Introducing a puppy into your family

There are few things in life quite as exciting as bringing home a new puppy! That fluffy, innocent bundle of joy that wants to play whenever he’s awake can be a lot of fun for the entire family and the seratonin hits are a plenty, however, the novelty can wear off quickly when it comes to rough play biting, cleaning up a mess on your nice new rug or the constant crying at night and subsequent sleep disruption. It can be like having another baby!

In this guest blog, Gary Brown (ex-military dog handler and owner of Resolute Dog Training) provides some essential tips for training a puppy and making sure you raise a happy, content and well behaved dog who fits nicely into your family.

Training a puppy - those first days at home

As parents, we need to teach all youngsters how to play nicely, the appropriate places go to the toilet and to be comfortable being on their own. When it comes to introducing a famly pet, children’s safety must always be at the top of any parent’s priorities, so it’s vital we take this into account when we think about which breed to get and make sure we start off on the right foot. Preparation and education are everything and being well prepared and clued up will make the new puppy transition so much easier and more enjoyable for your puppy and the whole family.

Socialisation is vital

The matter of socialisation is something that must start as soon as possible and a vital early stage of training a puppy. We can’t always control this when the puppy is still with the breeder, but we can do our best when we take the puppy home. Why is socialisation so important? Imagine being a dog on a walk to your local park when this big metal box on four wheels with flashing blue lights is coming down the road faster than all the other metal boxes around it, but this one has a really loud siren. If you’ve never seen one before, it would be quite frightening. Now, we all know that emergency vehicles are nothing to fear, but that’s because we’ve seen hundreds of them and we know what they are. To a dog, it can be so frightening that the memory can cause a fear of them that lasts a lifetime. Getting them used to these sights and sounds as early as possible will help them to adjust and gain confidence.

When we talk about socialisation, we don’t just mean meeting other dogs, although this is also very important, but it also refers to meeting people and exposing the pup to a whole range of new sights, sounds, textures and experiences that may seem perfectly normal to humans but can be quite frightening to an adult dog that’s never experienced them before. By the time he is an adolescent, we want him to be confident and outgoing.

Softening that play bite

Another area of extreme importance when training a puppy is bite inhibition. Dogs can control the strength of their bite within 0.04 seconds of a trigger. We teach the pup to develop a soft mouth, so that if there is an incident in the future where he might react with a bite, he doesn’t cause serious injury resulting in hospital treatment, which usually has the knock-on effect of yet another dog being sent to a shelter and/or being put to sleep. 

We only have a small window before a dog’s bite is developed, so it’s something we must start teaching straight away. How do we teach this? We allow the puppy to bite during play, but we give him feedback that says “OUCH! That hurt!” If you act the part of someone that has suffered a painful bite and walk out the room, ending the game, the puppy will eventually learn to be more gentle on human skin. After several weeks of this, he should be so gentle with his mouth that it won’t hurt at all and may even avoid touching skin altogether. We don’t want to punish the puppy or tell him off to the point he doesn’t bite anymore, because then he can’t learn to inhibit the strength of his jaws, so we need him to keep biting so we can give him continuous feedback, where our skin gets more and more sensitive as he gets softer.

House training your pup

House-training can be another tricky area many new puppy owners struggle with when training a puppy. The easiest way to control when he goes to the toilet is to use a small puppy crate for his bed, but you need to get him to like the crate first, which must be done carefully to create a positive association with it. It should be big enough to allow him to stand up and turn around. Any bigger and he will just do his business in the corner. A puppy won’t go to the toilet in his own bed unless he can’t hold it any longer, but they can hold it for 1-2 hours at 8 weeks of age. You should let him into the garden as soon as he exits the crate. Give him three minutes to pee and poop and give lots of praise with a tasty treat if he does it. If he doesn’t, take him back in the house and try again later. 

The key is keeping a constant eye on the little poo machine whenever he’s not in his crate or long-term confinement area. You will start to pick up on little signs he will display when he needs to go, and these are your golden opportunities you must jump on. He will need to go less and less as he gets older, so house-training is always easier when puppies are young.

Further resources

The areas I’ve mentioned are things you can start teaching your new puppy the first day in his new home, but it can still be daunting when you understand how important these areas are, especially if you’ve already got a busy household to run. So please reach out to a qualified dog trainer if you need help training a puppy.

If you visit our website www.resolutedogs.co.uk you can download an interactive checklist of stimuli so you can get started right away on desensitising those scary things your puppy might come across.

We are also holding an online puppy pre-training session for new and prospective puppy owners, you can book onto this here: https://www.resolutedogs.co.uk/services