What are the puppy training priorities?
Before bringing home a new puppy, your head might be spinning thinking of everything you’ll need to do. Besides buying a bed, toys, food, and puppy-proofing your home, you may be thinking ahead to what you’ll need to teach them to get them off to a good start.
When you Google a phrase like “how to train a puppy,” you’ll get a variety of answers - unfortunately there isn’t one puppy training checklist everyone can agree on! To help you develop your own list of “puppy priorities,” here’s something to consider:
If you surveyed, say, 100 people about to welcome home a new puppy, I’m betting the majority of them would say they want their pup to learn “manners” or “obedience.” They want their future adult dog to come when called, be polite when guests visit the home, and sit, lie down, and stay on cue.
These are all great things to teach puppies! But talk to a handful of dog trainers who specialize in fear and aggression cases, and your priorities might shift. You’ll hear tales of dogs who are terrified of strangers, who growl whenever their guardians try to touch them, and who freak out at the sight of anything “weird” in the environment (and what’s “weird” to them could be things as mundane as ladders and rolling garbage bins).
With that in mind, let’s look at two lists of “puppy priorities”: one from veterinary behaviourist Daniel Mills and one from ethologist Roger Abrantes.
Daniel Mills’ list
Positive associations to people, dogs, sight, sounds
Being okay with being startled/new things (novelty)
Being okay with having their bodies handled
Impulse control, manners
Settle down, alone training
Learning the rules of the household
Obedience, loose-leash walking
Roger Abrantes’ list
Teaching the puppy his name
“Yes”
“No”
“Come”
“Sit”
Walking on leash
Housetraining
Socialization
Getting used to things in the environment
Being comfortable home alone
What a difference! Abrantes puts the bread-and-butter “obedience” behaviours at the top of his list, while Mills’ list puts more emphasis on socialization: how the puppy feels about the world, being startled, “weird” stuff, and being touched.
As a certified dog trainer who studied fear and aggression, my educated opinion is that I favour Mills’ list of puppy priorities. I think teaching dogs manners/obedience is great, but when puppies are in their critical socialization window (which ends at 12-16 weeks, depending on who you ask), you’ll get more “bang for your buck” if you focus on introducing them to new people, dogs, sights, and sounds.
Teach them to love being handled, so that everyday things like putting on their harness or coat isn’t a headache down the road. Teach them that a sudden loud noise isn’t the end of the world. Teach them that the world is a safe, fun place to be - otherwise they might find it big and scary later in life.
If all of this sounds like you’re about to climb Everest, don’t worry - there are certified dog trainers who can help you. If you’re in Toronto, my day training packages for puppies include socialization outings and introductions to body handling.
For more puppy stuff, check out my post on why puppy socialization is so important and my Puppy Socialization Bingo Card.
