Consistency is the Secret to Training any Puppy

When you get your new puppy in your home, you just want it to know what to do and how things work in your domain. You want to minimize how many times you have to say “NO!” during the training phase of your relationship. That’s only natural. And believe it or not, your puppy really wants to please you as well. At least it will if you receive a puppy from Dream About Farm.

Another area of useful consistency is as you go through teaching them different commands, say for example you are on day #3 of the puppy training. As an example let’s say you have introduced them to the 3 primary commands of 1) coming when called (The Name Game), 2) sitting when asked and to “Sit” and 3) the stay command. Today you are going to introduce the HEEL command and start training them to walk alongside of you, slightly behind, off of your right heel.

The proper way to begin Day #3 is not to start with the new HEEL command, but by first doing the name game, sit and stay commands, several times, a review, giving lots of praise and a few treats for rewards.

Once you have brought them up to an energized and enthusiastic attention level, then you’re ready to introduce the HEEL command and technique. This new command will take practice and of course a consistent regiment and practice of a few steps and stopping, then repeat, repeat, repeat. In other words, consistency.

My last bit of advice for beginning training and consistency is to always do your training with the dog still having an appetite. In other words, do the training BEFORE you feed them their regular meal. Or if you do it after their regular eating schedule, do not give them their full breakfast/afternoon food amount for that feeding. Give them half or the regular portion and they will stay in attentive/focused mode because they are looking for that little treat for doing their job. Which of course is doing something right. Then when they are all done with the session, re-crate them and feed the 2nd half of their meal. Makes Sense?

My final thoughts here are about where to put the treats and what kind of treats are best. First off, I use a fanny pack for my treat pouch, and I remove any cellophane or plastic wrapping. That way they don’t hear the crinkling noise which would clue them that a treat is coming. It allows them to stay focused on what YOU are saying and keep eye contact with you.

In our personal experience, we have found that using freeze-dried Beef or Bison liver pieces are very effective. They are non-greasy/messy and you can easily break them into smaller pieces, which means they won’t fill up on them after 20-25 treats or so, But they sure will perform for them, correctly IF you consistently remove the noisy wrappers and have a fanny pack on where they don’t really see what your hand is doing behind your back, when you are reloading with some more treats, I mean rewards.

Good luck and remember the KEY is to be consistent in play when training your puppy.