TRAINING | PUPPIES

Potty Training

& Puppy Development

8 to 13 weeks

Pre-K9

Training

14 weeks to 6 months

potty training & puppy development doglando

Puppy Training 8 to 13 weeks of age to start

Doglando’s Potty Training & Puppy Development (PTPD)

program prepares your puppy for a lifetime of learning!

Development of essential social skills.

  • Dog Parks ≠ Socialization, and they’re often not a safe environment for young puppies.
  • Dog Daycare ≠ Wellness. They may be convenient, however they are stressful, over-crowded, and do not offer the freedom of space for a puppy’s need for robust movement.
  • You can teach an old dog new tricks, but you can’t teach an old dog to become socially apt.

    Exposure to a variety of environments and stimuli on our 6-acre property, designed to allow a dog to be a dog!

    • At Doglando, your puppy will experience numerous sights, sounds, smells, and textures, preparing them for real-world experiences.
    • Digging in the sand, and getting acquainted with wading through water in our shallow lagoon, teaches them how to regulate their own body temperature.
    • Climbing to new heights on our jungle gym and tires, will build confidence and balance.
    • Exploring our Nature Play area, which includes wooded trails, marshland, an aerated pond, and a hillside, creates an opportunity for a rich connection with nature.

      A well-behaved dog is not achieved by “taking control”,
      it’s achieved by providing freedom.

      At Doglando, we focus on the total well-being of every dog. There's no better time to start training, than during your puppy's most crucial developmental and learning stages.

      This is an important time for puppies to be placed with their new families and to experience a rich connection with people.

      During this time in their development, puppies are able to imprint on their “new humans,” if and when properly supported in this development.

      Also during this phase, puppies are developing a substrate preference for elimination. This means, becoming familiar with the feeling of a substrate (pee pee pads, grass, artificial turf, newspaper, crate liner etc.) under their paws at the time of elimination.

      Their preference for this substrate becomes stronger over time and will become a trigger for where to potty in the future.

      Puppies will naturally potty train themselves, if they’re just given the right environment and opportunity to do so. It doesn’t have to be a painstaking experience.

      So much is happening during this time. Many dog trainers establish a heavy focus for socialization during this phase; however, at Doglando, our priority is in establishing criteria for the way we want the puppy to develop with us as humans.

      We use this phase as an opportunity to take their dependent nature and apply it to foster a deep connection with us.

      In the “puppy development” part of this program, the connection between a puppy and our Play Professors is gained by creating positive experiences that lead to beneficial outcomes for inter-species engagement and interactions.

      When puppies are nurtured in this way, they are very likely to develop in confidence, character and composure; and they can be easily guided through the next phase of their development and learning (which otherwise is considered a difficult phase).

       

      IN THIS PROGRAM, PUPPIES WILL LEARN TO DEVELOP IN 5 KEY AREAS:

      1. Potty Training
        At Doglando, our primary potty training method for puppies of the ages 10 weeks to 20 weeks  is crate training. Our puppies learn to go in the crate and have a set schedule as to when they are taken outside to potty. Our play professors execute the no touch entry and exit for crate exercises for puppies to be introduced to impulse control and hand feeding. We do not however execute pad training or having them eliminate in their crates. 
      2. Physical Handling
        The two exercises that we focus on are Settle and Cradle. Like newborns and children, we build up on getting them accustomed on being handled in different positions of holding their bodies and without us realizing, they were given positive reinforcement with either feeding or a use of a pacifier.  With Settle and Cradle, we build them up by putting them in different positions until we get them in the end position and working on duration of that position. The puppies have a freedom of choice to move out of the position.
      3. Touch 
        Like all living beings, touch is crucial for us biologically and aides us to develop properly. With massage for our dogs, we use massage oil and deepen our fingers into the dogs’ muscles to loosen any tension and to also gain any information for soreness and health issues. Massage also builds trust and a strong relationship between our puppies and handlers. 
      4. Name Recognition
        Our Play Professors practice to say our puppies name and anytime the puppy gives an indication of awareness of their name, they get reinforced by being handed with food.
      5. Recalls
        Recalls are when the puppy goes from where they are standing to the handler after being called.
        There are steps included on how to get to an off-leash recall especially from a farther distance. All puppies learn to come to their name for a recall after their execute name recognition.

      Much like we do with children, we place a heavy and unreasonable burden on puppies to learn, develop and mature, way before they are developmentally ready.

      At Doglando, we know dogs can be taught many skills as adults, however there are some characteristics that are essential for skill acquisition and life as a companion dog, that must be developed during puppy hood or the opportunity is lost.

      The focus of this program is to ensure that the delivery of support for each puppy is honored to suit them as an individual. This means, appropriate guidance is tailored to meet each dog’s needs, and interactions with other dogs are facilitated in a manner where by the engagement between the dogs is observed and measured as friendly.

      Dog-to-dog interactions during this phase are essential to increase sociability; however, they must be properly guided to prevent puppies from developing skills called play “fighting”, which are highly unnecessary for companion dogs.

      Experiential learning environments provide learners with rich and robust learning opportunities and help the learner “connect the dots;” in other words, make sense of what they are learning, how it applies to their interactions with other beings, and why it serves them in behaving in this certain way.

      When these opportunities are presented by providing nurture vs. exerting pressure to obey/conform or control, the end result is far different. Consider Puppy Preschool as the experiences before higher learning.

        In this training program, puppies will learn to develop in 3 key fundamental areas:

         

        1. focus
        2. engagement
        3. awareness

        Developing focus, engagement and awareness are essential elements for learning. Puppies will further their learning by:

         

        1. Connecting their names with a recall (connection with human, especially caregivers, becomes more important than all others)
        2. Engaging with dogs of all ages and sizes in a socially respectful and appropriate manner (learning etiquette)
        3. Gaining awareness of all the different aspects of their environment (building assurance and confidence)

        For the wellness and safety of all the dogs we care for, we require all enrolled puppies to be up-to-date on:

        • DHLPP (Lepto optional)
        • Bordetella
        • Negative Fecal
        • Rabies (at 16 weeks)

        Set your puppy up for a lifetime of learning and adventure!

        potty training & puppy development

        Your puppy gets to spend the day at Doglando on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays… 

        • Drop off your puppy between 8am and 9am
        • Pick up your puppy between 3pm and 4pm

        Ready to Enroll?

        We require all new members to first take a tour of Doglando’s nature-rich, 6-acre campus.

        Click below to schedule your FREE tour!

          Ready to join our family? 

          Ready to join our family? 

          DOGLANDO

          12276 E Colonial Drive

          Orlando, FL 32826

          (407) 574-3160 

          Ⓒ 2023 Doglando. All rights reserved.