Your Complete Puppy Training Schedule By Age

Did you know that at seven weeks old,

your

puppy

's brain is fully developed? That means that when they are ready to come home with you, they will be ready to start learning. In this video I am going to talk to you about a

puppy

training

program by age as well as progressions and what level they should be at so that you can give

your

puppy the best possible start. I'm Ken Steepe and welcome back to McCann Dogs, knowing what you should do with your puppy and when he really builds trust for puppy owners. It's also a great way to measure your progressions and that's really what I want you to think about.

Now before we start this video, I'm going to encourage you to grab a notebook or, you know, a notes app on your phone to take notes of the things that we're going to talk about today. I am going to divide these steps and stages by weeks. And then we'll get to a point where many weeks are similar. And we'll talk specifically about progressions you can follow for your specific pup. Now, most puppies return home to their new families around eight weeks. That's where we're going to start our conversation today and at eight weeks, this is a really important time to build relationships.

We will not focus as much on teaching specific skills to our dog. But what we're going to do is really focus on some of the natural

training

opportunities that are presented to us because we're going to start building a bond with our puppies from the beginning. And I'm going to show you a couple of really easy tricks to start doing it. Food is a valuable resource for puppies. They immediately see it as something they want and it's great that it can be something that comes through you. So at eight weeks, one of the first things I want you to start doing is taking advantage of natural training opportunities, like hand feeding your puppy, feeding your puppy, you know, handing out breakfast or dinner or whatever food. , and then you can feed them some of that food at eight weeks.

Although we can also do things like say their name, then feed them, say their name and then feed them. This will really add value to that new word they are hearing. Remember, they don't know each other's names. So what we need to do is start generating value and we will do that by doing things like that name. Then reward. Another thing I want you to take advantage of is that we use the McCann Method, we use yes, as a verbal marker so that the puppy knows that, as he grows, he knows that he has done something absolutely right.

So I want you to start generating value from that. Yes, it will be a big help in the future, and because you have so many opportunities to build a bond and try to train a puppy to love and learn, I want you to do the same with that. Yes, it will be yes. Then reward your puppy. Yes. Then reward your puppy. Now, those feeding exercises will get your pups full attention, but we also want to have the opportunity to provide your pup with feedback as they move and open space when they are not totally focused on us and the food.

So I want you to use something like a house line. We talk about house lines in many of our puppy videos because it gives you a lot of control and allows your puppy to make some decisions as he moves around the area you are in while you supervise him. So be sure to attach a house line. Your puppy. If you're not familiar with what a house line is, it's just a line or leash that you cut the loop off, remove the handle, and attach to your pup's collar so you can keep him out of trouble and redirect them if necessary. necessary.

Keep in mind that your puppy has just gone through a dramatic change in his life. They have moved away from his litter. He is now in a new environment, in a new home with new people, so set your puppy up for success. The best way to do this is to ensure 100% supervision. Make sure that when your puppy is out of the kennel or crate, you are there with him to give him good information. This can be, you know, a pretty exciting and interesting and sometimes scary change for your pup, so you need to be there to make sure he gets 100% good information.

Now, keeping supervision in mind, I mentioned using a box on the first day. Home is a great day to start training your puppy to love his crate. It is very important to have a management tool because you want to make sure that your puppy does not get into trouble and that he does not learn the wrong things during this first week at home. Your puppy is constantly learning, whether you are there to give him information or not. So be sure to manage them a little by teaching them that creating is a great place to go. I left the link in the video description for you to watch a video that will give you many exercises to teach your puppy to love his crate.

But at the eight week mark, be sure to use his crate for excellent handling and that way you will give your puppy excellent potty training or house training, whatever you call it. We will also begin the first week at home with your puppy, so make sure you are really proactive in this step. You will probably have some accidents indoors, but there are some ways to minimize them by being proactive and removing them before they enter their cage and immediately after they leave it. After every meal, after every play session. If they nap when they wake up, you'll take them outside to go to the bathroom.

But these are going to be really great ways to set them up for success. At the same time, you must supervise that puppy. So if you feel like you can't keep an eye on them 100%, put them in their cage. Another additional step you can do is to place some puppy-proof baby gates in that room. So your pup can't make bad decisions along the way. So, you know, blocking off some of the areas where they might get out and get into trouble is a really good idea and allows you to set them up so they don't run off and pee on the carpet.

