First few days with your puppy

There are a couple of principles that we use when teaching a puppy anything. Here they are:-

1. We teach everything by conditioning a puppy to act in a certain way. We show him to do something and then reward him when he does it.


2. We use a puppys name before every command except "stay!" and "toilet". It makes him excited and alert and ready to jump into action to do whatever it is that we want him to do!


3. We repeat a game several times to form a pattern for the puppy to learn from.


4. We reward the puppy the second he does the right thing.


5. We use the same command for the same exercise every time. We also try to use the same tone of voice and body gestures that go with that command.


6. We NEVER punish a puppy when teaching him something. The puppy only gets a reward when it does the right thing and we make sure that it does the right thing!


7. We use a high-pitched voice when talking to a puppy (rather like humans use cootshy-coo language on their babies!). This tone excites them so that theyre keener to work. This goes for adult dogs too!! Barking out commands to them army-fashion has the opposite effect.

Next time we will be looking at toilet training for the new member of the family. Come with me as we watch our puppy grow and develop to protect and give us unconditional love.

Bye for now: Maqhawe the Mamba

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