Early Training

How your puppy learns

Everyone wants a puppy that's well behaved, happy and sociable, but you'll only get from him what you give. That's why it's very important to start training early. Indeed, training will have probably started before you've collected him; your puppy may have been taught some basic obedience as well as toilet training. But now it's over to you.

Your puppy will learn very quickly, so it's important that he learns how to behave straight away. It might be stating the obvious, but your puppy cannot learn without being taught, so from day one, you'll need to teach him how to behave.

There are hundreds of books on the subject and you'll find puppy-training courses available in most areas. Your vet will be able to advise you on what's best for your pet and may even run courses themselves. There are many different ways to approach training, but there are some golden rules everyone should follow:

Good boy: Dogs learn by association, so if your puppy does something good, reward him. Then the action is much more likely to be repeated. But the reward must be linked to the action, so he must be rewarded quickly, within a second or two. The reward itself can be food or praise, or both; it can even be a game.