Alphabet Soup

Common Puppy Behavior Challenges

I often receive inquiries from people who are frustrated with their puppies’ overall behavior.

“They don’t listen” “they jump” “they bark” “they pull on the leash” are very common complaints.

Teaching Your Puppy Essential Skills

I will then ask a couple of questions along the lines of: Have you taught the puppy some skills? The answer often is: They know “sit” “paw” and maybe “touch” or something like that. 

Now: How could this be the basis of polite manners? 

Let me remind you of how you yourself came to understand things. For example when you learned how to read. You learned that “A” sounds like the vowel “A’. Then maybe you learned another letter. For example : “B”. 

Fantastic!

If these were the only letters you could decipher, what would happen if someone presented you with a newspaper article and asked you to read and understand a sentence?

Can you see how that would be an impossible task?

Yet we seem to expect our dogs should be able to make that leap. 

In contrast, show a dog what to do in the context of a particular situation and reinforce that! The puppy will then remember that: Oh! You are holding the harness: Yes, I remember that!  I was highly rewarded when I stuck my head through the loop. I am going to do that again! It has brought me goodies in the past and it was fun!  Soon you can give that complex behavior a name and your animal companion will know what to do. WIN! WIN!

Your Partner in Effective Dog Training

At DogRelations NYC, I use this  approach to help you communicate much more effectively with your dog. As a New York-based positive reinforcement dog trainer, I  believe in creating a fun and rewarding learning environment for your dogs. My goal is to turn your ‘they don’t listen,’ ‘they bark,’ ‘they jump,’ troubles into ‘they listen,’ ‘they behave,’ and ‘they understand.’