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Night Time House Training

Most of our puppies are able to sleep without going potty at night for about 6 hours straight.  None of them should have to get up more than once in an 8-hour night.  Here is how we recommend you handle those first few nights with your puppy in your home.

Spoil your puppy the first night and take him out if he cries.  Carry him to the potty place.  Don’t talk to him.  Be matter-of-fact.  Set him down.  Wait for no more than two minutes for him to find a place and pee.  If he pees, pick him up and carry him back to the crate.  If he doesn’t pee, pick him up and carry him back anyway.  Don’t let the puppy think that you’ll take him outside at night to play.

If your puppy learns that he can go outside and enjoy a long sniff or play time, he’ll be inclined to continue waking you up at night to play.  If his time outside is limited to two minutes and he doesn’t have to potty, he’ll be far less likely to cry to get out the next time he wakes and wants to play.  Puppies (and dogs) wake often in the night and they need to learn to settle themselves and go back to sleep.

If your puppy doesn’t pee when you’ve taken him out, keep in mind that the next time he wakes, he may well have to pee.  Therefore, you’ll need to take him out again if he cries again.  You may be thinking that you should have given him more time the first time you took him out.  Giving him more time may well result in a pee.  However, if you want to develop long-term good habits, this practice of only giving the puppy 2 minutes outside will pay off.  Most likely there will only be one night of multiple trips outside (if there are any).

Day Time House Training

House training consists of building both a puppy’s ability to hold his potty as well as his desire to hold it.  How long a puppy can hold his potty is always longer than how long the puppy will hold it.  This is exemplified by the fact that when confined to small spaces, puppies will hold their potty a lot longer than they will hold it when given free rein of an entire house. 

Most puppies raised by us will hold it on average for about an hour when given free rein of the house.  However, that doesn’t mean that they can’t hold it longer.  Dozens of our puppies have traveled across country on plane trips that were over 5 hours without pottying in their carrier.  So why does the puppy that is loose in the house go more often than the puppy in the carrier?

Small spaces are strong motivators for a puppy to hold his puppy IF he has been raised by a breeder who nurtures the puppy’s natural instinct to eat and play in one place and to pee and poop in another.  Therefore, once one of our puppies has reached the point in time whereby he is no longer inclined to hold his pee when the least bit of urge comes on him, he needs to be confined to a small space.  

Being confined to a small space such as a crate will accomplish two purposes.  First of all, it will prevent accidents from happening in your home so that you can promote good habits.  Habit is key in all aspects of dog training.  Secondly, crating a puppy when he has a slight desire to relive himself will provide an opportunity to build bladder control.  Increased bladder control will enable the puppy to hold it longer in the future.

The Daytime Potty Outing

Most puppies enjoy going outside with you.  They enjoy sniffing and exploring with you by their side.  Most will want to prolong these outings for as long as they can.  If they learn that as soon as they potty, outside exploring is over, most puppies will also figure out that they can prolong their time outside by not doing their business.

Therefore, it’s important that you don’t let your puppy associate pottying with the end of the fun.  Wait about 5 minutes after your puppy does his business before taking him inside.  Giving him these extra 5 minutes will ultimately shorten his stay outside for the long-term.

Many books recommend rewarding a puppy with food treats for pottying.  Though we think this might be a good idea in a very few isolated cases, we think this practice is seldom beneficial.  We’ve seen several dogs learn to squat without fully emptying their bladder before running to get their treat.  One of our dogs would squat repeatedly without peeing at all just for the food.

Even verbal praise needs to be doled out with care.  If your praise is too exciting to the puppy, he won’t finish the job and will only half empty his bladder.

A Daytime Routine

Here is a suggested daily routine.  

First of all, you need to ascertain the minimum amount of time that you can trust your puppy in your home at any given time.  This time should be gradually growing as your puppy grows and as he develops his ability and desire to hold it.  When you pick up your puppy, we’ll give you input as to where your particular puppy is on this.  For most puppies, that minimum time is about an hour.  We have a few that will hold it for 1 ½ to 2 hours.  Unfortunately, we also have a few that will only hold it 30-45 minutes without being confined to a small space.

At the start of the day, take your puppy outside to potty.  Bring him back inside to eat his breakfast.  Thirty minutes later, take him out to potty again.  First thing in the morning, all puppies have a back-up of pee from holding it overnight.  Therefore, the first two potty outings will always be closer together in time than outings for the remainder of the day.

After this second pee outing, set a timer for the amount of time you’ve decided is your puppy’s period of time that he can be trusted loose in the house.  Keep in mind that although your puppy might be safe as far as peeing in the house, he probably won’t be trustworthy with regard to chewing things you don’t want chewed. 

After your puppy’s safe-time is over, take him out again.  If he pees, set a timer for his safe-time again.  

If he doesn’t pee, your puppy must be either crated or tethered to you or carefully watched and interacted with.  Don’t let your puppy roam around the house sniffing.  

Our puppies do not pee if they are being interacted with, even if it is far beyond their safe-time.  Therefore, starting at 8 weeks, we no longer take them out to pee before we bring them in for training.  Just like when in a crate, puppies are motivated to hold it when kept busy interacting with you.  It’s those free times when puppies might be bored and given too much freedom and are looking for something to do that accidents happen.

After crate time, take your puppy out and start the process over.  When he pees, set a timer for free time in the house.  When your puppy’s safe-time is over, crate him, tether him to you, or interact with him until he goes again.  Repeat this routine throughout the day.

If your puppy goes to sleep, you must have a solid eye on him for when he wakes up.  Puppies usually need to potty when they first wake from a nap.  Therefore, I would put him in his crate for naps.

Start with the Basics

Start with the basics when working with your new puppy on all obedience exercises. This principle is especially important when training the recall.  Your puppy must learn how to respond to your voice and your physical queues and mannerisms.  Initially, your puppy may not even recognize that you are calling him.  And even if he did, he may not know that you are worth coming to.

Therefore, you must initially start training the recall the same way that I did: by calling your puppy when he is about to come to you anyway.  If you begin calling your puppy when he’s not paying attention to you, your voice will begin to blend in with all of the background noises in your puppy’s world and your recall will become irrelevant to your puppy.  

A Puppy Must Be Trained to Every Person’s Voice That Wants to Recall Your Puppy

Your puppy is trained at this point to come only to the sound of Jenna, Elise, and me.  However, the transition from our voices to yours should transfer quickly (within a few days).

How to Train the Recall

Here is how you start the training.  When your puppy happens to look your direction and starts to come towards you, say your puppy’s name and then “come”, back away from him, bend over, and have the food in both hands held out for him to take.  Jenna will show you this in person.

Reward him while you are still backing away from him and while he is still chasing you.  Do not ask him to sit first.  Just reward your puppy.  If you ask him to sit first, your puppy will associate the reward with the sit and not the come.  A sit is good to reinforce in most instances, but not immediately after a recall.  The come must be reinforced more rigorously than any other behavior.  Don’t let a sit come between the come and the reward.  

Reward the recall with two handfuls of dog food.  Reward with 3-5 pieces of kibble in one hand.  Then immediately reward with 3-5 pieces of food from the other hand.

Practice the recall when the puppy is about to come to you anyway several times.  Then try the recall when the puppy is not looking at you (but not terribly distracted either).  Gradually increase the level of distractions that you are calling your puppy away from.

A Knee-jerk Reaction and a High Success Rate

A solid knee-jerk reaction to the sound of your voice must be trained.

If the puppy’s response is not immediate, quick, and even a jerk away from whatever it was that you are calling him away from, you are moving too quickly in the training and expecting too much from your puppy too fast.  

In all dog training, progressing too slowly in training is not a problem.  However, moving too fast can set the puppy up for failure.  It is of utmost importance that you keep your puppy successful with the recall even more than in any other exercise.