I want to talk specifically about those first nights at home with your pup. In his box. So remember, this may be the first time your pup has had to hold his bladder or bowels in sand. They may have had an area where they could, if they felt the need, walk there and leave. But in this situation, your puppy will be in his crate. And what I want you to do to set them up for success in lifting that box is try to get it in line of sight. So if you can place it at eye level next to your bed, or perhaps if you sleep in an area close to the puppy for the first few nights, make sure you can see what's going on.

They probably need to get out and you really want to acknowledge that they need to get out. And then here you have to go in and take them outside so they don't have an accident those first few nights in their cage. It will also be a little comforting for them to be able to see you while they sleep there at night. So really take advantage of the box position those first few nights at home. Now, if you want to step up your eight-week-old puppy's training a little bit, something we'll often do is start engaging our puppies, just guiding them, showing them some food, getting them to follow, following the food with hand movements really deliberate so that we can teach our puppy that it pays to pay attention to following food because these fundamental skills will be a great help in the coming weeks for your puppy's training.

Now, at nine weeks old, your puppy's second week at home, you'll probably start to gain a little more confidence. That is why supervision is even more important at this point. Using something like your house line, you'll see how often you use it to keep your puppy out of trouble, but it's much easier to prevent problems rather than fix them than to untrain your puppy to do some of these. things. Very focused on supervision. Your pup will explore more, be more active, and have a little more energy. Then you will have an eagle eye. You will monitor them 100% when they have freedom in your house.

Once your puppy is nine weeks old, you can start to increase the challenge of some of the things, the fundamental things that we were doing the week before with him. I want you to continue taking advantage of some of these natural training opportunities. Feeding your puppy by hand. You absolutely want to reinforce the name, then reward the name, then reward your puppy. We really want to build a lot of value on that and chances are when we bring that puppy home for the first time, we're probably going to call him a lot and I want you to be really aware of that.

Really think about when you are using your puppy's name because if it is not followed by some type of reward at this point in your puppy's training, he will begin to lose value. So take advantage of these natural feeding training opportunities with that young dog so you can really teach him that hearing that word means something special is about to happen. You can start to include some of your family members at this point in the training with some of the simple exercises by saying the puppy's name. Then rewarding them and checking Yes, really loading value into that word.

Yes. One really important thing at this point is that you are starting to increase the challenge and a little bit of the appeal. You're just showing your pup that things are going to get a little harder. You'll have to work a little harder yourself if at this point you're just luring your puppy back and forth, maybe you can teach him to spin in circles or how about luring him over your legs. You're just raising that level of challenge and if you've spent a week teaching your pup to follow food, that can be rewarding. These things are easily accomplished, but what we are really trying to do is teach our puppy that we can level things up and that it is a lot of fun and we have already shown them the value of this, when they do something for you. , they are rewarded.

So start upping the challenge a little. Another thing I want you to do right now is to handle the person calling your puppy a lot. You are going to approach gently when you reward your puppy, take color from him, and then reward him. Maybe you'll reach the other side, take color from it, and reward them. Your puppy will be getting a lot of handling from his caller over the next few weeks and you want to make it a really rewarding experience so that every time your puppy comes over, you can take color from him and he knows something good is about to happen. .

You see, many people have hand shy dogs that they will reach for their puppy and their puppy will walk away. You can

complete

ly avoid this problem by bringing your friendly and approachable puppy, adopting that color. Then gratifying. Now, with your preparation and a little understanding on your puppy's part, once you reach 10 weeks, I will group the puppies that are between 10 and 16 weeks old together because at this stage learning is much more important than your puppies understand. and what the progressions are instead of week to week. But what I'm going to do in the next part of the video is show you the exact progressions that you need to achieve with your puppy so that you can help him be successful and what exercises are going to be really important for him.

You know, at 10 weeks of age, we can really start to expect some reliable responses from our puppy and now that you've spent some time teaching him how to follow food, let's talk about how to teach him to sit and stand. All progressions will be exactly the same for each exercise. I may demonstrate how to sit because it's so visual, but I want you to follow these same steps for your puppy as you teach him each skill. Now, for our puppies who are between 10 and 16 weeks old, we can start following a very simple formula to teach them a new skill and it will be a command, encouragement and reward.

And I'll show you exactly how you're going to do that with the sit command to teach your pup to sit reliably. Let's start with a prize in our hands, something that you have learned during these first x weeks of exercises, something that you really like. And then we're going to follow that formula. So let's tell our puppy to sit, which is the command, and not to pull, which is the stimulus. And then reward your puppy once he is sitting in that position. Remember that this is a

complete

ly new skill for your pup. So a couple of mistakes people will make is combining command and encouragement to have the treat and the puppy's nose.

