1. Life is all about ME! Me, me, me! Expect nothing less than that from your puppy!
Basically we are their servants in this stage.Their needs mimic the immediate needs of an infant or young toddler. Keep in mind that it has nothing to do with your puppy being bratty—it’s just his immediate needs that need tending. Do tend to them right away.

2. Love, love, love. Yes, since this is the stage of adoration, you will easily fall in love with your puppy. Take lots of pictures, but be careful not to overindulge and spoil your puppy.This will be the most difficult part of raising your puppy, but is essential in creating a cooperative, good dog!

3. While there are fundamental skills you can begin to generate in puppyhood, you are really in a “holding pattern”of sorts.Your puppy is just too young for formal obedience training in this life stage. Your job now is to prevent errors, teach concepts, and keep puppy safe until she can learn her obedience skills at five months of age.

4. Puppies act on instincts. Puppies come equipped with only their canine instincts and are acting strictly on what they know geneti-cally. They are not in control of their emotions, nor do they preplan actions.They just act on their instincts until we teach them to resist urges. Do not punish, but redirect them and remain patient!

5. Limitations: Puppies literally have no self-control at this stage.They tend to do whatever pops into their little minds.This is part instinct and part lack of self-control. Don’t expect your puppy to make good choices or to always be well behaved.

6. Trying to “break” your puppy of instinctual behaviors (like mouthing) will not work.You can teach your puppy to stop using her mouth to communicate when you teach her an alternate method of communicating. Until then, attempting to use “quick fixes” to curb these behaviors will only serve to diminish your puppy’s confidence in you as a leader.

7. Puppies have a limited attention span and can only “behave,” or rather, be kept out of trouble,for a limited amount of time.As they grow and as we teach them, they do develop an atten-tion span. It’s important to know now that they can only concentrate for short periods of time.

8. Once your puppy’s mental battery has worn down and repetitive, improper behaviors begin, any attempt to redirect will be futile. Take your puppy to the crate for rest.

9. Your puppy can learn the housebreaking routine, but his body cannot “hold” all of his bodily functions no matter how much he may want to do this. At roughly four and a half to five months of age, your puppy’s body will catch up in development and be able to control his flow of urine from the body. Very frequent potty breaks will help this routine.

10. Get Real! Keep your expectations realis-tic. Puppyhood is the stage where we must be completely responsible for our puppies.
Do not expect your puppy to behave like an adult dog. Know her limitations and work with them into the next stage of learning.

YOUR PUPPY’S NEEDS Mental Needs

11. While your puppy’s mental needs are small right now, her learning capability is great.The mental needs are small because her rest needs are much higher in comparison. But the les-sons she is learning through observation and envi-ronmental response to her exploration are great.
She needs to get positive feedback from learning— both from you and from the environment.

12. View every time you are with your puppy as a learning session. These sessions need to be positive and well guided to ensure suc-cess. If she’s not supervised well or is only “half supervised,” her chances of getting into trouble are greater. Making continuous mistakes and con-tinually getting scolded is not fun or positive for anyone!

13. Keep your puppy’s “learning sessions” short. Learning is exhausting for a puppy! They are trying to learn how to live in a human world and this generally means that none of their “doggie skills” are applicable (rough play, food guarding, mouthing, etc.) His learning and “unlearning” must be in small doses.

14. Crating your puppy for periodic breaks will keep her learning sessions small and will not mentally exhaust or frustrate her. A tired or frustrated puppy will not learn well or eagerly. Crate time will help her recharge for the next session.

15. Exploration at this stage is usually curiosity driven and not genetically driven (e.g., hunting instincts) and therefore prob-ably won’t cause repetitive nuisance behaviors at this stage. However, an “ounce of prevention” is truly worth more than trying to “pound the cure into her.” Prevention, by super-vising your puppy as she explores, is critical in maintaining curiosity and safety at the same time.

Physical Needs

16. Your puppy’s physical needs come in short bursts. A small walk up and down the block is fine for a youngster. If you do a walk that is too long, your puppy will sit down and refuse to walk. You may even need to pick her up and carry her home! Keep your walks short and build time and pace slowly.

17. Don’t take your puppy jogging and expect her to keep up with you for a great distance. Keep the runs short in duration.
Running on a long leash is fine if done in a soft, grassy area, but high-impact jumping or running should be avoided until your dog is one year of age.Their bones are still developing and you don’t want to risk injury or impairment of proper devel-opment.

18. One or two small walks per day along with one or two short runs in puppy-hood is a rather general, but appropriate “recipe” to meet your dog’s physical needs. Keep in mind that the balance will be different with different breeds so make adjustments accordingly!

Social Needs

19. Your puppy’s social needs are extremely important right now.This is probably the most important need to fulfill at this stage because she is forming all of her impressions about the world right now. Preplan many social activities at this stage so your puppy gets proper exposure to as many different people, animals, environments, and objects as possible.

20. In the case of social exposures for your puppy, “the more the merrier” doesn’t always apply. Never sacrifice quality for quantity.
Control the exposures to other animals so they don’t scare your puppy. Visit new places during off-peak times so they will not be overwhelming.
Use food to introduce new objects.The more pos-itive learning experiences your puppy gets, the faster she will learn good social skills.

21. All too often it is tempting to treat pup-pies to a magic carpet ride, picking them up to either carry them from one point to another or to immediately try to reassure them if some-thing (a loud noise or quick movement) startles them. While we must be aware that there may be certain times when picking them up may prevent harm and a negative learning experience, we must also be willing to allow puppies to experi-ence new situations to their fullest potential. If we act as if there is something wrong with every new or different situation, our puppies will take our cue and assume something is wrong as well.

22. Give them a “safety net.” When it comes to navigating steps or getting in and out of cars or up and down stairs, assist your puppy. Since we don’t want their little furry joints to become injured, we must develop a sense of how much assistance to provide while still allowing them to acclimate to their environment. We can assist our puppies in these learning situations by offering the same type of “safety net” that we offer when we place our hands under a toddler’s armpits to “un-weight” them as they learn to walk.

Rest Needs

23. At this stage, puppies need more naps than most people expect. Napping in a quiet crate, in a quiet room, will help them recharge their little puppy batter-ies. When a puppy is well rested, he will take direction from you better, mouth you less, learn things more cooperatively, and have more fun playing with you. Rest recharges the battery, but nothing recharges the battery like sleep. Sleep occurs during nighttime when the dark reduces stimuli and your puppy can slip into a deep sleep.

24. Rest needs are high during physical growth spurts. Puppyhood is the stage where the most physical growth takes place.When your dog experiences a physical growth spurt, her energy may decline and she may sleep nearly con-stantly. Don’t worry—after the growth spurt stops, she will be back to full activity in no time!

Continued on Part 2..

These articles are sourced from the book 1000 Dog Training Secrets by: Robyn Achey & Bill Gorton.

You can buy the book Here