If the puppy doesn’t come to you, don’t repeat the command.  Just own up to the fact that you’ve expected too much from your puppy too fast.  Next time, don’t call your puppy from something this distracting until you’ve practiced more with lower level distractions. 

High Rate of Reinforcement 

Our recall when trained correctly can be a powerful recall for emergency situations.  However, for the recall to remain powerful, it must be highly reinforced.  We recommend minimal use of this recall when you don’t have food on you unless the situation is an emergency where a reliable recall is highly important.

Our puppies all want to come to us.  If you don’t have food on you, just say the puppy’s name.  You may not get a knee-jerk reaction, but chances are really high that the puppy will come when called as long as you are someone the puppy wants to be with.

Calling a Puppy for Unpleasant Tasks

In order for the puppy to continue coming with the use of his name, make it as pleasant as possible without having food rewards.  If you are wanting your puppy for an unpleasant task and it is easy to go get the puppy, don’t call him to you.  Instead, just go get him.  

Our puppies do well for nail trims and for baths, but none of them particularly enjoy them.  Therefore, we never call them to us for these activities.  It is worth it to us to take a few extra steps to get our puppies for things that are not enjoyable to the puppy in order to continue having a puppy who wants to come when called.

However, there are times when you need to call a puppy for certain tasks in situations where it is difficult to get the puppy.  In these situations, we recommend random recalls with rewards so that your dog doesn’t get wise to when he is being called for something he doesn’t like.

For example, let’s say you take your puppy regularly to play with a friend’s dog.  He loves the play and will stay for far longer than you’d like to stay.  If you call your dog only when it’s time to leave, he will soon decide that the food reward isn’t worth giving up the play time!  Your recall will quickly be routinely ignored.

To keep this from happening, take treats with you for the play day.  Randomly call the puppy throughout the play time and reinforce the recall with treats.  Then, release the puppy to go and play some more.  If you reinforce the recall with treats and a release far more than you don’t release him, you can maintain the value of the recall.  The key is for the puppy to anticipate being rewarded and then released to play some more.  You don’t want your puppy to associate your recall with the end of fun. 

Three Purposes of the Heeling Training that We Provide

There are three purposes for the work we do with our puppies on heeling.  How you want to continue the heeling aspect of training and how you want to use what we’ve already trained is up to you.  

The three purposes are:

1. to provide a tool for socialization and environmental desensitization
2. to give a tool to get an out-of-position dog back in position during a pleasure walk
3. to build strong internal qualities into our puppies.

Socialization and Environmental Desensitization

From the time you get home until the puppy is four months of age, the most important aspect of raising your puppy is to continue his socialization and environmental desensitization.  Socialization walks should come prior to pleasure walks. I’ll explain what a socialization walk is in a minute.

We recommend that your puppy’s first walks not be for the purpose of exercise. We also believe first walks shouldn’t be merely for pleasure. Your puppy needs to focus his attention on too many new things.  He needs to focus on and acclimate to all the things in his environment prior to being asked to focus on staying in heel position.   

Until your puppy is four months of age, it is extremely beneficial for your puppy to be acclimated to as many sights, sounds, places, and types of people as possible.  This is especially important if you plan on taking your puppy to a big variety of places throughout his life. 

How to Do the Socialization Walk

After your puppy has acclimated to your home and your family and after you and your puppy have learned the basics of training together through at-home training, it’s time to take your training away from your home.

As with everything in our training system, we recommend starting with the easiest places.  Your front yard might be a good starting place.  Attach the leash to your collar.  Put on your treat bag and adjust it where it is positioned on the backside of your left hip.  

How to Position the Treat Bag

Initially, when learning to work with your puppy on the heeling exercises, it is easier to pull the treats out of a bag positioned on the backside of your right hip with your right hand.  Then, you can transfer the food to your left hand.  Transferring the food from one hand to the other allows you to pull the food out with one hand while you are rewarding with the other.  This will result in quicker rewards.  Initially, your puppy will need to be rewarded quickly in order for him to understand that you are working with him. 

However, before you take your puppy on a socialization walk, your relationship with your puppy and your ability to handle your food needs to be such that you can pull your treats out and deliver them without the help of your right hand.  Once you leave your home, your right hand will need to be holding the leash. 

Start in the Front Yard

Walk to the front yard and see what your puppy does.   Initially your puppy may be too distracted (or possibly too fearful of certain things) to pay any attention to you.  If that is the case, let him look at, smell and touch these things if possible, and experience whatever he is distracted by or fearful of.  Once he is comfortable with everything, he will probably want to work with you.  (Keep in mind that your puppy must already be enjoying working with you inside or in the back yard.)

Your puppy will communicate that he is comfortable by offering behaviors.  This is your que that it is time to practice the heeling and/or the stay exercises.  See our video that show Jenna training our puppies down by the highway for more details.

Heel a Short Distance Down the Street

Once your puppy is focused and working in your current location, heel with him down the street while you reward him often.  Continue working with your puppy until he is either distracted or worried about something else.  Stop and let him acclimate to whatever has caught your puppy’s attention in this new location before moving on again.  Expose your puppy to as many places and situations as you can.

The Pleasure Walk

Once your puppy is solidly comfortable and able to focus on you with frequent rewards along the entire path that you want to enjoy walking on, you can begin what I call pleasure walks.  These walks are for both yours and your puppy’s enjoyment.  

The Treats

On these walks, treats are no longer necessary unless you think there might be something pop up that might be distracting or scary.  

Initially, until your puppy is rarely experiencing anything that scares him or rarely experiencing major distractions, take the treats just in case you need them.  If you encounter something that overwhelms your puppy, simply switch from pleasure walk mode back to desensitization mode.  The difference between the two modes is that in desensitization mode, you reward with food for focused heeling.

A New Reward

The first times you go for pleasure walks without rewarding with food, your puppy will probably begin the walk with focus.  However, when your puppy realizes that his efforts are no longer paying off, he will begin looking at what’s going on around him instead of at you.  That’s okay at this point as long as the puppy is keeping you in his peripheral vision and keeping himself in somewhat good heel position.

Your puppy’s reward for staying in good position and keeping you in his peripheral vision is the privilege of forward motion and enjoying the walk.  

A New Standard for Heel Position

All of the practice staying in perfect position doing our heeling exercises should give your puppy a really good feel for where heel position is so that he is able to maintain it.  However, his doing two things at once presents a new challenge.  Sometimes his enjoyment of all that is going on around him will cause him to temporarily forget you, move forward too much, and lose sight of you.

When your puppy is half a body’s length ahead of you, he can no longer see you in peripheral vision.  You need to address the problem before he hits the end of the leash.  This is where the “right here” command comes in handy. Take a step back.  Say “right here” and your puppy should loop back around and get back in heel position.  There is no food reward.  The reward should be verbal praise continuing your forward moving walk.

Getting in and Staying in Heel Position

Most young puppies lack the physical coordination to walk backwards.  Therefore, we teach our puppies to turn around and loop back behind us.  Eventually, most of them will learn to walk backwards to get back in position.  How they get in position is not important.  Let the puppy decide.

Learning to stay in position while at the same time enjoying a walk is a new experience.  Don’t be surprised if your initial experiences with it include many “right here’s”.  However, if you are doing it correctly, your puppy shouldn’t be hitting the end of the leash.  Further, your puppy should be getting out of position less and less the more you practice.

If your puppy hits the end of the leash, make sure you are addressing his being out of position promptly just as soon as he is a half body’s length ahead of you.  Addressing the problem early should fix a slightly out of position puppy before he hits the end of the leash if the problem is simply a puppy who is excited about the walk.

