Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Evan and our puppy "Sienna"



The puppy training process that we use:
1. Show the treat
2. Say come
3. Take a few quick steps backwards
4. Say sit and gently push the puppy into sitting position
5. Give the treat

We have had lots of experience training very young puppies and have figured out a few steps to quickly and easily train them to "come" and "sit" at the same time.  We start as soon as the puppies are old enough to play outside to get them to follow us.  This comes pretty naturally to puppies so we just encourage that following behavior by jogging around and letting them follow us.  Then when they are ready, around 6-7weeks, we turn their natural instinct to follow into "come".  They are very quick at this and can already come with distractions.

Teaching a puppy to "sit" is a little tricky when they are this young because it is not very natural and they have a very short attention span.  That's why we combine the "come" and "sit" commands.  When the puppy is running towards the trainer, he is paying attention to his hands and can see the "sit" command.  The best part is that it will be natural for the puppy to sit when told to come instead of jumping up on the trainer.

I know that there are many other training methods so I encourage any new puppy owner to read a few books or watch a few videos and decide which method is the most natural for them and their dog.  I recommend at least 5-10 minutes of training time 2-3 times a day on top of crate training and house training.  It's a lot of work but well worth it!

3 comments:

  1. Do you have any female puppies available at this time?

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  2. Hi, I have 4 puppies (males) that are 9 weeks old and 3 puppies (2 girls 1 boy) that are 4 weeks old.

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