Raising a puppy can be a wonderful, fun, love-filled experience. However, training a puppy isn’t always the easiest feat. If you’re facing puppy training challenges, you’ll find these strategies from the training experts at Absolute Dogs invaluable.
Absolute Dogs explains that puppies have six key behavioural wellness needs. Once dog owners understand these needs, they can tailor their training approaches to fulfil each.
The six behavioural wellness needs are:
- Mental enrichment needs.
- Physical enrichment needs.
- Relationship needs.
- Nutrition and health needs.
- Active rest needs.
- Clarity and effective communication needs.
Here are Absolute Dogs’ puppy training strategies to help you meet each of these needs with love and care.
1. Mental Enrichment Needs
Mental enrichment activities keep puppies entertained, engaged, and ready to learn. You can fulfil a puppy’s mental enrichment needs by playing games like interactive puzzles, obstacle course games, and hide and seek.
You can also promote mental enrichment by giving your puppy a snuffle mat or calm mat, encouraging them to play with toys like stuffed kongs, and engaging them in scent work. On top of this, you can scatter food for your puppy or provide frozen snacks like stuffed frozen beef trachea.
When using stuffed food toys, try a range of snacks to prevent your puppy from becoming sensitive to new foods later. A probiotic can also help with food transitions and introductions.
Try stuffing food toys with:
- Fruits like apples (no seeds), honeydew melon, pineapple, bananas, mango, blackberries, oranges (no rind), plums, blueberries, and peaches (no pits).
- Vegetables like carrots, cauliflower, lettuce, celery, potatoes, beetroot, pumpkin, broccoli, cucumber, and sprouts.
- Meat and fish like pork, chicken, turkey, beef, rib bones (raw), and salmon.
- Dairy products like cheese, cottage cheese, and eggs.
Absolute Dogs also recommends trying oatmeal, pasta, and xylitol-free peanut butter. However, before giving your puppy a new food to sample, research your options. This way, you can be sure you’re giving your puppy good-fit foods for their diet.
2. Physical Enrichment Needs
Regular walks are essential when it comes to meeting your puppy’s physical enrichment needs. Practise successful walks by:
- Playing fun, engaging games before going on a walk. These games can burn your puppy’s excess energy. This way, they won’t be too energetic during the walk. Try the engagement/disengagement games in Absolute Dogs’ Sexier Than a Squirrel Challenge to work out which games don’t overexcite your puppy. Different games work for different dogs.
- Treating every walk as a training walk. On walks, your puppy should practise the behaviour you want them to exhibit when they grow up. If your puppy is unfocused, doesn’t respond to your cues, or pulls on the lead, they need more games-based training at home and in the garden. Reduce or even stop walks in favour of this training while they continue to learn.
- Keeping walks short and sweet. Rather than launching straight into long walks, gradually increase the distance of the walks you take with your puppy. If their behaviour declines, shorten the next walk.
- Using a long-line lead. Once in a safe location, you can drop your puppy’s lead and let them enjoy some freedom. A long-line lead opens up new game possibilities where you can reward your puppy for looking to you for information. Should your puppy run too far, you can step on the lead to quickly contain them. If your puppy is still working on being successful on walks, ditch the walk and play the variety of games Absolute Dogs offers instead to prepare them to be a walk-ready superstar.
Meeting Puppies’ Physical Needs With Games and Food
Walks aren’t the only way to exercise your puppy. You can also play retrieve games (see Absolute Dogs’ Gundog Games course), brain games, simple obstacle course games, or tug games.
Quick tip: When playing tug, place the toy horizontally rather than vertically. This way, your puppy won’t risk losing a milk tooth as they grab the toy.
Alternatively, toss food for your puppy to chase or use food to lure them into sit, down, stand, and spin positions. This improves body awareness, promotes confidence, and works several muscle groups.