Out of Position Because of Distractions

However, if your puppy is pulling ahead because of a new big distraction that he is overly excited about, you need to let him look at and experience it.  In this case, simply stop walking until your puppy gets bored of the new distraction and turns his attention back to you.

Out of Position Because of Worry

If your puppy is out of position because of something that he is afraid of, you need to handle the situation very differently.  Usually dogs that are afraid are not pulling ahead, but are rather dragging behind.  In this situation, stop moving, and allow the dog to acclimate to the scary thing in his own time.  If the puppy wants to go over and sniff it, allow him to experience it in any way that is safe.

When to Start Pleasure Walks

Some puppies are ready for pleasure walks in certain environments sooner than others.  You must ascertain your particular puppy’s readiness in your current particular environment.  

The Purpose of the Leash

In our training protocol, the leash is never used for training.  It is used only for safety.  Therefore, you should refrain from using the leash to pull your puppy in position.  He has been trained to get himself back in position with the “right here” command if he should get out.   It is important that the puppy takes responsibility for his own position.  

Building Internal Character Qualities

The last and most important reason that we train our puppies to heel is that our method for teaching heeling is a fantastic tool for building focus, confidence, self-control, and a strong desire to work with and please a person.

This page gives instructions for training a reliable down/stay. There is also a video that demonstrates how to train it. If you have a puppy who either lacks the self-control to stay still or is simply uninterested in remaining in a down, this page could be your answer! There are many training principles that together hold the key to success with the down/stay.

Train Below Your Puppy’s Threshold of Success

Training below a puppy’s threshold of success and keeping your puppy successful is extremely important in all aspects of dog training, especially with regard to teaching puppies the down/stay. Pushing a puppy over his threshold of success will erode the puppy’s confidence and reduce his desire to try.  

See our page on Principles and Tips for Raising a Happy Obedient Puppy to read about details on the threshold of success is and how to train below it.  

When you are at our home, I’ll show you where your puppy’s threshold of success is. However, keep in mind that when training with a new person, that threshold will go down until the puppy learns to work with the new person.

When training the down/stay, the threshold of success for your puppy will be considerably lower when training with you than when your puppy is training with one of us. Therefore, I suggest that in order for you to both be successful, you start with the very basics: backing up one step for one second.  Build from there as your puppy demonstrates understanding and as the two of you build a bond.

Don’t Mark or Reward the Stay Until You Have Fully Returned to the Dog

Don’t get in the habit of saying “yes” and starting to pull the treat out prior to being fully back to the dog.  If you do, the dog will start anticipating that the end of the exercise is your walking back to him.

Your timing must be in this order.  1. Return fully to the dog.  2. Say “yes”, and then and only then 3. begin moving toward giving the food to your dog.

Occasionally Lean Over Towards the Dog With Food Prior to Saying “Yes”

Occasionally Lean Over Towards the Dog With Food Prior to Saying “yes”

Pull food out of your pouch.  Hold it in your hand with your hand extended to the side.  Lean over towards the dog.  Don’t say “yes” or give your puppy the food unless (or until) your dog is focused on you and looking at you and away from the food.  Then, when the dog is clearly focused on you and not the food, say “yes” and give him his reward. See the video for an example of Jenna leaning over Eddie.

Use Reward Placement to Keep Your Puppy in a Down After His Reward

Reward low with your hand almost on the ground.  If the puppy has to stretch up to reach his reward, he will be inclined to get up between reward events.  Try to keep your puppy interested in staying in a down.  Repeated down/stays will increase his self-control and ability to remain still for longer.  

The “yes” is technically a release.  The puppy is free to get up and access his food if he wants.  However, if you can keep your puppy wanting to stay in a down, his training will go faster.

When Your Puppy Gets Up Before You Return to Him and Say “yes”

Take your puppy back to where he was supposed to be.  Ask him to go back into a down.  Do not reward the down. Back up from him and return. Then mark and reward.

If the puppy should learn that he can earn his reward by not performing the stay portion of the down/stay and by just repeating the down, he’ll be more inclined to get up, run to you, and keep repeating the down routine without the stay.  

The dog should always be required to repeat the portion of the exercise that he failed prior to getting rewarded.  If the dog fails on the stay portion of the down/stay, it is the stay portion that must be performed and then reinforced.  Otherwise, you would be reinforcing the getting up and quickly going right back down. 

How to Wear the Treat Bag

In order to best encourage your puppy to focus on you and away from the food, wear the bag where it is not in the puppy’s plain sight.  Since the puppy will be training in front of you for the stay exercises, put the pouch on your backside. 

Adjust the strap to enable the bag to hang at hip height.  Having the strap adjusted too tightly will put the bag at a height around your waist.  It is easier to get the treats out when the bag is a little lower.  Try the bag on before working with your puppy to see if it is adjusted to where it is easiest for you to reach for the treats.

Resist the Temptation to Bend Over and Lure Your Puppy

If your puppy doesn’t go down when asked, he is confused. Don’t bend over and lure him with the food. Don’t repeat the down command. Instead, see our page on General Principles and Tips and follow the instructions in the section on “When Your Puppy Gets It Wrong”.

Our puppies are trained to think about what they need to do to earn their reward. The section on “When Your Puppy Gets It Wrong” will teach you how to encourage thinking rather than dependence on hints.

The Place Command on a Cot

We train our puppies to do a down/stay on a cot initially because it fixes a very common problem with the down/stay: creeping forward.

We begin training the down/stay at about 6 ½ weeks of age.  By 8 weeks of age, many of them will maintain a down/stay while at the same time crawling towards you.  It is very difficult, if not impossible, to adequately communicate to the puppy that he’s wrong to be crawling, but at the same time right for remaining in a down position.  If you withhold reward when the puppy is doing both a right thing and a wrong thing, he’ll assume that he’s wrong in all respects.

Therefore, the fix for this type of problem is to make it impossible for the dog to continue doing the right thing and the wrong thing at the same time.  A raised cot or bed is a perfect solution.  If a puppy crawls forward while in a down position on a cot, he will crawl off the cot which will cause his feet to hit the floor putting him in a standing position.  The puppy can easily understand that the crawling will not earn his reward.  At the same time, it will be clear to the puppy that he is no longer in a down.  Therefore, ambiguity is removed from the exercise.

We practice the down/stay with the puppy exclusively on the cot for two or maybe three days.  By then, the habit of staying still and not crawling will be sufficiently developed.  At this point, we move the puppy back to the floor.  Surprisingly, all of them will have forgotten the possibility of crawling.

The Power of Habit

Habit is powerful in dog training.  It is important to build good habits at the start and to prevent bad ones from developing.  We move our puppies to the cot at the first hint of crawling.  If the crawling becomes a habit, it is much more difficult to fix.

The Cot is Easier than the Floor

The cot is an easier place for a puppy to practice down stays.  When working on the floor, the puppy has to remember what it is he is supposed to be doing.  Is he supposed to sit?  To be in a down?  Or to move with you in heel position?  It’s a lot for a puppy to keep up with.

However, on the cot, our puppies are only asked to do one thing:  lie down without getting off the cot.  Therefore, our puppies are more successful at further distances for longer lengths of time.

A Video Showing How to Train It

Below are general principles and tips to remember as you work toward raising an obedient happy puppy that is easy to live with.

The Marker

If you’ve seen any of our videos, you’ve probably noticed that we always say “yes” before giving our puppies their food reward.  You may be wondering why we do this.  Why not just give the dog the food and forget saying “yes”? 

We’ll have a detailed page on our blog soon explaining why we use a marker.  For now, in summary, we use a marker because it gives a means for good communication and because it builds strong motivation for a dog to want to work with a person.

