When the time is up, pick it up in your arms and take it back to the house and remove the leash. Chances are it will have walked you back in that direction, since a puppy’s instinct directs it backs to the “nest”.

Never Drag Your Puppy

Notice that at no time since the introduction of the collar and leash has anything been said about dragging the puppy. Although the puppy was allowed to drag the leash for a day or two, it must be pointed out and emphasized that the leash should not drag it.

After three or four excursions where the puppy is taken away from the house, with the leash affixed and the puppy allowed to walk at its discretion (with you holding the end of the leash,) it should be ready to walk away from the house.

Still, the leash should not be used as an instrument to drag the puppy. Let the pup do the walking; you hold onto the other end of the leash. By the end of the first week of its association with its new equipment, it will then begin to make the association of the new leash with control.

These daily outings on the leash must be considered as part of your puppy’s preschool training. Human contact and socialization in the outside world is a very important part of this training and a key to the puppy’s future mental and emotional development. It will see big trees, hear noises from power motors and passing automobiles and be admired by an occasional passerby. The benefits produced by proper socialization at this time can never be duplicated later in life.