Puppies / Basic obedience
Is my puppy too young for training? The habits have already started
Puppy training is not harsh obedience. It is the early structure around play, focus, toilet habits, boundaries and safe exposure.
“We’ll wait until the puppy’s older, then start training.”
The intention is kind, but the puppy isn’t waiting around for you. Every single day it’s learning what happens when it bites a hand, cries behind a door, pulls toward a smell, jumps on visitors, or refuses to let go of a toy.
Training starts whether you planned it or not — you just decide whether you’re the one shaping it.
Puppy training should actually look like puppy training
A young puppy doesn’t need long, repetitive sessions. It needs short bursts of work that match its attention span and where it is developmentally.
We build useful play. We teach the puppy that checking in with its owner tends to lead somewhere good. We introduce the leash without turning it into a fight. We set up toilet routines, household boundaries, and periods of calm. We expose the puppy to the world carefully, instead of flooding it with every possible experience in a single afternoon.
Meeting the world isn’t the same as being thrown into it
Socialisation gets misunderstood a lot. Letting a puppy loose among as many dogs as possible isn’t socialisation — it’s a gamble.
The dogs it meets need to be stable, the setting needs to be safe, and somebody needs to actually be watching the puppy’s body language. One bad experience, especially with a sensitive puppy, can leave a fear that sticks around far longer than the moment that caused it.
Your puppy doesn’t need to be adored by every person it meets either. Staying calm around people, feeling safe when someone approaches, and being able to check back in with you — that’s enough.
House rules start on day one, not month six
Because the puppy is small, whatever you allow today has a habit of showing up again in six months — just bigger.
Jumping up, mouthing your hand to start a game, climbing onto the sofa uninvited — all of it can look harmless on a ten-week-old puppy. The same behaviour from a grown dog is a different story entirely.
This isn’t about being harsh. It’s about being consistent. If one person in the house allows something and another gets annoyed by the exact same thing, the puppy has no way of knowing what’s actually expected of it.
Early doesn’t mean military
Starting early was never about demanding perfect obedience from a baby. It’s about not letting accidental habits become the puppy’s default way of living.
A small puppy dragging on the leash can be funny to watch. The same behaviour in a strong adult dog is exhausting. A puppy jumping for attention seems harmless enough — a few months later, the family might start avoiding having guests over.
The easiest behavioural problem to solve is usually the one that was never allowed to become a habit in the first place.