Top 3 behaviours to teach a puppy

deadlybuzzman

I'm currently training to eventually be a dog trainer. I would like to get an idea of what are the behaviours people would most like to teach their dogs when they first get them.

These aren't the behaviours that in hindsight you should have trained like calmness in public , (they will be another days work), this might be stuff that although is minor might just be an annoyance you could do without e.g. Barking when people pass etc

tk123

Your post is a bit confusing and broad…are you asking the top 3 things people want to train or the top 3 people don’t want to happen - as you mention barking at people? (Puppies should love everyone not bark at them) .. It’s much easier to teach what you want them to do rather than have them guess what you don’t want…

When we first got Rory at 8 weeks the top 3 were

Toilet Training - and adding cue to tell him when to go to the loo

Settle - getting him used to and comfortable in his crate/pen

Swapping toys to get stuff back that he’s shouldn’t have

The top 3 today 2 weeks later are

Sit - so I can stop him eg jumping up on my other dog/going mad at meal times and focus on me instead

Recall to distract him away from doing something he shouldn’t

Settle - building on this each day

He’s changing with each day so our training will change and evolve with him. He’ll be getting his second vaccination at the weekend so I’ll start getting him used to to having a lead on his harness.. I’ve already been carrying him around when I take Bailey out to get him used to traffic, bikes, scooters, joggers, people, the bin men, busses etc etc .. So a lot of what I’ve been doing each day is to build foundations and avoid unwanted behaviours down the line and reinforce wanted behaviours eg his automatic sit

VonVix

This is an interesting question, I hope I answer it in the way you're looking for.

When I think about my answers I can see how my thoughts on it have evolved with time after working with so many dogs. I have made many mistakes when raising my GSD, but I have also had many successes.

1. Largely ignore everything and everyone when out for a walk. I would be strongly reinforcing that my dog does not have to greet or interact with every dog or person s/he sees. Engagement and eye contact with me is far more important and useful. I think we put wayyy too much emphasis on this when "socialising", thinking a puppy needs to meet everyone in order to become a well rounded adult. I think this is really harmful to the development of a lot of puppies. This is how we end up with reactive dogs in many cases, because of bad experiences, or an anticipation that they are going to have to meet a scary thing/person/animal, so they have to act first.
2. Play. I think it's so important to be able to teach a puppy all the types of toys they can play with so they can have an outlet when I'm not available to give them 100% attention. Many don't realise that it is often us who teach dogs to play with toys, many dogs who don't know how to play where never played with as puppies. Toys are also such a great training tool when a dog loves it.
3. Learning bite inhibition. I like when a puppy uses his teeth on my hand, I like when they learn how much pressure is enough. I did a lot of this with my German Shepherd, he has such an incredibly gentle mouth as an adult, there are times we would be playing with a toy and he accidentally gets my hand/finger, he releases his grip immediately.

Cherry Blossom

1. How to appropriately greet other dogs. I have encountered so, so many boisterous unruly dogs while out walking mine. Some dogs will literally knock others down like bowling pins. Little dogs can be injured so easily by aggressive play.
2. Spending time alone. Even when I had two dogs that got on well together they spent one night a week completely alone. They were gradually conditioned for this. You never know when they will have to spend a night in the vets or in kennels etc. due to a family emergency or something and it reduces their stress significantly when they are used to it.
3. Whistle training. I found it invaluable to have my dogs come immediately on the whistle. After initial training I used it sparingly often in emergency situations such as a dog pulling the remains of a fried chicken takeaway off the table with the intention of tucking in to the cooked bones.

Just my take on bite inhibition. This was so, so important with my little westie as a naturally mouthy breed and was invaluable training as a puppy. She loved to get peoples hands, toys, her soft bed, everything in her mouth. This is largely how she explored the world.

My little Sheltie was an entirely different story. He would not chew on anything, even when teething. He would hold and shake toys for a few seconds but would be bored after that. He mostly used his toys as pillows to rest his head on. He had no interest in mouthing peoples hands or attacking feet or the bottoms of peoples trousers. He never made any attempt at using his teeth on anyone. In the early days of being groomed when he was a bit anxious he would make digging motions to try to get away. I don’t think he ever would have bitten anyone in any circumstances so the lack of bite inhibition training really didn’t matter. I tried quite a lot to get him to mouth when he was a pup but he just wouldn’t do it. So I think bite inhibition training is dependant on the breed and individual dog.

deadlybuzzman

Wow these were all fantastic and very insightful points. The bite inhibition I did too and that could save a dogs life possibly. Great point too about them not having to interact with every other dog and person too. These points and a dog learning to be alone are also not things you ever really hear talked about

tk123

I think everyone’s answer will be different - some may not have had a pup for a while and are remembering back, some have their first pup, others are more experienced, some may have a *singleton pup on their own where others have other dogs ..I currently have a pup who’s asleep after fighting his morning nap lol 😂 .. I know he’s a baby so there’s stuff he’s doing that I don’t really care/stress about that I see new owners stressing about on FB groups lol. I know he’s overtired when he’s running amok and not a devil dog for example lol. His bite inhibition was already pretty good but I don’t really need to worry about this as he’s learning from big brother. Swapping is a big thing for me as I don’t want him to think I’m going to always take stuff away from him and potentially start guarding. Being alone is another big thing as Bailey gets anxious etc etc

I mentioned what I call singleton pups as IMO there can be a huge difference in how these pups and dogs act especially around other dogs - compared to a pup who has grown up with an older dog to discipline them.

volchitsa

IME, when you have a friendly, sociable pup, it's quite hard to teach them not to jump at other people, because some people encourage it (sometimes "deliberately", ie "Oh she's so cute!" or out of fear, ie giving the wrong signals.

Our dog never jumps at us, but there are some people she used to see as a pup, occasional visitors for instance, with whom she immediately goes back to being an indisciplined pup with, and it's no longer as cute now, obviously. But to some extent it's their behaviour that caused/causes the problem*, and I find it hard to know how to go about stopping it now.

• Not that I'm blaming them, or her - clearly we failed to deal with that at the time, but since you ask for things to train into pups at the start, that's one thing we needed to do more about IMO.