Perfect Puppy Training Book – Introduction
Introduction
Training Your Puppy
The puppy you brought home is unlike any other dog you’ve ever owned. No two puppies are alike. Treat her like the precious individual she is, and have patience—with both of you—while you start your training program. It takes effort to train a puppy, and it’s not going to magically happen overnight. It may be hard work, but the results are worth every effort. And if you use reward-based methods, you’ll learn that just because it is hard work, doesn’t mean that it can’t be fun.
Why Training is Important
Would you like a puppy that goes up to people and sits politely to be petted, rather than jumping all over them to get attention? Do you want a puppy that only pees and poops outside your home, rather than on your carpet? Do you want a puppy that doesn’t chew your furniture to bits or destroy your household belongings? Of course you do! However, puppies aren’t born knowing how to behave like this. In fact, because of their natural instincts, they are programmed to be a nightmare if left untrained.
You want your puppy to learn manners so that she can fit into your family routine. You want her to respond to you when you ask her to do something, because doing so will help to keep her safe from harm. You can achieve these goals by training your puppy. Rather than getting frustrated with all the things she’s doing wrong, teach her how to do things right. This is the key to reward-based training.
It’s never too early to start training your puppy. In fact, if you wait too long, you may end up with behavioral problems or bad habits that will be harder to fix later. Puppies are great sponges for learning.
There will be times in training when you will get frustrated and feel that you’re just not getting through to your puppy. This is normal. Perhaps you’ve never taught a puppy before, so you’re learning something new, too. Maybe you have trained a puppy before, but are trying these “modern, reward-based methods” for the first time. Or maybe you have fond memories of an older dog who never seemed to need training because he was perfect. If you did indeed have one of those dogs, consider yourself very lucky, because it rarely happens twice!
Remember, your puppy doesn’t have any idea what you are saying to it. Eventually, she will learn what each sound means, and thereby what you expect when you say it, but it will be up to you to train her to understand. This means training her on her terms, in a way that she can follow and comprehend. Yelling at or punishing a puppy will only lead to confusion (and sometimes aggression), which is why the reward-style training is used so frequently.
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