Preschooling Your Puppy

Dog training begins far before your first visit to obedience class.

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Think of it as training to be trained.

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"Dogs learn from the moment they enter your home," said Mary Peterson, an obedience instructor with the Piscataqua Obedience Club, Kittery, Maine. "It´s better to teach your dog to be a good family member than have it make mistakes and be punished."

Think of it as training to be trained. Like a child learning his colors and shapes from his parents before they send him off to kindergarten, dogs can learn basic concepts at home before they begin their official education.

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"Dogs learn from the moment they enter your home."

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The sit command, for instance, is simple enough to be taught at the earliest age, as long as the owner uses positive methods that don´t harm the fragile puppy, trainers said.

Owners can have a puppy sit for its food, sit for the door to open to the outside, and other similar rewards. They can tell it "come" when it walks toward them, introducing them to the idea of a command. They can play with its paw and teach it to shake hands.

But it doesn´t matter what you teach the puppy—the main idea is to introduce it to the concept of teaching. "Your dog needs to learn to learn before it comes to class," said Mary Hovingh of Hovingh Dog Training, Allendale, Mich.

Ms. Hovingh likes to teach puppies the down command first, because she finds it easiest. "You can teach anything to lie down."

The technique is simple. Sit on the floor, with your knees drawn up off the ground. (People with extremely large dogs, like St. Bernards, will have to sit on a chair.) Your knees will form a tunnel. Take a treat and drag it slowly through the tunnel, forcing the dog to drop to its belly to chase after it. The moment the dog hits the floor, say "Down. Good dog," and give it the treat.

Gradually your dog will learn to follow the treat to the ground, and soon it´ll make the connection between the "down" and the treat, Ms. Hovingh said. "I have teeny kids in my classes, and they can get their dogs to lay down."

Again, the important lesson isn´t the command—the lesson you want your pet to learn is that it will be rewarded for pleasing the owner. Or, from the puppy´s perspective, "that they can manipulate you to give treats," Ms. Hovingh said.

It´s a happy relationship—you think you´re manipulating your dog by giving it treats; your dog thinks its manipulating you by following your commands to get you to surrender the treats. "Co-manipulators," Ms. Hovingh terms it.

Treats also come in handy in another vital pre-training exercise—accustoming the dog to its leash. Your puppy will need to be on that leash during the class; you´ll have less trouble if it knows what the leash is.

Start by "luring" your dog in a small, confined area, Ms. Hovingh said. Hold a treat by your leg, and reward the dog for following that treat. By the time you put the leash on the dog, it will already know where it´s supposed to be when it walks with you—its head just beside your leg.

Socialization is another vital part of pre-training. Puppies have a limited window of time in which they need to be exposed to a myriad of other dogs, people, and new experiences. Ms. Peterson has seen massive dogs walk into her class and spend the rest of the time cowering in a corner. "They don´t know how to be around their own species."

Before your dog hits obedience class, it should be comfortable with new people, other animals, and strange sounds, smells and sights. (Of course, talk to your veterinarian about whether its immune system is up for all of this exposure before you introduce the pet to the world!) And when you´re acclimating your animal to these things, make sure the experience is a good one. If your puppy is traumatized by meeting an unfriendly dog, you´ve defeated the purpose of socialization.

Another bad pre-training situation occurs when the puppy trembles at its owner. "Avoid hitting the animal at all costs," Ms. Hovingh said. "Avoid punishment of any kind."

In addition to eliminating corporal punishment, don´t yell at the dog and frighten it, she said. Ms. Hovingh used to train owners to give dogs a smack across the muzzle to quiet them, but says she´s had great success today with dogs that have never been struck, shaken by the scruff, or experienced a dominant down.

That doesn´t mean you let the dog get away with misbehaving. "Distract him from the bad stuff," Ms. Hovingh said. But [physical] punishment for a dog that simply doesn´t know any better only causes the animal uncertainty and trepidation—and makes training that much more difficult when you finally reach obedience class. You should be teaching your puppy to rely on you, not fear you, in those first weeks of your relationship. "You wreck the basic trust your dog has in you."

Copyright VetCentic.com Reprinted with permission.