How to Use a Marker

Say “yes” before you reward with food.  Saying a word like “yes” or using a device like a clicker is called marking a behavior.  When you hear someone saying to mark a behavior, it simply means to make a sound (like saying the word “yes”) to tell your puppy that he got it right at that particular second.   In our case, the marker sound is the sound of us saying “yes” in a particular tone of voice.   

If a puppy learns that he will never get food until after he hears the marker sound that he has been conditioned to, he’ll realize that there is no point in focusing on the food until after he hears the marker.  Instead, he’ll be inclined to listen for his marker sound and to pay attention to earning the reward instead of obtaining it.  A dog that is focusing on how he can get the food cannot give you or his work his full attention.  

Don’t even start to give the food until after the “yes” has been said.  

Once you start the process of giving the food, the dog is no longer listening to your “yes”.  If he stops listening for the “yes”, his focus will quickly turn from you to accessing his reward, even before he’s earned it.

The “yes” tells your dog that he is finished working for the reward and can now turn his attention to taking the reward.  Using a marker frees your dog up from focusing on two things at once.  Once he learns that the marker always comes first, he’ll begin putting his entire focus on you before he hears the marker word knowing that after he hears the marker word, he can put his entire focus on getting the food.

Train Below Your Puppy’s Threshold of Success

The threshold of success is that point at which a puppy will be successful if you train at a level below it and your puppy will fail if you train above it.  Training below this threshold (even far below it) will build your puppy’s confidence in the exercise, his self-control, and his ability to remain still.  

Contrary to popular belief, you do not have to push your puppy to perform to his maximum potential in order to move your puppy forward in his training.  For example, if your puppy’s threshold of success on a down/stay is for you to back away from him 10 feet for 10 seconds, you don’t need to be practicing at that level to increase his threshold to 11 feet.  Practice at half of that (5 feet for 5 seconds) repeatedly.  As you practice at this lower level, your puppy will gain confidence, self-control, and the ability to stay longer. 

Occasionally throw in the longer stays that are getting close to your puppy’s threshold, but don’t do them repeatedly until your puppy’s threshold is much higher. 

Changes in the Threshold

Your puppy’s threshold of success is always changing.  If you are doing a good job in training him, it will be moving in general upward.  However, it won’t move upward continuously.  Some days (or some training sessions), your puppy’s threshold may dip down.  These ups and downs are normal and part of the process as long as the general trend is towards improvement.

The increases in the threshold are the result of good training and improvements in confidence, self-control, focus, and motivation for the work.  Temporary decreases in the threshold are related to the puppy’s state of mind.  A puppy who is full of energy is unable to maintain self-control as well as that same puppy later in the day when he has less energy to control.

Training a puppy when his threshold is lower does not mean that you are permanently lowering his threshold.  It simply means that for that particular training session, you need to expect less of him before rewarding him.  You are still building the same basic threshold of success.  

For example, if your puppy can hold a down/stay for 15 feet for 15 seconds in the afternoon, but first thing in the morning, he can only hold it for 7 feet for 7 seconds (max), practice at 5 feet for 5 seconds in the mornings and you will not only be building his morning threshold, you will also be pushing up his afternoon threshold by allowing your puppy to practice what he is able to do while he is full of energy.

This same principle is true when there are more or less distractions.  Your puppy’s threshold of success is greatly affected by what’s going on around him.

The Threshold of Success Will Be Lower When a Puppy is Working with a New Person

When you first get home with your new puppy, you must lower your criteria for success and in a sense start back at the beginning with the training.  The puppy must get used to your tone of voice, your mannerisms, and your physical ques.  You must learn your puppy and how to communicate what you want to him.  It takes time for you to become a team.  

Therefore, I suggest that in order for you to both be successful, you start with the very basics: backing up one step for one second.  Build from there as your puppy demonstrates understanding and as the two of you build a bond.

Give Your Puppy Your Undivided Attention During Training Sessions

Don’t do as I do on puppy pick up day, but rather do as I say do.  On puppy pick up day, I will be talking a lot and the puppy will be ignored a lot.  This is necessary for me to transition the training from me to you.  Most importantly, my focus on you and lack of focus on my puppy is temporary.  If I repeatedly had these types of training sessions, the puppy would lose interest in working with me.

Train When Your Puppy is Hungry

For any type of positive reinforcement training to work, the dog must want whatever it is you are reinforcing with.  Initially, with our training system, you are rewarding with food.  The dog must be hungry.  Therefore, you must train before a meal.  

Occasionally, we have a person contact us a month or so after getting their puppy back home with them saying that their puppy is no longer interested in the work.  This problem is usually caused by overfeeding and increasing the feeding amounts too quickly.  If a puppy won’t work (enthusiastically) for his food, he is usually growing too fast.  The problem could be that the person is expecting far too much from their puppy and the puppy loses motivation for the work for that reason.  However, overfeeding is the most common problem we’ve seen.

What to Reward with and How Much to Feed

Our puppies are trained so often that if we reinforced behaviors with anything other than the puppy’s own dog food, their diet would be very out of balance.  Don’t use treats unless the amount of training food is negligible compared to the puppy’s regular food.  Also, make sure that you are taking the amount of food used for training out of your puppy’s daily food ration.  

Our 11 week old puppies eat ½ cup of food three times a day.  If you are training for breakfast, measure a half cup food into your training pouch.  Train your puppy with it.  Then dump whatever is left in a bowl and give it to him in his crate using our crate time feeding routine.

At 11 weeks of age, reward with 3-5 pieces at a time.  More is okay as long as you can handle the food without dropping it.  When first learning to work with your puppy, train with only 1-2 pieces of food until you learn to handle the food with minimal dropping.

By 12 weeks, increase your puppy’s food to a heaping ½ cup three times a day.  By 13 weeks, your puppy’s food should be increased to two cups total per day divided into three meals.

How to Hold the Food

Most people tend to hold their food at the tips of their fingers.  This causes two problems.  

First of all, the puppy won’t be able to gently take the food from you.  He’ll be forced to take the food with his teeth.  I want my puppies to lick the food out of my hands which is impossible if you are holding the food by the ends of your fingers.

Secondly, you cannot successfully transfer the food from the tips of your fingers into the puppy’s mouth without dropping food on the floor.

The best way to hold your food is in your palm between the base of your first two fingers.  With the food in this place, you can further support the food and keep it from falling to the floor by using your thumb over the food if necessary to guide the food into your puppy’s mouth.

When You Drop Food

As much as possible, try not to drop food on the floor.  Practice handling the food without the puppy before practicing delivering the food into your puppy’s mouth.  However, you will drop food.  Everyone does.  Therefore, until you are proficient at handling your food, don’t train in the grass.  You won’t be able to see dropped food, but your puppy can smell it.

When you drop food, try your very best not to let the puppy get it.  If the puppy begins thinking there might be dropped food on the floor or the ground, he’ll lose focus on you as he goes into search-the-ground mode.

If possible, try to keep the puppy from knowing that you dropped the food to begin with.  I do this by discretely putting a foot on top of the dropped food.  Then, I’ll ask the puppy to do something else (a sit for example).  I’ll reward the puppy for sitting with one hand and while the puppy is busy and distracted with taking his reward, I’ll pick the dropped treat up off the floor with my other hand.

By being discrete about my dropped treat, I’m avoiding a game of race-for-the-food.  If the puppy sees me scrambling to get the dropped food, he’ll race me to get it (even if he didn’t see the dropped food to begin with).

If the puppy sees you drop the food, but ignores it and instead looks up at you, immediately mark and reward the puppy.

Which Hand to Reward From

When working on the heeling exercises, you must reward from the left hand.

