When Should I Start Training My New Puppy?
Now! The answer is right now! Get your puppy enrolled in classes before you even bring them home to ensure they can get into a class early on, at 8-10 weeks of age.
Your puppy’s brain is a sponge, exquisitely designed to easily learn and absorb information. They’re always learning, whether you’re actively teaching them or not. They’re learning what behavior is allowed, what behavior isn’t allowed, what’s scary, what’s safe, what works and what doesn’t work. Puppies are incredibly smart and very capable of learning. Training should start the day you bring your puppy home.
PUPPY CLASS
I’m a huge advocate for starting puppy class as soon as possible. Far too many puppy owners wait until their dog is in adolescence or very near it to register for a puppy class, and that by that point, they’ve missed that really critical developmental period where learning is super easy for your puppy. During the socialization period, 3-12 weeks, puppies have extra neurons in their brains, making it easy to quickly make neural connections and grow the neural pathways. This means they’re more open to new things, like new people, new dogs, new sounds, new animals, etc. After 12 weeks, those extra neurons die off, and it’s now neurologically harder for your puppy to make new connections, such as new people are good, new dogs are fun, etc.
“Your puppy’s rapidly developing brain will not wait for vaccines. Neither should you. The socialization period ends at 12 weeks, regardless of vaccination status.”
Not only that, but the puppy has likely inadvertently learned a lot of undesirable behaviors while the owner was waiting until it was safe to start class.
By roughly 18 weeks, your puppy is drifting into adolescence, and the opportunity for puppy training is coming to an end. Now you’re dealing with an untrained pre-adolescent or adolescent dog, with its own set of problems.
There is no reason to wait to start training. All the research shows that it’s safe to take a puppy to puppy class as long as they’re current on vaccinations. That’s current, not complete. Puppy vaccines do not need to be completed for safe class attendance. One of the biggest mistake I see puppy owners make is holding off on class until vaccines are complete. Puppyhood is lost to time before puppy training ever starts. This time cannot be regained. Use their puppyhood wisely, use it to your advantage, and start training early. Remember, they’re learning anyway. Teach them what you’d like them to know.
KEEP IT SHORT
Remember that puppies have short attention spans, so keep your training sessions short, anywhere from 1-3 minutes at a time. This is why in Puppy Class, we take play breaks and work on multiple things, so the puppies are not being overwhelmed with training. Keep it short and fun!