Puppy Kindergarten

So what is puppy kindergarten? Well it's not a what. It's just a different way of thinking about your puppies training. Your puppy has a short attention span as well as allot of energy. Along with that your puppy is constantly trying to test you to see where he fits in. Even the sweetest puppies test their owners to see who is in charge. The problem is that if try to address any of this the way you would an adult dog you could easily turn your puppy off to training completely. That’s the reason for puppy kindergarten. By looking at your puppy as a puppy and working on building the foundations for your puppy's life as an adult you can see the value of puppy kindergarten. There used to be a commercial on television eons ago that went "Don't feed your puppy like a dog, dog, dog, feed him puppy chow". Well I suppose you could say don't "Train your puppy like a dog, dog, dog". In this article I want to help you understand how to work with your puppy so that you get the best out of him. I will talk to you about the problems associated with training a puppy and some of the myths that people have believed that keep them from achieving their goals with their puppies.

Puppies are a lot like children in that they learn in the way they learn. If you have tried to teach a three year old something you understand what I mean. Children have a ton of energy and that energy can cause problems when you’re trying to teach him something new. They move and shift and can't seem to sit still. It seems to take all of their energy just to pay attention. Puppies do the same thing. They jump and move and won't sit still. So what do we do? We make it easier for them to no progress. We work them in smaller increments like 10 minutes at a time in an effort not to bore them. We have play every so often or we don't work them that much thinking that if we do these things when they become an adult they will have the attention span of an adult. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. You see as in allot of other things what you do in practice is what you do in life.

This is about the time I tell folks my rubber band theory. No it’s not some form of physics that only applies to dogs. If you take a rubber band and stretch it as far as it will go then immediately let it go it will pop back into its original shape. But what if you stretched it and held it in that position for a while. Then every day you stretched it and held it a little bit longer. What do think would happen? That’s right eventually it would hold that new shape. That’s what happens with puppies. If work with your puppy with your end goal being that you want an adult that can pay attention, believe me you’ll get it.

One myth that gets spread on a pretty regular basis is that you can’t train a puppy before 6 months or 8 months or some arbitrary age. Well let me put this to rest right here and now. Puppies love to learn! Period end of story! They are a dry sponge ready to soak up everything you have to give them. From the time you bring your puppy home if you aren’t teaching him something that helps him fit in to your world you are missing the mark. Therein lies the beauty of puppy kindergarten. By training a puppy the way a puppy learns as well as focusing on the goal of turning a puppy into a well trained adult you will have a puppy that enjoys learning new things and eventually you will have a very well trained adult dog as well.

Puppy Kindergarten in Tampa, Orlando, and Sarasota.