However, for the other exercises, you can reward from either. It is best if you are inconsistent with which hand you are rewarding from when practicing the stay exercises.  I sometimes reward from the right hand and sometimes from the left.  Varying your reward hand is one of many ways to get your puppy’s mind off the food he’s working for and onto you and the work itself.

Repeating Commands

Repeating commands will encourage your puppy to tune you out.  If your puppy doesn’t respond to a command the first time, he needs time to process it.  Just wait a few seconds.  Most likely, you’ll see the light bulb go on just before your puppy figures out on his own why he’s not getting his reward. 

If after a couple of seconds, the puppy is still just sitting, or standing, or lying and looking at you, you’ll need to give him some more help.  Repeating commands is not the kind of help he needs.  Instead, start chattering in an upbeat voice to let your puppy know he’s wrong.  Don’t be a Debbie Downer with solemn “no’s” but be an encourager.  Tell him cheerfully to “try again”.  Ask him to show you what else he can do.  

A puppy who has been trained with shaping will recognize that this is his que to try different things in order to figure out what you want.  

When the puppy hits on the right thing, quickly say “yes” and give him his reward.

If after chattering for 5-10 seconds, your puppy remains frozen or can’t seem to figure it out, re-set him by moving to a different spot and continue chattering.  

Weaning Off the Food

We don’t recommend a process of weaning off the reinforcements. The more you reward any behavior, the stronger it will be.  However, as you continue building value in good behavior through marker training, the dog will eventually perform the behavior out of habit and simply because he enjoys it.

Frequent rewards never hurt a dog’s ability to perform well.  The more you reinforce a behavior, the more the dog will like doing that behavior.  Once sufficient value is built into good behavior, the reward will be enjoyment of the behavior itself.

Also, don’t forget the power of habit.  Whatever is practiced on a regular basis will become part of a dog’s life.  

More Helpful Tips for the First Few Days When Making the Transition from Our Home to Yours

Make sure you don’t push your puppy too far. Remember: your puppy needs to learn your voice, your hand signals, and your expectations. Start off making it simple and gradually build back up to the training your puppy demonstrated when you picked him up.

Don’t forget to work the exercises at easy levels often. Puppies who are consistently pushed further and further without practicing at easy levels will at best get confused. At the worst, they could totally loose motivation to work with you.

Set your puppy up for success. Gradually increase the difficulty. However, don’t increase the criteria for reward so much that your puppy is making mistakes more often than 5% of the time.

Don’t work your puppy too long. Quit your training session before your puppy gets bored. Leave him wanting more! Short frequent training sessions are better than infrequent longer ones. For most people, I suggest keeping your training sessions under 10 minutes. Jenna and I are experienced trainers. We know how to keep puppies’ attention for much longer periods of time than most. Still, we rarely train a puppy for over 20 minutes at a time. If you are really ambitious and want to move your puppy forward rapidly in his training, don’t increase the length of your training sessions. Instead, increase the number of times you train during a day.

Memory Lapses After Puppy Pick Up

Expect memory lapses. Some days very young puppies will have “off” days where they will seem to completely forget a command. They are not being disobedient but rather are confused.

When Your Puppy Gets It Wrong or Freezes

If your puppy seems to have forgotten a command, do the following if you’ve asked him to change position and he continues to stay in the same position.

1. Give your puppy a minute to process what you’ve asked him to do.
2. When he gets it right, quickly say “yes” and give your puppy the food.
3. Don’t repeat the command.
4. If after about 3-4 seconds, the puppy is still not doing what you ask and just staying in the same position, talk to the puppy just with chatter to let him know that he’s got it wrong and he needs to try something else. I usually say things like: “Can you try something else?” or “What you gonna do?” or “Show me what you can do?” It doesn’t really matter what you say as long as it is in an upbeat voice to excite him to try something different. Then when he finally does what you ask him, repeat the command ONE more time as he is going into the correct position. The repeat of the command must come simultaneous with your puppy doing what you ask. The purpose of this is to help your puppy to better match the word (and your tone of voice when you say the word) with the behavior you are asking for. Make sure you mark and reward the behavior immediately afterwards.
5. If after 5-6 seconds of chattering, your puppy still doesn’t understand, stop your training for long enough to move to a new place (just 5 or 6 feet over from the original place). Start over again so that your puppy’s brain gets “unstuck”.
6. In the unlikely event that your puppy still isn’t “getting it”, back off with your training and make it easier until your puppy’s brain re-sets.

There are exponentially increasing numbers of breeders of imported lines of Golden Retrievers who have useless misleading FCI hip clearances. These breeders are portraying these clearances as final when they are not. Not only are they not considered final (even in Europe), they are not what the breeders are trying to lead people to believe.

Ironically the vast majority of these breeders claim that their clearances are equivalent to an OFA “excellent”. People looking for a puppy are impressed with the number of excellent hips that are in these breeder’s programs. This looks especially impressive because Golden Retrievers are a breed where the statistics say that 20% are dysplastic. Further, this 20% statistic would be much worse if not for the fact that almost all of those being tested by OFA are from the good breeders who are weeding out the failing dogs from their program.

Breeders who have misleading FCI clearances often credit these good scores to the lines in their program. Many of these breeders claim that their dogs are in the top 4% of Golden Retrievers (because that is what OFA’s site says for those dogs who indeed have final OFA (2 year) excellent hip clearances).

How can there be so many breeders who own dogs with hip scores equivalent to an OFA excellent when the statistics or so low? The answer to this question is that there aren’t! This article is going to discuss what these bogus FCI hip scores actually are.

Most (almost all) Goldens in the U.S. With FCI Hip Clearances are Tested Prior to Their First Birthday and then Exported to the U.S.

For FCI clearances to be considered final clearances in Europe, the dog must be at least 1 1/2 years of age. When a final clearance is obtained, it goes on the dog’s pedigree and the dog is allowed to be bred and the breeder can register the puppies with FCI. FCI is in a sense the European version of AKC except for one big difference. FCI has more regulatory power than AKC. Without clearances for the parents, a litter cannot be registered in Europe.

A Little About BVA

As a side note, BVA is the agency in England that registers and regulates breeding in England. Many breeders in Western Europe use BVA instead of FCI. Breeders in Australia also use BVA as do some breeders in the U.S. I have no problem with breeders using BVA. BVA provides very useful information. However, just like with FCI, many breeders are misleading people as to how BVA and OFA compare. Read more about BVA on our page on Hip Dysplasia in Golden Retrievers. BVA has many good uses whereas, I see VERY few dogs in the states legitimately tested with FCI.

Full Clearances Only On Dogs Over 1 1/2 Years of Age

For full clearances with FCI, dogs must be over 1 1/2 years of age. However, breeders can go to their own vet and get a preliminary clearance at any age they like. Breeders in Europe think that in the U.S. any age is fine. And it is, to some extent, because we in the U.S. only have guidelines for breeding and health testing. There are no actual rules that keep breeders from registering a litter and there is nothing to keep them honest.

Raising a dog until they are two to find out if they pass health testing is risky. More than half the dogs that we at Summer Brook initially imported failed on something health wise. Sadly, this is the norm! I’ve talked to many other good breeders who have said the same thing. Just think of how tempting it might be for someone with low morals (or for someone who is uneducated) to import dogs that already had clearances (whether they are valid or not!).

So, why does it matter how old the dog is? Because hip dysplasia is a progressive disease. A puppy under a year old may have hips that look normal when he is younger. Then as he gets older, those same hips might begin to deteriorate.

Why FCI Hip X-rays Done Prior to a Year are not Conclusive in Europe

We do not import dogs with FCI hip testing that was done prior to a year old. This has become a very common practice in recent years with the imports. These misleading FCI x-rays done on puppies are done by a European breeder’s personal vet. Then these older puppies are imported to the U.S. American breeders then post these results as final.

