Dog Owner's Guide

The Time You Should Spend to Train Your Puppy

You do not necessarily need to train your puppy in a set session daily. Rather, integrate these tasks throughout the day. A goal to strive for is at least 15 minutes of training every day. These can be short 5 minute sessions spread throughout the day.

Try to have all family members ask your puppy to do these tasks. Remember to try and train in every room of your house. You want your puppy to sit, lie down and stay everywhere, not just in the training location.

Use these training tasks as you integrate the puppy into your life. For example, ask your puppy to sit prior to receiving her food, sit before you let her in or out the door, and sit before you pet her. These are times when your puppy wants something and is more likely to comply. In this way you are training your dog all the time, throughout the day and also establishing yourself as the leader, the one who controls the resources.

Training your puppy prior to getting each reward also helps to prevent problems. Having your puppy sit before getting a food or treat prevents begging, while teaching your dog to sit before opening the door can prevent jumping up or running out the door.

Be creative. The time you spend training your puppy now will pay off when you have an adult dog. To have a well-trained dog, you need to be committed to reinforcing the training tasks on nearly a daily basis for the first year of your puppy’s life. The more you teach and supervise your puppy, the less opportunity she will have to engage in improper behaviors. Dogs do not train themselves, when left to choose their behavior they will act like dogs.