Keep exercise sessions at 15-20 minutes maximum to avoid tiring your puppy out. Balancing high-energy games with calm games can avoid overexerting them. You’ll find several games of both varieties to try in Absolute Dogs’ Naughty But Nice Core Programme.
3. Relationship Needs
Building a strong relationship with your puppy is essential to their happiness and training progress. Absolute Dogs encourages owners to imagine their puppy has a “relationship bank account.” Put deposits in this bank account and avoid making withdrawals to meet your puppy’s relationship needs.
Every time you reward your puppy, perhaps with an edible treat or verbal praise, you contribute to the relationship bank account. You can reward your puppy for:
- Toileting outside.
- Behaving or resting calmly.
- Walking with you.
- Coming when called.
- Chewing on a toy.
Avoid withdrawing from the relationship bank account, which could damage your relationship with your puppy. Withdrawals could include:
- Scolding or yelling at your puppy.
- Tugging on their lead when they get excited.
- Hitting their crate to get them to quiet down.
When puppies act undesirably or make mistakes, they typically don’t know they’re misbehaving. Most of this behaviour is natural puppy behaviour. Therefore, punishing a puppy doesn’t rectify this behaviour; it only damages your relationship.
Instead, prioritise clear communication and create a safe, predictable environment where your puppy can’t make undesirable behaviour choices. To create such an environment, you can use a puppy-proofed space, puppy line, or gate.
Puppy-Proofed Space
Secure spaces like crates and exercise pens make it easier to toilet-train a puppy and train them to sleep for a set number of hours. They also provide a safe space for your puppy when you’re not around to supervise.
Puppy Line
When your puppy drags a line, you can step on the lead to stop them from making undesirable behaviours. This approach avoids you needing to grab your puppy’s collar when they behave undesirably.
Gate
If you need to restrict access to an area that promotes problematic puppy behaviour, a gate can be an ideal solution. For example, a gate can keep dogs in separate spaces, which is ideal for gradual integration. A gate also puts a stop to puppies chewing or grabbing items, counter surfing, and/or jumping up when family or visitors arrive home.
4. Nutrition And Health Needs
Natural supplements are a great way to fulfil a puppy’s nutrition and health needs. This is especially important in your puppy’s first few weeks, during which they’ll experience environmental, physical, and nutritional changes.
Absolute Dogs recommends three supplements from the A-OK9 online shop to boost your puppy’s health as soon as you bring them home:
- The Calm-K9 calming supplement. Ideal for everyday use, this supplement offers a three-step, multi-targeted approach to transforming dog behaviour. Ingredients boost mood, support the gut, and soothe puppies.
- The Probio-K9 daily gut supporting supplement. Ideal for everyday use, this supplement combines multiple strains of probiotics to support the gut microbiome.
- The Rescue-K9 stool rescue sachets. Ideal for loose stools, this stool-firming supplement includes multiple strains of probiotics and prebiotics to nurture the gut microbiome.
5. Active Rest Needs
Puppies need around 17-20 hours of sleep every day. To ensure your puppy gets enough sleep, Absolute Dogs suggests keeping your puppy in a safe, calm zone during rest times. Try a crate, exercise pen, or puppy-proofed small area where they won’t have toileting accidents.
When your puppy wakes up, encourage them to toilet. You should also encourage your puppy to toilet whenever they’ve been playing or training for 10-15 minutes, consumed food or water within the last 30 minutes, or been awake for over 30-45 minutes.
When playing games, remember that some games promote excitement and others promote calmness. Alternate between these types of games so your puppy has opportunities to practise being calm. This way, your puppy will learn to regulate their emotions and arousal.
Absolute Dogs’ Puppy Schedule
Try this schedule to make sure your puppy gets enough sleep:
- Four to six hours of sleep at night — you may increase night-time sleep hours as your puppy matures.
- Toileting opportunity.
- 20 minutes of physical enrichment, such as exercise or games.
- Toileting opportunity.
- 20 minutes of physical enrichment.
- Two hours of mental enrichment with an opportunity to rest/sleep.
