Puppies!
We teach puppies all the same skills teenage and adult dogs learn at a pace that’s puppy friendly. But in addition we help puppies with socialization and exposure training as well as valuable foundation skills for life such as handling, trimming nails and grooming.
You can do puppy training in our Puppy Class, in Private Lessons or with a Board & Train option.
What additional things do we do with Puppies?
Socialization & Exposure
socialization with other people, puppies and adult dogs (our adult dogs help with puppies!)
exposure to different surfaces (concrete, gravel, grass, sandpaper, plastic, rugs…). It’s important puppies are comfortable walking on different surfaces
exposure to different objects: kiddy pool with balls, fun tunnels, agility tables, strollers, toys, tools, sounds, umbrellas…
This is a fun and awesome video I put together over 5 years ago. I had three puppies in at the same time (a rarity indeed!). We did some fun sessions playing with the agility tunnel and they loved it!
This was when my company was known as Great Pet Vacations but I changed my name to Freedom Dog Training three years as I shifted to doing much more training than boarding.
The ball pit is a great activity to build confidence with your puppy and get them using their nose. For some puppies we start with an empty pool, teach then food is in the pool and the slowly add in balls over time.
It also teaches your puppy about different surfaces, objects and creates a positive experience for your puppy, plus a lot of fun!
Handling, Grooming and Vet skills
working on handling skills: touch feet, ears, mouth, body, tail…
learning to be comfortable with grooming and vet skills: nail trimming, ear cleaning, brushing, gentle restraining, doing mock vet exams…
Tigger is three months old in this videos and had been training with me for 4 weeks. Here we are practicing his handling skills at the park on a field trip. When he started as a puppy, he would struggle when I handled his feet but quickly learned that struggling didn’t work and being calm was a better option.
Note: I don’t do this technique with adult dogs in the beginning just puppies. Adult dogs who are a challenge to handle, start a different way.
Engagement!
your puppy paying attention to you
teaching your puppy when to pay attention to you and when they can interact with others
using shaping and capturing to teach your puppy what behaviors you want
This is 3 month old Dozer. He’s been training here for a few days and loves doing training. We were outside doing some social and threw in a quick training session with him.
Here I’m introducing him to a new object to get on, the agility table. At the end you can see he’s ready for more when he tries to run up the dog walk. He’s a fun pup!
Relaxation!
We teach the TBTE Relaxation Triad. Three different ways to teach your puppy how to actively learn how to relax not just when they are tired.
The three activities are:
the TBTE Behavioral Down (teaching your puppy to find deep relaxation)
DRR (using food to teach relaxation) and
Conditioned Relaxation (a deep massage like technique that relaxes the mind by relaxing the body)