Hip dysplasia is prevalent in Golden Retrievers in both American Goldens as well as English Goldens. Therefore, having reliable hip testing done on breeding dogs is very important. Further, it is important that x-rays are done after the dog is finished growing.

Hip Dysplasia is Progressive

Hip dysplasia is a progressive condition. Hips x-rays done prior to when a dog is over a year are not definitive (unless there is a severe problem). Therefore, x-rays done on puppies have minimal value, even when evaluated by a certified veterinary radiologist. However, to compound the problem with age, these breeders are having their x-rays evaluated by their own personal vet.

Most vets (even here in the U.S.) lack skills in reading hip and elbow x-rays. They can probably recognize severe hip or elbow dysplasia, but few are able to accurately recognize the differences between a good hip or elbow and a mildly dysplastic one. Further, not all vets are honest. The foreign vets are being paid by their breeder. What’s to stop them from recording an x-ray as representing a good hip when it is actually mildly dysplastic (even if they recognize it)?

No Consistency With Regard to Who Evaluates and Scores in Eastern Europe

When a vet takes an x-ray for an OFA evaluation, the vet does not evaluate the x-ray. He sends it to OFA where a group of veterinary radiologists evaluate it and give it a score. The same is true with BVA.

However, there is no such group of radiologists for FCI x-rays. Instead, the same vet that takes the x-ray, gives the score. Therefore, there is no consistency with regard to how hips (and elbows) are scored. Breeders will be inclined to go to the vets who give the highest scores!

Misrepresentation of How FCI Compares to OFA

Almost all breeders who have these bogus FCI hip scores will tell you than an FCI “A” is equivalent to an OFA “excellent”. This could be true, but not necessarily.

OFA has a chart on their website that equates FCI (and BVA) scores to OFA scores. (Google it. I have had links to the charts in the past. However, the links sometimes get changed.) BVA and FCI have similar charts on their sites. All of these sites will tell you that an FCI “A” is equivalent to EITHER an OFA excellent or good. This is a very broad category with very few Goldens actually having excellent hips. Therefore most of those claiming to have a dog with “A” hips that is equivalent to OFA excellent are either lying or grossly misinformed.

These breeders will say that an FCI A = OFA Excellent, FCI B = OFA Good, and an FCI C = OFA Fair. Those equivalents are wrong. The truth is that an FCI A = OFA Excellent or Good, and FCI B = OFA Fair or Borderline, and an FCI C = Mild Hip Dysplasia.

What to Do If You Want a Puppy From Parents With FCI Clearances

If reducing your chances of having a puppy that grows up to be dysplastic is important to you, check out breeders with FCI clearances by doing the following.

1. Ask to see a copy of the clearances. It should have a date on it and there should also be a birth date for the dog. If the dog is under 12 months, consider this fact. The younger the dog, the less reliable the x-ray. An x-ray over a year is reliable as long as the result is actually a good or excellent. However, how do you know the standard of the vet that evaluated the x-ray? Maybe he gives all dogs an “A” unless they are really really bad?
2. Be wise in what the numbers actually mean. An FCI “A” is not necessarily an excellent. There is a greater chance that it is a good than an excellent. Be wary of parents with anything but an “A”. Be wary of any breeder that exaggerates this fact. They could be exaggerating other things.
3. Ask the breeder if they’d be willing to send an x-ray to OFA or BVA.
4. If the breeder has an FCI clearance that was done at over 18 months and who doesn’t exaggerate the results, you may have found a good breeder!

This page discusses and gives video examples for how to have a successful start in positive reinforcement puppy training. The puppies in the videos are between 6 weeks 6 days and 7 weeks 1 day and have only been in training for about a week.

Not only are these videos informational and educational, the puppies in our early training videos are super cute to watch. In fact, I think these videos are some of the cutest we’ve ever made.

On this page, we discuss the four key internal qualities that must be built into a puppy in order to prepare a puppy for life. Our primary focus in training these puppies is internal qualities. However, we are also training three important life skills in these videos as we build these internal characteristics. Read on to learn what these internal qualities are and how to build them into your puppy while you are training the most basics of good behavior.

Listed below are the behaviors and the internal qualities that we are addressing in the videos on this page.

Teaching Puppies Good Behavior

1. Sitting on command
2. Learning to get into a down with shaping rather than luring, and
3. Learning to stay in a down position.

Building Internal Qualities in Puppies

1. Self-control
2. Confidence (in both themselves and in their person)
3. An ability to focus on a task instead of on a food reward
4. An intense desire to work for and please a person

Building Self-Control in a Puppy

The first internal characteristic that we will discuss is self-control. A video of a puppy who is currently named Gunner will help me to demonstrate a training session in which the puppy was beginning to learn self-control. Gunner is only 6 weeks 6 days old.

This video shows a typical training session with a puppy this age. Gunner is learning to recognize both the sit and the down without a lure. He is also learning to stay still in the down position instead of simply going down and popping right back up. Gunner is super cute as he puts his all into the training by throwing himself into a down.

Gunner’s video also shows a good example of how positive reinforcement training creates self-control without punishments. Gunner occasionally tries to jump but quickly learns that jumping is not what brings reward. He earns his reward by staying still. Good positive reinforcement training gives sufficient motivation to practice this self-control. See our upcoming page on The Secret to Good Positive Reinforcement Training for more information. Practice is key for building self-control and it can only be learned with the right kind of practice.

The Shaping Game

The next video is of a puppy who is now named Max. He is also only 6 weeks 6 days old. Max is trying very hard to successfully play what he thinks is a game. This game is called shaping and it involves guessing what it is that I want him to do to earn his reward. Max initially guessed that I wanted him to go around behind me and lie down in between my legs. I rewarded this behavior because initially I don’t require perfection.

I reward effort and the dog guessing closer and closer to the behavior I want. Lying down behind me and between my legs may not have been exactly what I was after. However, it was a good first step. Max is indeed getting into a down position. Therefore, I rewarded it.

Shaping and marker training are the training tools that give puppies the motivation and to have the focus that they need to practice self control. See our soon coming pages on Shaping and Marker Training for more information on these valuable training tools.

Most puppies guess something that is not quite right at first. However, I will gradually shape the behavior into what I want by discouraging the wrong aspects of what the puppy is doing and rewarding his effort and his getting closer and closer to perfection.

You may notice in the video that I am physically trying to block Max from getting behind me in order to keep him successful. The puppy will learn without any punishments that it is easier and more rewarding to simply lie day in front of me.

Building Focus and a Desire to Work for and Please a Person

The game that I use in these videos teaches puppies to use their brains to focus on earning the reward instead of on the reward itself. This is the key to having a dog who loves the work itself instead of being obsessed with the food. Making training into a game builds in puppies a huge amount of focus and a tremendous desire to work for and please a person.

Notice in this next video how I handle it when Bee doesn’t promptly go down when I ask her to. I never repeat commands over and over. Neither do I lure her into the correct position. This is one of the biggest contributors towards a loss of focus and a dog tuning someone out. See our soon coming post on Focus and Doggy Tune Outs for more information.

When Bee doesn’t immediately obey, chances are good (almost 100% if you are training well) that she doesn’t understand what you are asking of her. Repeating the command isn’t going to help. If she didn’t understand the command the first time, she probably won’t understand it the next time. So, what do you do?

Try waiting for a few seconds. You can see in Bee’s video a couple of times when waiting was sufficient. She simply needed time to think about what I was asking of her.

If the dog (or puppy) still can’t figure it out, try verbal encouragement. Verbal encouragement is not repeating the command. It is talking to the puppy in an upbeat tone encouraging her to try something different. You’ll see me using this technique also several times in the video below.

