From about this age a puppy begins a new phase of development. During this age puppies brains are becoming more developed, and thus their analytical reasoning is much improved. They are starting to react to new environments and recognize new faces much better then younger puppies. Their reactions are still passive-defensive but at much higher level then of puppies of younger age. It is important to remember that puppy’s reaction at this age takes a long time to cool down.

The point of dog training:

The target of dog training, above all else, is to train the dog the correct execution and bullet-proof response from your commands. Be it voice, hand or other signals. It is important to train your dog all year round, but if training outside the better time is during spring-early summer. For warm season a good temperature is between 10-15 degree’s Celsius, and in cold season up-to -10C without wind. Initial training sessions shouldn’t last more then 5-10 minutes and should gradually increase as the puppy ages. Remember!, biggest mistake you can make during this time is to make the puppy scared of the training exercises! Pick time and place most that suits your puppy the best, so he looks forward to training.

Does a puppy understand my words?

NO. Dogs do not understand the meaning of words. They do have a very good sense of hearing and can pick apart even the smallest differences in your tone of voice. The dog will focus on the tone of your voice. Dogs do remember words though. That is because the dog is conditioned to respond certain way to a word, same way a dog can be conditioned to respond to a hand signal.

How to give a command to your dog:

The training commands should be issued in a calm voice with clear intonation. A dog should have no problem hearing the command, since it cant do something it cant hear. Praise the dog with a warm tone of voice with higher then normal pitch. Dissatisfaction with the dog should be shown with deep and unhappy voice tone.

Training should be done systematically and continuously, with gradual increase in difficulty of commands, from sloppy to perfect execution of the command. Dog training should seem like a game to the puppy, so it brings happiness to both the puppy and the owner.

In the next installment of our new dog training series, we will describe different methods of training as well as a number of guides on teaching commands described in first two installments.