Beginner tips for training your puppy
Pet expert and puppy trainer Andrea Arden of New York City demonstrates best training practices for new pups.
It’s National Puppy Day — and Americans from coast to coast are celebrating all the fur babies who may or may not be chewing on their furniture at this moment.
If your lovable new puppy is prone to having accidents on your living room carpet or jumping on house guests — fear not. Pet expert and puppy trainer Andrea Arden, who is based in New York City, shared with Fox News Digital some helpful (and often unthought of) tips to train your pup to be the perfect canine.
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Here are five smart suggestions for training your puppy.
1. Start puppy education early
It’s important to waste no time in getting your puppy enrolled in classes or in a training regimen at home. This prevents pups from developing undesirable habits.
Once training begins, setting good expectations and boundaries for your puppy to prevent predictable behaviors — such as having accidents in the house or barking when left alone — should be a top priority.
A beagle puppy is shown howling on a white leather sofa in this picture. (iStock)
"A really good puppy parent goes into raising a puppy knowing that these are behaviors that will happen," Arden said. "They’re all normal."
Two management tools to help subdue normal but undesirable puppy behaviors right from the get-go include teaching your puppy to rest calmly in a crate or in an exercise pen; and leashing your puppy when it's let out of these areas to prevent bad behavior from becoming habit.
2. Invest in enrichment toys
You may have a nice collection of chew toys strewn about your house or apartment — but be sure to add enrichment toys to the mix, too.
A puppy chews on an enrichment toy in this image. (Andrea Arden)
Products like The Comfort Bone come recommended and are hollow in the middle, to be stuffed with food and special treats for pups. These toys tend to distract pups from getting into trouble.
"Sometimes what happens is people get very frustrated when puppies direct their puppy energy and their need to chew on things like their fingers, their clothes, their hair, their furniture," Arden explained.
"And the easy solution is making sure the puppy has appropriate things to focus its attention on."
3. Teach hand targeting foundation behavior
When training your puppy, you want to implement behaviors that will stick throughout its dog years.
The top five foundation manners are sit, stand, lie down — plus impulse control and hand targeting for pups.
Hand targeting takes the basics of "sit" a bit further. Arden called it one of the more important behaviors to teach.
During this instruction, you teach your puppy to touch its nose to your flat palm when it’s presented at nose level. After the puppy learns to bop your hand with its nose, you should use a verbal response such as "yes" or "good," followed by a treat, to praise the pup for doing the right thing.
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Then, encourage this behavior further. As you increase the distance between you and your pup, hand targeting becomes the foundation for "come when called."
"For any dog, regardless of its size, the most important safety command is coming when called," Arden said. So if your dog ever gets off its leash, she added, "you have a dog that [you] can call back to you."
4. Implement impulse control foundation behavior
Impulse control is the other most important foundational behavior; in this effort, you're teaching your puppy to stay away from impulsive behavior such as jumping up on other people or on furniture.
"A really good puppy parent goes into raising a puppy knowing that these are behaviors that will happen. They’re all normal."
These sorts of "pushy pants" behaviors, as Arden called them, are a puppy’s way of investigating its space and testing boundaries. So teaching thoughtfulness and patience before acting is a good way to curb bad behavior.
The simplest impulse control exercise is to hold a treat above your puppy’s head — which it will jump for until it eventually sits. Once the pup hits the ground, assure it with a verbal response, or marker — and reward it with the treat, suggested Arden.
A puppy learning a luring technique sits for a treat. (Andrea Arden)
After practicing this about a dozen times, the puppy should naturally offer to sit for you.
Then, increase the amount of time you hold the treat above the pup's head while it waits patiently.
"The [puppy] is offering a calm, sort of relaxed behavior to get what it wants, which is very useful for day-to-day life with a dog," she said.
5. Use handling and gentling exercises
Your new fur baby will want to be handled just like that — like a baby. But breaking the habit of babying your puppy will prep it for being touched by other people in different situations.
Practicing handling and gentling exercises will prepare your puppy for encounters with the vet and the groomer. (iStock)
These handling and gentling exercises will essentially be like playing doctor with your puppy.
Check your pup's paws and its teeth, and examine its belly, just as a veterinarian would. That way, when it comes time for a check-up, or even a grooming, your dog knows what to expect.
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Arden encouraged new puppy parents to practice these exercises early on, since dogs mature very quickly. A dog is considered full-grown by the time it reaches nine to 12 months old.
Arden also shared this key piece of puppy wisdom: Sure, a puppy may be "all snuggly and sleepy" early on, when you first bring it home.
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But in a matter of weeks, she said, you're likely to "have a puppy who's going to have developed opinions and preferences about being handled. And now you’re going to put his collar on … and he snarks at you."
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