Building Confidence in a Puppy

Confidence is one of the greatest gifts you can give a puppy. Without it, they will go through life unsure of themselves, unsure of their environment, and possibly even unsure of you. See our soon coming video on Building Confidence in a New Puppy for more information.

Notice in the next video that Mr. Orange (whose name is now Frank) is not going into a down in the manner that most of us would expect from a puppy or a dog. However, this puppy is trying hard, giving me his all, and very proud of himself. I wouldn’t dare correct the way he is getting himself down.

It is more important at this tender age that confidence is built than for perfection to be attained. In fact, maintaining confidence should be more important for a dog’s entire life!

The goofy behavior that Frank demonstrates faded within a few days. My family got a good laugh at him and most importantly Mr. Orange never knew he did anything wrong. His confidence grew and 6 weeks later we got word from his new “daddy” that he was heeling with head held high and with good focus down the streets of New York City.

Behavior is important, but developing internal qualities is more important!

Putting It All Together

Mr. Maroon in the video below happened to have guessed correctly earlier than most of the others. He, too, is only 6 weeks 6 days old but look at how good he is already doing!

For More Information

The videos above give a good snapshot of how we train our puppies in the early stages. They also give a good idea of the training that we provide our puppies that leave us prior to 8 weeks of age. See our Training Expectations page for more information on how we train and what you can expect from a Summer Brook puppy at various ages.

Lack of proper and adequate socialization is probably the biggest mistakes families make when raising a puppy. The younger the puppy, the easier puppy socialization is. Expose your puppy with a systematic method to a wide variety of environments and people when he is young and the process will go easy. Wait until he is older and you’ll spend two, three, or maybe even ten times as much time in order to get the same results. If your puppy has been extremely isolated, you may not be able to make up for that lost time at all.

Research has shown that the best time for puppy socialization is prior to 16 weeks of age. The degree of difficulty grows as the puppy grows. Puppy socialization is one of the most important aspects of raising a puppy. This post will show you how to do it.

Before we get into some tips on how to socialize a puppy from 8-16 weeks of age, I want to give a brief introduction on how breeders can affect the foundation for puppy socialization.

Puppy Socialization at the Breeder’s Home

Breeders have opportunities for building a good foundation for puppy socialization and to greatly affect a puppy’s ability to rebound from those scary situations that he will inevitably face in life. Socialization goes much better and easier for new families when a breeder has started the process by or shortly after 3 weeks of age.

Puppies go through a fear period that goes from 8-10 or 11 weeks according to the experts. While this is true, the manner in which this fact is often stated is somewhat misleading. The way it is sometimes presented would lead one to believe that 7 1/2 week old puppies are relatively fearless and then one day at somewhere around 8 weeks, they wake up to find themselves afraid of the world.

Knowing about the fear period is helpful, but it is important that breeders understand that fear doesn’t appear overnight. When puppies are left unsocialized, caution builds gradually starting at around 4 weeks until it peaks at about 8 weeks. However, if a breeders will adequately and appropriately add environmental stresses to a puppy’s life and help him to deal with these stressors, the fearfulness of a puppy can actually decline over these same 4 weeks.

For more information on how we raise our puppies here at Summer Brook, see our page on Raising Puppies.

Earlier is Better For Socialization

The absolute best time to introduce puppies to new things is very early while still at the breeder’s home. It is much easier to begin socialization to scary objects, sounds, and environments at 4 weeks than at 8 weeks. The longer a breeder waits, the closer the puppy will be to the height of his fear period and the more difficult the process will be.

However, if puppies are started with environmental desensitization early and often, they will acclimate faster, the older they get, EVEN WHILE SMACK DAB IN THE MIDDLE OF THEIR FEAR PERIOD!

Puppies brought up isolated in a barn or even isolated to a house and an occasional trip outside in a small pen are missing out a great deal on how to relate to what can appear to be a stressful world to a growing puppy.

Teaching Recovery From Fear

A breeder’s goal with regard to socialization should be to get each of their puppies comfortable with as many sights, sounds, and environments as possible while still maintaining a degree of caution for disease. Puppies don’t have to be exposed to everything to become resilient. However, they do need to be exposed to enough to where the puppy gains sufficient confidence in his own ability to bounce back from whatever life throws at him.

There is no way that puppies can experience everything in the world before they leave a breeder’s home. Most breeders are hesitant to take puppies off of their property before full vaccination for good reason. Further, even if a breeder took puppies off of their property daily, there are too many objects, sounds, and situations to expose puppies to them all.

However, what a breeder can do is systematically expose their puppies to a wide variety of environmental stressors in safe locations so that puppies develop an ability to rebound from stress. This creates puppies who are far better able to fearlessly explore new sights, sounds, and smells once they are in their new homes. Most importantly, they also develop the ability to recover if or when they do startle or become afraid.

Genetics or Environment and Puppy Socialization

A puppy’s ability to successfully acclimate to new environments is pre-wired to a degree by genetics. However, the temperament that a puppy is born with can be affected greatly by a puppy’s life experiences. Environment will ultimately shape the amount of confidence a puppy is born with in either a positive or negative direction .

Nature verses nurture is always a question. Some qualities are more set in stone than others. However, with regard to confidence level, we see a far greater influence with environment than with other qualities (such as activity level). In fact, I would go so far as to say that ANY well-bred Golden Retriever could grow up to be a confident dog if they are socialized correctly while a puppy. Therefore, adequate and appropriate puppy socialization and environmental desensitization are of utmost importance.

Vaccines and Puppy Socialization

If early puppy socialization is so important, then what about vaccines? Breeders cannot safely take puppies off of their property without the risk of disease prior to vaccines.

The risk to a breeder is far greater than to an individual family for several reasons. First of all, a breeder has VERY young puppies and Parvo is often fatal to the very young. However, puppies over 8 weeks will usually recover. In fact, despite the horrors that vaccine companies like to spread, the recovery rate for Parvo is about 85% and of the 15% that don’t make it, it is usually those in a breeding kennel who are too young to successfully fight it off.

We’ve been fortunate in that we’ve never experienced Parvo. However, I have breeder friends who have and know the results can be devastating. Therefore, we like most breeders use caution while using common sense to make sure our puppies are well-socialized.

The Risks of Having an Unsocialized Dog are Greater than the Risks of Disease!

For puppies over 10 weeks, the risk for disease is minimal. However, if you isolate your puppy, the risk of having a fearful dog is great. Use caution, but you must get your puppy out in the world while he is young.

We recommend getting your puppy out as soon as he has had a vaccine at an age of 9 weeks or greater. A vaccine given at 9 weeks has almost a 90% chance of being effective. Wait 5-6 days for the vaccine to take effect and hit the road (with a degree of common sense caution).

Tips for Puppy Socialization

1. Take your puppy to as many safe places as is possible.
2. Expose your puppy to as many sights, sounds, and surfaces as soon as you can. This includes acclimating your puppy to water and teaching swimming early if that is something you want.
3. Introduce your puppy to many different types of people while he is young.
4. Make it a priority to try to introduce your puppy to almost everything he could possible encounter in life prior to 16 weeks of age. (The key word here is TRY! It’s impossible to introduce a puppy to everything.)

How to Socialize a Puppy Who is Afraid

Socializing is easy if you follow some simple rules. However, there are certain techniques for socializing that could be downright harmful to your puppy. Do not let a trainer talk you into what is called “flooding” or “emersion training”. Flooding is a method that used to be used with regularity to try to help a dog overcome his fears. Flooding follows the principle that if a dog is emersed in his fears, he will learn to handle them.

Examples of flooding with a person would be to put a person who was afraid of spiders in a room full of spiders. An example in horse training is in putting a saddle and a rider on a horse and letting the horse buck until ths horse finally relaxes. With dogs, it could be putting a dog who is afraid of water in a life jacket and forcing him to stay in the water.

