If you ever want to see me go "giggly" and "gushy" show me a puppy. There is nothing cuter if you ask me. Puppies are cute and this is where what I call, "the curse of cute" comes into play. You see there is this myth in the dog world that you can only train older dogs and even then some people think once the dog is 2 years old or older then they have missed the training window.

First you can teach an old dog new tricks. Second, starting to train your puppy at 8 weeks is essential. You can train earlier than that but most breeders, well responsible ones, keep the puppies until they are 8-12 weeks old. If the breeder is any count they have started imprinting the puppy from 3 to 8 weeks of age. This is a critical time for the puppies development.

What is imprinting? Imprinting starts at 3 weeks of age. Imprinting simply means you establish associations with the outside world. For example, if I lay down next to a puppy for several hours and handle the puppy I will imprint myself on the puppy. They smell me and therefore associate my smell with being handled by me. Good breeders will allow their family to handle the puppies which helps the puppy learn that being handled is okay.

Through imprinting you can mold your dogs view of training as well. One important note is, you should never correct your puppy during the early stages of training. Harsh verbal or any physical corrections at this stage can cause long term damage to the training process and your puppy is simply not mature enough to handle them.

Training should start right away and my advice would be to focus on using positive reinforcement and as I said before, avoid any type of correction. You should reward the correct response and ignore the incorrect responses. What you end up with is a dog that learns to offer the correct response without fear of correction. A powerful thing and something you should remember because this should be the dogs attitude their entire life.

Here at Top Dog K9 Training Solutions we believe new dog owners should seek out a private trainer immediately. Why private lessons? Why not groups so they can socalize? There is nothing wrong with joining a class to socalize your puppy, they are much safer than dog parks and cleaner too.

If you do sign up for a class it should focus solely on socalizating your puppy. Classes are to chaotic for puppies to actually learn anything. Not to mention the owners spend most of their time trying to control a hyper puppy.

In Conclusion ...

You should start training your puppy right now. Don't dilly dally. Hire a professional to help you get started on the right foot too. You will cut down on mistakes which speeds up the training process.

Article by: Jason Mann ~ http://www.TopDogTrainingSolutions.com
Copyright 2010 Top Dog K9 Training Solutions. All rights reserved. Feel free to use this article on your site so long as the content stays exactly the same. You may not use the images.

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