Then they will say, sit down. The only thing your puppy thinks about at that moment is the food in his nose. So he remembers, it's always sit, then lure, then reward. Another thing people will do is after a couple of successful reps, they will remove the lure or stand up. They will change the landscape completely. So during this first week, when you're teaching your cit, your position, or your position, I want you to use the command, say sit, then lure, then reward, and hold it for at least seven days. Now, oneOnce you've worked a whole week on this, sit, then attract, then reward.

It's time to make things a little more challenging for your pup. Now I want you to think in small steps. So instead of changing something dramatically, we're just going to up the ante a little. And instead of having a treat in our hand, we're not going to have food, but that lure is going to look the same. Something that people often do is once they don't have the food in their hand, as they're moving away from having to have a food lawyer for their puppies, they know that their hand signals change and they say, you know. , say sit down and change, there will be signs or it will be like a foot high.

I mean, there are a million things they can do, but what's challenging for the puppy is that he doesn't look the same anymore. So in that gradual step for this week's progression, I want you to say sit down with an empty-handed lure that looks the same as last week. Lure the puppy into his position. Once they are there, yes. Then, find your bait, poach and reward. Now that we've started, we've combined a couple of things that yes, that we've loaded value on that mark the moment when your puppy is right, that gives him time to go to his bait bag.

It also makes it so you don't have to have a treat in your hand all the time and I want you to work on that sitting step. Get up and down over the next week. Now, after two weeks of solid training and plenty of repetition with well-timed lures, it's time to put your pup to the test. So in the third week, I want you to occasionally sit down with a much smaller, lower lure or maybe no lure at all and see what you get. Many of your puppies, if you time it right and do it consistently, the moment you say sit, some little bumps will hit the floor.

And I want you to rejoice in that moment. I want you to reward them with Jackpot. Really make it fun. Really let them know if they're offering that kind of quick response that's worth it. So really recognize your pup's success. Now, if you're not getting those reliable seats, I want you to take a step back. Maybe that empty-handed lure needs adjusting and you need to do a few more reps of that. Maybe you're in an environment that's too busy for that puppy. There are a little too many distractions for them. Therefore, you must return to a calmer environment or a place where they can be successful before you can take the test.

Last week we published a very important video for you as a puppy trainer. I want you to watch it after this one, and it's about the principle of training and how to get reliable skills out of your dog no matter the environment. I'll post a link to that video in the description below. Too many puppy owners underestimate the value of handling exercises. There are many benefits to doing these exercises with your pup. Things like trust, building relationships, allowing them to touch their feet teaching them to be calm and relaxed in certain situations. There are just a million reasons why you would want your puppy to feel comfortable being handled, but many puppy owners overlook that in the following exercise, Kills will show you the precise progressions to teach your puppy to be more. comfortable with handling.

Instill that off switch in your pup. And believe me, whether you understand it or not at this point, you will be really grateful that you practiced some of these exercises when you have a puppy who is very comfortable being handled. Let's go to Kale. Now what I'm going to do is start with the first step for some of those handlings and when I want to touch different parts of her body, the first thing I want to make sure is that she is in a completely relaxed position and maybe that's not the one you're trying to do. to do tricks right now.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to take a piece of food and I'm just going to draw it down and I want you to rotate it on one hip. So all I did there, I'll show you that again, was just move her head towards her shoulder and that makes her turn to the side. I'll just give her all the food she can get my hands on because once the food is out of my hands, I'll allow her to be a little calmer. Now I like that there's some white space here because I can move it around a little bit easier.

Now what I'm going to do is grab her outside leg and I'm just going to gently push her shoulders to turn her on her side. Good girl. When she's on her side, we're a monkey factory. I'm just going to pat it very calmly. Good girl on your side. Yes. And in reality I teach and on your side I command on your side. Good girl. She is a good girl and I want her to stay here completely calm until she is really safe. Good girl on your side. Good girl. Now, for some dogs you could certainly incorporate a lot of feeding, but this particular pup is very, very motivated by food and more.

The more I use the food, the more frantic behavior I get because she likes it so much. So she actually responds much better to really calm praise and calm petting and petting. Good girl on your side. Good girl. Very pretty. Once she is relaxed and she can tell you, it's okay, good girl and let her get up from there. So that's the first step. That's what I would start before touching her body parts. Good girl. Yes. Now, once your dog is very comfortable lying on his side, he will be relaxed and calm as if I were on your side.