- Four to six hours of sleep at night.
- Toileting opportunity.
- 20 minutes of physical enrichment.
- Toileting opportunity.
- Two hours of mental enrichment with an opportunity to rest/sleep.
- One to two hours of sleep in the day — you may decrease daytime sleep hours as your puppy matures.
- Toileting opportunity.
- 20 minutes of physical enrichment.
- Toileting opportunity.
- Two hours of mental enrichment with an opportunity to rest/sleep.
If your puppy starts acting out of character, they’re probably overstimulated. Adjust this schedule to introduce more mental enrichment and sleep opportunities.
6. Clarity And Effective Communication Needs
Positive language is essential when meeting your puppy’s clarity and communication needs. Instead of using negative language, use clear language that helps your puppy redirect their behaviour. For example, if your puppy chases your cat, ask them to lie down or go to bed instead of telling them “no” or “stop.”
You can also meet your puppy’s clarity and communication needs by only using a verbal cue when they have mastered the associated behaviour. For example, there is no point in calling your puppy to come to you until you’re confident they understand the verbal cue and will come to you immediately.
If you have to repeat yourself, your puppy isn’t ready for this verbal cue yet. If they don’t respond, this doesn’t mean you have failed or that your puppy is stubborn. Instead, your puppy just isn’t ready for this situation.
Practise verbal cues at home before using them out in the world. Responding to verbal cues should be a fluid response for your puppy before you expect them to respond in public, where there may be several distractions.
Clear Hand Signals
You can make your verbal cues extra clear by teaming them with deliberate, purposeful hand signals. Rather than moving your hands quickly, make clean motions that show your puppy exactly how you want them to respond. For example, lowering a downwards-facing palm can tell your puppy that you want them to sit.
Try filming yourself and watch the recording back to identify where your motions may not be clear.
Food Reinforcement
When your puppy responds correctly, say “yes” and follow up with food reinforcement. This reward will show your puppy that this behaviour is good.
If you want your puppy to repeat the behaviour, toss the food so they need to get up to fetch the treat before repeating the behaviour. If you want them to come to you for the food, feed them directly or drop the food in front of you.
Generous, Unpredictable Rewards
It’s important to reward your puppy generously and unpredictably. Generous rewards are crucial to effective training as your puppy matures. When they get older, you can increase the effort they need to give to earn a reward.
Try several reinforcement opportunities involving food, toys, playing with you, and time to run/sniff around. Meanwhile, unpredictability keeps things exciting for your puppy as they won’t know when to expect reinforcement.
Changes To Expect as Your Puppy Develops
Your puppy’s behaviour will evolve as they grow. Their brain will constantly change until they are 16 weeks old (and even after this point). As a result, you’ll need to tweak your training approaches during the first few months of your puppy’s life.
At eight weeks old, your puppy will likely sleep a lot, and toilet training will be the main focus of your training.
Even just two weeks later, you’ll find that your puppy is far more active and engaged. At this age, they’ll become more interested in other dogs and other people. They may also feel overwhelmed or uncertain about new events and need some confidence-boosting training. This isn’t the time to expose them to lots of new places and things.
At 12 weeks old, you might find your puppy starts biting. This is usually because they start teething at this point.
All the time, your puppy will likely interact with other people and maybe dogs, too. Socialise your puppy to get them as comfortable as possible around other people and animals. They’ll also learn to respond to you in settings with others, despite distractions. Game-based training can make this easy to achieve, which is where Absolute Dogs comes in.
About Absolute Dogs
Absolute Dogs’ suite of transformative training products makes overcoming training challenges easier than ever before. Dog owners and trainers worldwide have benefitted from the dog training specialists’ ????Games Club and ??Pro Trainer Club, ??training courses, and Sexier Than a Squirrel Challenge. Absolute Dogs also offers countless free training resources, which include ??videos, the ??Sexier Than a Squirrel podcast, and ??puppy training e-books.
