Bringing a new puppy home is an exciting time, but boy can it feel overwhelming, especially if it's been awhile or it's your first time. Your puppy doesn't need to know "down", "shake a paw" or "stay" within the first few days, but what is important to teach them from day one? We're gonna talk about that today!
When you bring your puppy home, the only thing you’re gonna want to do is hug, hold, cuddle, and touch them.
They’re way too cute & loving them fills a huge part of our hearts as humans.
However, it’s not going to be good for them for you to wait to practice any kind of separation till a month (or several months) down the road.
The first thing to teach your new puppy is how to handle not having you all the time.
They need to start immediately practicing healthy & “easy” amounts of separate time (even if you’re home), and that can and should start as soon as Gotcha Day or the day following.
Here's what that looks like:
✔️ Set up a pen (look up ‘x-pen’ on Amazon or at your local pet store) in the common room and practice times throughout the day where they get to play in the pen by themselves. This can be while you do work, cleaning, or cooking. This is to normalize them seeing you around but not always being the centre of attention. It also helps teach them to occupy themselves calmly, and not rely on constant stimulation in their environment.
✔️ Do kennel training.
Leave the kennel (with the door open) in the room they spend most of their time in. Do some exercises where you throw treats inside for them to retrieve, going in and out without a lot of pressure. Then work up to time spent inside with the door closed. Start with 5 minutes. Let them soothe themselves. Don’t talk, watch, and hang around just outside their reach, as that won’t help them settle. Once quiet, let them out. Practice again. Work up to longer durations. Click here for our full breakdown of how we suggest kennel training.
Once they’re able to be inside with the door closed & not fight it, they can probably handle the bigger distraction of you being in the room. That's something to work up to :)
✔️ Teach them ‘Place’ (this is a great tutorial). We absolutely love this command and have found it monumental in teaching dogs how to relax & “turn off”. Definitely one of the biggest training lessons we’d recommend embarking on with your puppy (don't worry if this one takes a bit of time to work up to). Trust me, you'll be happy you taught them this from an early age.
Once they comprehend this command, practice it many times throughout your day. Again, start small so you can reward their good progress vs going too long too soon and not being able to make good progress.
Making sure to incorporate these little areas of training will not only create a more balanced and calm puppy, but a strong bond between you as well.
We hope this helps you with your new puppy!
Happy adventuring :)
The RLD Team
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