Sometimes emersion works. However, many times, not only does it fail to work, it will leave a puppy or dog worse off than he was prior. I have seen this happen first-hand and it is very sad indeed.

Counter-conditioning and Puppy Socialization

The method we recommend is called counter-conditioning and the tips that follow will help you to counter-condition a dog’s fears. Counter-conditioning is basically conditioning a dog to like something that he previously did not like by pairing the disliked thing with something he does like. The details of counter-conditioning are beyond the scope of this article. However, I’ll give you some tips on how to accomplish it with a young puppy who might initially show some fear or nervousness or a lack of comfort around something. Below is a list of do’s and don’ts.

Do Not Do These Things If Your Puppy is Afraid

1. Don’t coddle your puppy. This will only serve to affirm in his mind that this is indeed scary.
2. Don’t force your puppy to approach the object of his fear.
3. Do not get too close to the scary thing.
4. Don’t distract the dog from the object of his fear. He needs to experience it to get over it.
5. Don’t call the puppy or try to entice him or lure him toward the object.
6. Don’t put your puppy in a situation where he feels trapped or boxed in.

Do These Things If Possible

1. If possible, let the puppy explore it off leash. Keep a loose leash if he must be on a leash.
2. If you have a confident dog or have a friend with one, get him to help. Let the confident dog show the scared dog that there is nothing to be afraid of.
3. If possible, gradually increase the intensity of the object. This point mostly applies to sounds and things that can be experienced at varying degrees. For example, if a puppy is afraid of the sound of a lawn mower, start the process with the mower idled down as quietly as it will go. Another example would be in acclimating a puppy to a kiddy pool prior to a full-sized swimming pool.

Definitely Do the Following:

1. Act indifferent to the object and be nonchalant about it..
2. Let your puppy explore the object at his own pace. Don’t push him.
3. Ascertain the puppy’s fear threshold for the object and don’t get closer than the threshold. The threshold is the distance at which the puppy is comfortable enough to do the following 2 things. He needs to be able to take a treat without fear. He should have the capacity to occasionally ignore the object and try to engage you to work with him.
4. Gradually encourage the puppy to get closer to the object as his fear threshold improves. Don’t encourage him to get closer by calling or luring. Rather encourage him by you (or better yet, another dog) getting a bit closer to it and showing him in a matter-of-fact, no-big-deal sort of way that the object isn’t scary. Have fun close to the object.
5. Give your puppy an escape option or a safe place to retreat.

Examples for Providing a Place of Retreat During Puppy Socialization

We introduce our puppies to many new things in a fenced yard. There is a doggy door available if a puppy feels the need to retreat. However, the fun is going on outside. A person is in the outside fenced area petting the other puppies. Often the shyer puppies will run inside for a minute. Then they realize that all the fun is outside and they will come back out of their own accord.

Of course, when you are away from home, there is no option to run inside. You can, however, sit on the ground giving your puppy the option of your lap. Another option is providing an open door in your vehicle.

Let your puppy experience the safety of their retreat while at the same time making exploring the scary object as interesting, enticing, and fun as you can.

Socialize a Puppy to People

1. Make sure you expose your puppy to a wide variety of people: old, young, different races, children, etc.
2. Introduce your puppy to people dressed in various ways: with hats, high heels, loose floppy clothes, etc.
3. Let the puppy approach the person; not the other way around
4. If the puppy is afraid of a particular person, don’t push it. Have the person squat and ignore the puppy until the puppy decides on his own to go to the person. While the person is squatted, you interact with the the person and let the puppy interact as he pleases.
5. Reward your puppy when he approaches someone that the puppy thinks is scary. After he approaches, call him back to you and praise him and give him a treat. Then see if he’ll go to them again.
6. Don’t have the person call your puppy or try to entice him with a treat. The person should simply be pleasant and ignore the puppy.
7. Encourage the person to pet the puppy once the puppy is obviously comfortable, not before. The person should not pet the puppy on the head, but rather on the back or shoulder.

Puppy Socialization Example With Heavy Traffic

We are going to have a discussion on how to socialize a puppy to a very scary environment for most puppies: traffic. Most, if not all, of the techniques used in this example can be applied to socializing and desensitizing a puppy to almost anything. At the end of the article, you can see a video showing how we desensitize puppies to where they will heel on the side of a busy highway. Fast moving traffic is extremely scary to most puppies and if you can desensitize a puppy to this, you are well on your way to having a bomb-proof puppy. We start the process gently and move forward gradually.

The first step is where puppies feel totally safe: at home. We begin with one person in the yard with the puppies and another in or on various vehicles. These vehicles include a van or truck, an off-road vehicle, and a lawn mower.

The puppies can retreat by way of a doggy door if they become stressed. We work with them in the yard until every puppy is comfortable with these vehicles being about 10-15 feet from them. (There is a fence between the puppies and the vehicle and they are off-leash.) We gradually increase the noise of the vehicle. We gradually decrease the distance between the vehicle and the puppies.

Off Property

Once puppies are comfortable in the safety of their own yard with vehicles just on the other side of the fence, we begin taking them on rides in our mule (off-road vehicle, not the animal!). The mule is loud and open.

The puppies are already used to the sound so that is no problem. Further, we’ve already been taking them on rides in our van so that they are used to movement. Everything is done slowly and in steps!

The puppies love the mule because it is an opportunity to not only sit in our laps and be petted, but because they enjoy the breeze in their faces and the opportunity to take in all kinds of new smells. Most of them ride with their noses in the air! We are effectively using counter-conditioning by pairing the enjoyment of smelling new smells while being petted with the initially unpleasant loud noise of the mule and an occasional passing car.

Our mules rides begin short: no more than 5 minutes. We gradually increase the length of the rides and by the time puppies are 9 weeks of age, we are driving with them up to a busy highway and sitting on the side of the road while loud fast cars pass. The puppies just sit in our laps while we calmly talk to them or to each other about something totally unrelated to the passing cars. We essentially ignore the noise of the traffic while we allow our puppies to acclimate to it while in the safety of our laps.

Work on Building an Alternative Positive Experience to Counter-Condition With

During the same time-frame that we are taking our puppies on mule rides, we are busy at home with our puppies building a strong love of working with us. We are teaching them to love heeling and building their already strong desire to sit and give eye contact. These skills and the puppies’ love of performing these skills are going to serve us well during our next phase of desensitizing puppies to traffic.

On the Ground and Off Property

This next phase will begin at 11 weeks for those puppies staying with us for our 12-week-plus program. At this point, we will begin taking our puppies off property. We will literally “hit the road” with our training. We’ll start off in a place on the side of our own road where there is minimal traffic. Either my daughter, Jenna, or I will work with the puppies on our obedience exercises. The other one of us drives our mule back and forth on the road.

At first, we drive our mule on the opposite side of the road. The puppy is far off the road. At this point, we simply reward the puppy for making eye contact with the one of us that is on the ground with them.

Gradually, we close the distance between the mule and the puppy. We slowly increase the speed on the mule and we increase the difficulty of the obedience exercise.

In addition, we also begin to move our training further and further from our home. We move closer and closer to a major highway where cars and loud trucks and all kinds of trailers are whizzing by at 55 MPH and faster.

Eventually, we are working our puppies right on the side of the highway. Watch the following video to see puppies heeling down the highway. This vidoe will give some tips on how we handle various situations and/or problems.

Closing Thoughts

As has been mentioned, puppy socialization is one of the most important aspects of training your puppy. It is also the most time-sensitive one. Therefore, make sure you socialize early and often. Make puppy socialization a priority before your window of opportunity to easily do it closes forever!