Bringing up Puppy
Basic Training

teaching Dusty to lie down with a tit bit
teaching a puppy to lie down with a tit bit

Puppies have a short attention span and training sessions should be kept as short as possible.

Three minutes ten times a day is better than thirty minutes once a day - that would be ineffective, boring your dog, making you angry and inhibiting the learning process.

Wherever possible try to make training a way of life rather than enforcing a routine of lessons, for example, call your puppy using his name and a simple command such as "come" whenever you are going to feed him.

Try to give a command when you know the puppy will obey, for example, say "come" when your puppy is already running towards you and "sit" when your puppy is about to sit anyway.

Training is about teaching the puppy to associate a word with an action so avoid giving a command unless you are quite sure that the puppy will carry it out either willingly (because for example, he was about to sit anyway) or through compulsion (because he is on the lead and you are going to put him into a sit when you give the command). Never try to train your puppy unless you have total confidence that he will obey (i.e. he will come because you have his food bowl in your hand) or you are in a position to control him (i.e. he is on a lead). Tit bits are an excellent aid to training, they are not a bribe to make the puppy obey but a reward to let the puppy know when he has pleased you. Tit bits should be tiny and tasty, it is the act of reward that is important, most commercial dog treats can be broken in to about 20 or 30 pieces to make suitable rewards.