If you have just invited a puppy to join your family, then congratulations are in order! This is an incredibly exciting time for everyone.
However, your puppy also is at a critical stage of development. This is when he’s really building a strong bond with his family while learning where to eliminate and how to socialize with other people and animals.
This is why it is critical to enroll your new dog in puppy preschool. Think of this course as an opportunity to enhance your family’s bond with its newest member. At the same time, you’ll be taking a lot of the frustrating work out of training your pup. With the guidance of an expert, you and your puppy will have time to develop a mutually respectful and affectionate relationship.
What Is Puppy Preschool About?
This course offers learning to both puppies and new puppy parents. Subject matter that is covered in these lessons include potty training, physical handling, touching, name recognition and recalls. These are all critical skills, and it is important that they are introduced at the right time.
That is why puppy preschool usually takes place between 10 and 20 weeks of age. When this training is done properly and at the right stages, it sets up your dog to be happy and well-adjusted for a lifetime.
At Doglando, we have an intimate understanding of a puppy’s various developmental stages. This allows us to introduce the right subject matter at the appropriate time. Consequently, we aren’t requiring the dog to learn a behavior before it is developmentally ready to do so. At the end of the program, the pup is confident and assured, knowing what’s expected of her and ready to interact with all sorts of people, animals and situations.
Learning What Not to Do
Of course, much of the time in puppy preschool is spent learning good habits that will serve your family and your pup for a lifetime. It’s just as important that your pup also be helped to avoid negative behaviors like jumping up, chewing and nipping.
If your new pup has any of these or other bad habits, don’t worry. This is pretty normal stuff for a young dog. The good news is that some early training can teach you and your dog how to deal with these habits so that your future home life can be relaxing and harmonious.
Your Involvement Matters
At Doglando, we like to have our puppy parents attend the first couple of weeks of puppy preschool. This is a wonderful time to build a stronger bond with your puppy while you also learn how to get along. That includes how to avoid negative behaviors and how to encourage the good behaviors that you want to see more of.
Next, your puppy moves to a more independent phase as he spends time on Doglando’s expansive campus. He’ll have plenty of time to explore and play, with opportunities thrown in to rest as well. Throughout it all, our expert trainers are working with your pup to ensure proper elimination, good crate habits, leash etiquette, physical handling, name recognition and recalls.
We find that pups learn in leaps and bounds throughout this course, and improvement tends to be most pronounced when our puppy parents reinforce at home the good habits that are learned in puppy preschool. Accordingly, the more consistency and continuity that you can provide at home, the more quickly your dog is likely to progress in her training.
What’s Next For Your Puppy?
Socialization and training don’t end at 20 weeks of age. Instead, we find that it is enormously beneficial for pups to further their training between five and seven months of age.
Doglando’s Pre-K9 course features three levels that are designed to increase your puppy’s bond with you while also furthering the goals of proper socialization and being able to react appropriately and without fear in a variety of situations.
Further training options also are available to support you and your dog. After that, you’ll want your pup to keep experiencing everything that Doglando has to offer. From pools and ponds to decks, porches, runways and wooded trails, Doglando is a paradise where every dog gets to truly be a dog.
Learn More Today!
Call Doglando today to learn more about training and socialization activities. Our experienced trainers can help your puppy develop good habits that will serve her and your family. These early developmental stages also are critical for building bonds between your dog and the other members of your family. Learn how to react when your pup engages in behavior that you don’t want to encourage while also supporting your dog’s journey to becoming fully potty trained.
At Doglando, we see every day how far a little training can take even the littlest puppy. Enroll your pup today to help ensure that he grows into a confident, respectful and loving family member.
Teena Patel is a Certified Dog Trainer and Behavioral Counselor who works with pet owners and owners of doggy daycares to bring her philosophy of Enrichment to the canine population. After almost two decades of successful dog training under her belt, Teena has done away with the standard doggy daycare “warehousing” of animals in kennels and runs. In place of an industrial model, she focuses on what is right for the dogs as living beings, providing experiences that improve and enhance their behavioral health. Coupled with a program of careful training, the Doglando experience results in companion dogs who are better-behaved, better integrated into their families, and above all, much happier. True to her passion, Teena Patel gives dogs the freedom “to be dogs”.