Golden Retrievers are great dogs for a family, since they are intelligent, fun, and friendly. When they are puppies, they are adorable little furry bundles, but don’t allow that cuteness to keep you from teaching your puppy how to behave. Golden Retriever puppy training is important and in most cases, it’s easy to train these dogs since they love to learn and please their master. To help you train your new puppy, here are a few important steps for training to keep in mind.
Start Training While Your Puppy is Young
Don’t think that you can put off your Golden Retriever puppy training until the puppy is older. Puppies should be trained while they are still very young. Most puppies really are well developed at about five weeks and they start nipping, playing, and establishing roles within the litter. Once puppies reach about 6-8 weeks of age, easy training routines can be started. This is the best time to start because puppies are still very impressionable and easy to train.
Begin by Housebreaking Your Puppy
When you’re beginning the Golden Retriever puppy training, one of the best places to get started is with housebreaking. This is a very basic skill and as soon as you bring your puppy home, you should be teaching your puppy where to use the bathroom. Dogs by nature are clean and they don’t like to use the bathroom where they sleep or eat. Come up with an area that is designed for using the bathroom. Newspapers or puppy pads can be used for this training. Start encouraging your puppy to go to the bathroom in this area, especially after meals. Come up with a command for this, such as “Potty” that your dog will be able to understand. Usually puppies catch on fast when it comes to where they should go to the bathroom as long as you are persistent.
Develop Good Feeding Habits
Another important part of Golden Retriever puppy training is developing good feeding habits. Puppies should not be allowed to run and mob their food dish. When you give your puppy food, make sure you hold the puppy back until the food dish is down and you have moved away. Then you can allow them to begin eating. Keep this up until your puppy learns to wait for their food calmly.
Collar and Leash Training
It’s also a good idea to start collar and leash training while your puppy is fairly young. They need to get used to a small collar. Work on getting your puppy used to the collar first. Then you can go on to work on training them with a leash. Puppies often like to chew on the leash, but this is simply a method of exploring something new for them. Using treats as you work on leash training can be a huge help. Plenty of praise is also important. As you continue to work with the puppy, soon your puppy will get used to walking on a leash.
Golden Retriever puppy training is very important. The more training you can do while they are young, the better behaved your puppy will be as he grows into an adult dog. Keep these steps in mind as you train. Just make sure that you are very gentle with puppies to avoid any injury.