We all want a dog that is happy and well behaved – a real pleasure to have around. How do we help to achieve this? By continued socialising from the second you bring your puppy home and by teaching your puppy basic manners.
Socialising
This is the process where your puppy learns all about his environment, other animals including dogs and all about people. When our puppies are young, they have very little life experience, so tend to view most new experiences with great interest and are keen to investigate. However, the older our puppies become – even just as old as 12 weeks! – the more wary they can become of these new experiences, especially if they have not had sufficient socialising prior to 12 weeks of age.
Exposure to new experiences, including meeting other animals/dogs/people/children/etc for our pups must be done in a controlled and positive fashion and we must make sure that our pups are happy every step of the way. If you see your puppy showing any signs of anxiety or discomfort during one of these new experiences you should remove your puppy from the situation and try again at a later time.
If your puppy reaches approximately 16 weeks of age and still has a fear of something/someone, the chance are he will always have a tendency to be wary of it.
Basic Manners
We are responsible for our puppies/adult dogs behaviour. The Law states that dogs must be under control everywhere now – even in your own home and garden! Starting to teach your pup basic manners from the second you bring them home is vital. Having your pup respond to his name, to sit, to be able to watch you, to come – all of these behaviours and more are so easy to teach when they are at this really young age.
The keys to teaching new behaviours to your puppy are kindness, consistency and solid reward based training. Gone are the days where pups are taught with force and verbal chastisement. If you try and teach your puppy in the latter way, they will simply grow up to be frightened of you and you will never know the pleasure of a fulfilling bond with your dog. Teaching a puppy with kindness, consistency and reward based training has been proven scientifically to work far more effectively. Our puppies learn more quickly and the behaviours we are teaching them stay with them.
Current research in dog behaviour tells us that more than 95% of all aggressive behaviour our dogs display is based in fear! If we socialise our puppies POSITIVELY and teach our puppies POSITIVELY we can help drastically towards preventing their fear of things and situations and therefore avoid putting them in the position of being aggressive.
BY KIND PERMISSION OF K9INTUITION
