Group Puppy Training-Train and Socialize Your Puppy

September 21st, 2009 at 2:12pm

Getting an early start to training and socializing your puppy with group puppy classes is a great idea. You can get started early-puppies as young as 6 weeks of age are able to learn new tricks. In addition to learning basic obedience training at the best time, your puppy will get valuable benefits from socializing with the other puppies and their masters.

I noticed that the dogs I started training early in group classes grew up to be much better behaved than the earlier dogs I procrastinated starting training with. Before I started taking puppies to class early, I had 2 different aggressive dogs. By the time I got around to obedience training these dogs myself at home, I already had some serious behavior problems to correct. Since taking my pups to group training classes and socializing them better, I haven’t had any more aggression problems.

In the litter, your pup was getting continual lessons in socialization from his Mama and siblings. During the time a puppy still lives with his Mama and litter mates, he gets continual socializing lessons from them, and if he gets out of line, they will let him know it and put an end to it. An example of this is when the Mama dog grabs the offending puppy by the scruff of his neck and gives him a shake and holds him until he calms down and submits entirely. This is how puppies are taught their doggy manners. Just like our kids, they need some guidelines to help them learn the right behaviors.

Now that your puppy is with you and doesn’t have his litter to help him socialize, it is up to you to make sure he interacts with enough others to not grow up isolated and aggressive. Remember, dogs are a social type of animal, and do better with companionship than when kept alone and isolated. It turns out that a dog that is kept confined and has no social interaction with other dogs is much more likely to become an aggressive anti-social type of dog. I think that because my 2 earlier aggressive dogs had grown up away from other dogs and strangers that their aggressive instincts became unbalanced.

Getting started with puppy training in a group class is the smart time to begin his training-you are training your pup before he has picked up any bad behavior habits. You will learn the basic commands and hand signals for teaching your puppy new tricks and continuing your puppy’s socialization at the same time. My aggressive dogs learned their obedience tricks, but they hadn’t learned how to be social creatures. A well balanced pet needs to know how to behave in all situations, not just at home.It makes sense that a puppy who had the continuing socialization of group class will be more comfortable around other dogs and strangers as he gets older.

Little puppies of only six weeks old can already learn a lot of the basic obedience tricks. You should check out the amazing videos on YouTube of little puppies doing all kinds of tricks to see how early they can learn.

Try out this one important tip of bringing your puppy to group training class, and you are very unlikely to later have an aggressive dog. Look up information on group puppy training courses in your area and use one that uses positive reinforcement training only. Not only did the early puppy group training do the socializing and training I wanted my puppy to learn, but we also had a lot of fun going to the classes.

Click her to read my complete review of Secrets to Dog Training to learn more about their program.

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