Puppy training tips

PART ONE - Bonding with your Puppy

It all starts when you bring your puppy home - the most important thing to do is to create a bond with them. Having a polite, well-behaved puppy is down to how you train them, and if they have bonded with you they will respect you, and as a result, training will be much easier.

Luckily for us, it’s not difficult to bond with puppies as they are designed to need us. Studies have found that puppies would prefer to spend time with people rather than with other dogs. As much as we love our new puppies, it turns out they love us even more (If that’s possible!). Studies have shown that dogs and people experience similar feelings and that during puppy-human interaction the levels of oxytocin increase for both puppies and humans.

So how can you bond with your new puppy?

This part is easy. All you need to do is have fun, happy times with them through exercise and vigorous playtime, like fetch, tug-of-war, or a game of chasing around the garden.

Bonding is a matter of teaching your puppy that you can be trusted, and they can rely on you. This can be interval walking, keeping their water bowl topped up, and addressing them in a caring manner. You will see how easy it is to bond with puppies when you meet their essential requirements and needs- Food, drink, walks.

Most of us have it in us to figure out how to "parent" another person. You may think that taking care of a child and taking care of a puppy are different, and they are, yet there are a lot of similarities. One study found that just like children, puppies will cooperate in a place where they are comfortable when they have a "safe base"— an individual they feel sure and secure around. Just like a child will not go to a friend’s birthday celebration without his or her mother or father close by, a reluctant puppy has a sense of safety when you are close to them. With that safety net, they may loosen up enough to play and explore. This is based on science. So, by simply spending quality time with your puppy in the first few days, you can strengthen your bond with them. But make sure that other family members do the same, you do not want a situation where the puppy relies solely on you, or you may find it difficult to leave them in the future.

In our Puppy Training Tips series, we will be looking at a number of topics including leash training, toilet training, puppy insurance - what you need to know, and many more puppy hints and tips. If you would like to get a quote for puppy insurance you can use our free online quote tool to see how much you can save.