Pretty soon, your puppy will start to venture out of the safety and structure of their home with you. Before they do, you’ll need to prepare them for new situations, environments, interactions, and distractions!
Part of your duty as a responsible puppy parent is to prepare your puppy for the real-world. Often new puppy owners make the mistake of forgetting to introduce confidence-boosting activities into their puppy’s training and simply continue with the same puppy training routines over and over. Sure, consistency is vital so your puppy learns their basic obedience commands, structure, and good behaviors; but controlled exposure to new and different experiences will help your puppy develop coping mechanisms, confidence, and become all-around well-adjusted to the world around them.
“Over-Under-Through” Confidence Boosting Training Game
Briefly, we touched on providing controlled exposure for your puppy. The goal behind an activity or game, such as “Over-Under-Through” (which we’ll cover next) is to help your puppy start to build resilience. Why do you want to do this? From a young age, start to get your puppy acclimated to different sights, sounds, smells, and textures. By doing so, you’ll help your puppy develop healthy and positive associations as they grow, plus lessen the chance of your puppy developing anxieties toward new encounters. This game is designed to help you safely expose your pup to “real-world” scenarios in the security of your home, so your puppy can begin to build up their confidence!
It’s extremely simple to set up your own “Over-Under-Through” game, too! Create a makeshift at-home obstacle course with different items lying around your home: empty cardboard boxes, plastic storage container lids to lay on the ground to create a slippery floor texture, step ladder, laundry basket, bubble wrap, towels, etc. The point is to get creative so your puppy can learn to experience as many different textures beneath their paws!
Once your course is set up, lead your puppy over, under, and through each of the items you laid out using the lure technique! If you notice that your puppy is a bit timid about stepping on something, gently lead them with their leash, and continue to reward them with a treat to encourage them to complete the obstacle. A great advantage to leading your puppy through this course is that it reinforces your role as a leader, and your puppy will learn to associate you with overcoming and navigating a variety of situations.
Desensitization to the Real World
@madrid_thegolden
While the “Over-Under-Through” game works to get your puppy comfortable with new textures and encounters, desensitization introduces your puppy to common sounds! One of the easiest ways to do this from home is a simple search on YouTube for loop tracks of everyday noises like construction, party sounds, traffic, doorbells, baby crying, rain and thunder, fireworks, etc.
Start your puppy off at the lowest volume level, especially if your puppy has already shown reactions to loud, new noises. From the low level, slowly work up over the course of a week (or longer if needed) and just let it play in the background. If your puppy does react when you increase the volume, reset to a lower volume level again, and continue to work up from there.
Sometimes, giving your puppy a task to do if they are reacting to a sound can focus their energy on something positive and help them settle down. Take the time to practice their basic obedience commands like “Come” or “Sit”, for example, and reward your puppy as they work through the sound. The goal is to gain their focus on you and on performing their commands, instead of being focused on the sound!
Teach Your Puppy “Place” Command
Place teaches your puppy how to exist in real-life scenarios, regardless of what is happening around them. You can do this by teaching your puppy to go to a designated area on command and stay there until released. In essence, this is teaching your puppy how to be calm on command!
Some puppy owners are under the impression that “Place” is just a spot at home but in reality, it’s teaching your puppy to learn to target specific spots as their “Place” and settle down on command, anywhere! This is extremely useful if you’re out with your puppy, working at home, cooking, or have guests coming over, etc., and you simply need your puppy to settle for a while. Because “Place” is so versatile, you can teach your puppy to go to their place on anything like their bed, a cot, crate, or even a blanket or towel.
For starters, you’ll want to work on “Place” at home with as few distractions as possible, using an elevated object like a dog bed or pet cot that your puppy can target, and that has a natural boundary. When you begin training your puppy “Place”, at first you will do quick luring exercises to their place, establish the command by saying “Place” then release your puppy with “Break” and reward. To increase the duration your puppy stays in their place, say good up to three times in a row while rewarding them with food, then release your puppy with “Break”. Gradually, you can lengthen the time between “Good”, rewarding, and releasing your pup. It can take weeks and even months to build up a long duration so be patient and keep working on it! Most puppies will only be able to stay on “Place” for a few seconds while they’re first learning. As you continue to work on “Place” and your pup gets better, also start to introduce new place spots around your home to challenge them! Eventually, start introducing spots outside in your yard to help your puppy learn to follow through with the “Place” command in different settings.
Pro Tip: Puppies get tired quickly in the beginning! Keep your training sessions short, anywhere from ten to fifteen minutes long. If you go longer, you might experience your puppy becoming fussy and more inclined to not listen to you.
Teach Your Puppy “Down” Command
@ohsweetnala
The “Down” command helps puppies learn to settle and relax wherever they are. It can especially help them settle more while hanging out in their place! When you do start to train your puppy “Down” you may find it easier to train them on their place rather than a new spot since your puppy already feels comfortable sitting or even laying down on it, whereas the floor can be more challenging.
Start off with your puppy in a seated position. Ask your puppy for a “Sit” and then from this position, use the lure technique with a piece of food in hand, lowering your hand between their front paws so your puppy starts to naturally go into a laying down position. Once their elbows touch the ground, say the command “Down” , then follow up with “Good”, reward them with food, then release your pup with “Break” and reward again. Add in your Down command hand signal to help your puppy start associating the signal with the command as they learn!
Once your puppy has captured the meaning of the “Down” command, you can advance their skill by building in duration practice. Similar to “Place”, ask your puppy “Down” (you may still need to lure them in the beginning), and then when your puppy is laying down, reward them a few times, roughly three or a little more if your puppy is extra patient, say “Good!” then release your puppy. Again, the more you practice this exercise with your puppy, you can increase the length of time in between marking the correct behavior with “Good” and releasing your puppy.
TRAIN YOUR PUPPY IN AS LITTLE AS 15 MINUTES OF PRACTICE A DAY! HERE’S HOW!
A useful tip to remember is that you can use one of your pup’s mealtimes and entire food portion as a training session! These obedience commands take repetition in order for your pup to associate the word with the correct action so you may end up feeding them their entire meal! Also, remember to slowly introduce new situations and sounds to simulate real-world occurrences when you are working on desensitization. Not all puppies will get it right away or feel comfortable, so slow introductions are key for a positive experience, as well as patience, and consistency! As your puppy starts to feel comfortable, you can move their training outside to the yard and then beyond!
Check out these blogs related to puppy training and more!
Puppy Training 101: Giving Your Puppy Commands, the Right Way!
Puppy Training 101: Starting Your Puppy with the Basics!
Puppy Training 101: How to Establish Leadership with Your Puppy!