Good girl. The next thing I would do is start touching different parts of the body. Now I have a bag of cheese hidden behind my leg. Right now she's out of sight so it's not too distracting and if B can lie here quietly while I touch her, pause, I'll say yes and then give her a treat. Now, the timing of this is very important. I need her to believe that the best part of this big love bug, the best part of it is when she actually touches her paw. It is important that she uses the word yes to signal this before bringing out the food.

So I'm going to put her back on her side here on your side. Good girls settle. Good on your side. It'll take over, Paul. Good on your side. Oh, you're so good. Yes. Then I'm going to say yes while holding her paw and then I'm going to take out my cheese to reward her. The good girl could. Yes beautiful. Good. What I wouldn't want to do is hold the leg, let go. And bring out the food because I want her to think the best. So when I touch parts of her body, timing is really important in dog training.

They learn in a second. That is why it is very important that when you use your pin porter or pinpoint word, it is at the right time. So now I'm going to try the other pond. Good girl. You might even make it a little harder. Spread your toes away from her. Pull each individual nail. That's something I would have to do. Oops. Settle. She's a little uncomfortable with it, so I'm just going to lay her against it. I'll go girl. Yes. She was completely calm that time. You are very smart. Good girl. Child's hind feet. Good girl.

Oh, did she do it? Good baby. Yes. Good girl. So yeah, while I'm playing then reward. I have one more pot left to make. Good girl. Damn, I made a girl move in there. Oh that's good. B. Yes. Good girl. This is a really easy thing to practice, you know, between commercials or between shows while watching commercials. It is also good to practice this while your dog is already a little tired at first so that he is more likely to calm down and then as he becomes more experienced you can also practice when he is more excited.

Unfortunately, you don't always get to choose your dog's energy level when you take him to the vet for an appointment. They should be able to feel comfortable with this type of driving at any time of the day. And in any situation, you are ridiculous. Good girl. Now, it is not always convenient to have your dog lying on his side to handle him. There will be times when you will have to look into their eyes, check their ears, look at their teeth. And for that I usually prefer to have my dog ​​sitting. Then again, I'll get rid of the food for a second and hurt my hand with the color of it just to strengthen it a little.

And what I also like to do is swing her like this so you can see her brace, my hand under her chin to help her keep her head still. And again, if your dog is not very used to you holding him in this position, I would take the time to calmly pet him and praise him. Yes. Good girl. Yes. And you could even start by rewarding that. Now I have done this with this puppy since the day I brought him home when he was eight weeks old. She is quite comfortable with this, but some puppies take a little longer, so you can see that she just calms down from it when I hold her there, which means I can look at her eyeballs very easily.

I can look into her ears very easily. Make sure there is no dirt or grime there. Also, this is going to sound really strange, but one of the easiest ways to tell if your dog has an ear infection is by smelling his ear. If a strange smell comes from there, he may have an ear infection. So can she stay still like me without kissing me? Yes. I put my nose close to her ear to smell it. Good girl. Yes. You are so good. And again, I take my time to do this. It's a good idea to practice handling when you don't actually have to check them from something.

You know, I have some time to do this. I can take it easy. And last but not least, her mouth. This is one of the most difficult things. So when I start working on being able to look inside her mouth, I start by just being able to lift her teeth. Look at those pearly whites. Yes. Good girl. If she allows me to lift her lips to see her teeth, I would reward her. Then I could practice, maybe try opening my mouth for a moment. Then I have my fingers behind her teeth. I'm going to open your lower jaw there.

Well. So she didn't like that very much, so I may try again. Good. Carol. Yes ok. Look, we asked him to do it for a moment. What I'm looking for is acceptance. I want her to be still to be calm. If she is fighting me and trying to get her head out of my way. I don't want to be rewarding that. Come here. Monkey Moo. He goes to chat again. Sit down girl. So I'm going to hold her head again. She tries one more time. Yes. Good girl. Excellent. Very pretty. And I can do a little bit in the moment when you're manipulating, you can, you know, choose to do, you know, a body part and do it for a little bit.

And then maybe the next day do something different depending on your dog's comfort level. It is always best to build on success so that your dog doesn't worry or stress during this and actually finds a nice, relaxing, quiet time with you. Another crucial step in your 10 to 16 week old puppy is to teach him his name. Now I know the first response you probably had when you heard that is, oh, my puppy knows his name, but would your puppy know his name and respond to his name if there was another puppy nearby or if there was something exciting like another friend or family member? the family or a toy in the room.

At this point, your puppy is ready to learn that he needs to reliably respond to his name every time, no matter what's going on around him, and there are some easy ways to set up that training for him. Let's go to our initial puppy training room, where I can show you the progressions for teaching your puppy to respond to his name every time, no matter what is happening in the room. When you start teaching your puppy his name, it is very important that you pay every time. So let's call our puppy's name. We're going to say Biggie's name and then automatically draw him in during the first few reps of this exercise.

Then I'm going to do something. I'm going to let him distract himself naturally, which doesn't seem to be as difficult as it would be for a long-lasting puppy like this, but I'm going to call his name and then attract him. So let's distract them and maybe show them something from there. Biggie and then bring it. Yes. Good boy. Good job buddy. We'll let them get distracted again. Orders to, take them out a little. Biggie, show him that food and bring him over. Yes. Good job Pao. Way to go. When rewarding your puppy, try to make sure you reward him almost so that you are touching his legs, as we will see a lot of value in getting very close.

Now we're going to make Biggie's bite a little more challenging by using a little more movement. But when we do that, we want to use our home line and we posted a video about that not long ago, just so Biggie doesn't let me. As we work on this exercise that I'm going to use, I need to put a leash on him or I'm going to use his house line and I'll link to that video above so he doesn't do it. I can't have the opportunity to feel totally gratified by something that's not me, but I want to show you how we can really generate some motivation for your name using a little bit of movement and some exciting language or some exciting voice sounds, so you can let that get a little distracted.

Big. Hurrah. Good Guy. Way to go, buddy, and I'm going to step away from it to really reinforce the fact thatHearing his name and coming to me is so fun, so I can let him get distracted again. Big. She hoorays. She had a boy. Very good way to do it buddy and I'm going to use that move. I'm going to use that language that sounds so exciting. Biggie, yeah, to really reinforce that hearing his name called is really, really fun. Do you want to generate even more motivation in your response to the name? Try having someone hold your puppy while he sneaks around with an exciting toy, then say his name and let him go.

Big. Yes. Out of, Oh my good friend. 10 so big. He's really starting to know that there's a lot of value in hearing that word and I've made it really fun by walking away and using a happy voice, you know, to make it really fun for him to respond to that name. So now we have to challenge him a little. We need to make it a little harder. So we're going to use something as a distraction and I'm going to take it out of that name. Now, at this point, I'm not going to put it to the test.

I'll make sure you can be right every time by using that food tradition while I use that distraction. So I'll leave this tape. Yeah, I'll call him biggie. Yes. Good boy. Now I've also chosen to use some high value foods because you know, having something new like this distraction can be a challenge. So when I call Biggie out of that distraction, I'll use something like hitting a chicken or something he really finds valuable. So an important step in using the McCann method is letting your dog choose and an important step in teaching him. Its name is testing phase.

I have now reduced the amount of distractions that that roll of tape took away from me. But this time I won't automatically show Biggie the food. I'm going to say his name and see what happens. Big. Yes. Good boy. Very pretty. Now I'm still going to use that exciting language and I'm still going to use a little bit of, but I'm not going to automatically put the treats in front of his face. So let's put it to the test again. Bring them here a little bit. I'm going to stay nice and close though. Big. Yes. Good job friend.

And you can see how excited he is to respond to his name and how much fun he's having. That is very important while training our puppies, that they love every minute of training. Now that we increase the challenge, it is very important that we mark the moment when our puppy is making a big decision. So when there's that distraction, whether it's two pieces of tape on the floor or maybe it's, you know, some movement in the environment, we mark that moment where he makes that big decision. And that's with yes, I use yes to mark the moment when Biggie is making a very good decision.

What if our puppies don't respond right away? What if there is some distraction that causes them not to respond the first time every time their name is called? Well, let's help them be right. We will use something like a small touch on their side to break their focus and return their attention to us. And I'll show you what I mean. So let's help Biggie get used to being touched. So let's do something really simple, like a little touch. Nice guy touch. Yes ok. So they're really comfortable with that action pig. Yes. Good boy friend. If he follows these steps, he will have an excited, happy, and confident response to naming No Time at this age.

It can be really difficult for some puppies to work on some of these skills and do some of these exercises because they use their sharp little teeth like needles and bite and bite all the time. Now, for the sake of brevity, I made a playlist and it's in the description below. If you've tried all kinds of things to keep your puppy from biting while training, be sure to check out that playlist. It's just for you. Once he has reached the 16 week stage, he will be ready for large dog training, walking on a loose leash coming to command, sit and stay.

If your pup is up for that kind of thing, be sure to click on that card there. And I want you to enjoy every minute of your puppy training journey. And if you still have any questions about training a puppy, be sure to leave them in the comments below. In that sense, I am training in intellectual property.