Addressing Common Behavioral Issues With New Puppies
Congratulations on bringing home your new pack member!
Getting a puppy is an exciting time—your pup is likely curious, cute, and ready to soak up all your love and guidance.
A new puppy can also bring many challenges, as they need to get used to a new environment, new routine, and new set of people (and potentially other animals) in the house.
Nova Pack Dog Training wants to help you make the most of this crucial time with your new dog. Here, we’ve compiled a list of some common behavioral issues with puppies that you can start working on right away!
Potty Training and Housebreaking
Potty training your new puppy is best done on a schedule. Stick to set intervals for your dog to go out based on their age, size, and food and water intake. Here’s what we recommend:
Start with a 2-hour schedule for an 8-week-old puppy. This means you would take them out every two hours for a potty break during the day.
Add 30 minutes to this time every week to eventually get to whatever amount of time you need. The longest we recommend keeping a dog without a potty break is 4-6 hours.
Don’t forget their leash and collar. These are invaluable tools to help properly manage your dog so you don’t have to chase them when they grab something they shouldn’t have. It can also help prevent the puppy from roaming and marking areas in the home.
Crate Training
Crate training allows you to train your puppy to be safely alone for periods of time so you can leave the house or have downtime when needed. Crate training can prevent separation anxiety and allows the puppy to learn to be fine on their own and have some independence.
Many people think it’s cruel or puts undue stress on the puppy to “force” them to be alone in a crate. However, in our experience, crate training does the opposite. It helps create a resilient, confident dog in the long term and gives them a safe space to relax.
However, we never recommend using the crate as a “time out” or punishment for your dog. It should be a safe haven for your puppy.
Nipping and Biting
Nipping and biting is essentially a puppy’s version of teething. But there are things you can do to reduce this common behavioral problem.
For example, being too “hands-on” can create an exuberant pup that sees you as a littermate instead of a parent, leading to the puppy “playing” with you in a very dog way.
And sometimes, when you give the puppy a treat or toy when they bite you, you’re actually teaching the dog to do it more, and you don’t want that.
The puppy needs to be corrected in a way it understands, and usually, the first and best-understood correction a puppy gets for nipping is from the mother dog. This is a technique that you need a professional dog trainer to walk you through in person.
Anxiety and Fearfulness
Anxiety and fearfulness are common puppy behavioral problems that can be created by overindulging the dog (like cuddling, for example) and being unclear about what is expected of them.
For example, when a puppy is afraid of traffic noises like buses, trucks, and car horns, soothing or picking them up isn’t the answer. You want to teach the puppy that these things are just part of life and that they won’t hurt them. To do this, it’s important to show the dog that you’re not afraid and will ensure their safety. This helps build the puppy’s resilience and trust in you.
Puppies need socialization to learn all sorts of things to make sure they don’t develop issues in the future and become anxious or aggressive adult dogs.
Socialization and Environmental Work
Animals are naturally wary of new environments, and this is especially true for puppies. Therefore, it’s important to properly socialize your new fur baby and help them explore new territories.
For example, helping the puppy walk over grates, jump up on a ledge in the park, going down a playground slide, and just generally exposing them to different environments, loud sounds, weird smells, and seeing all sorts of people and other dogs can be helpful.
However, it’s important to start slow so you don’t overwhelm your puppy and create anxiety. You don’t need to let everyone and their dogs greet your pup; build up exposure to these things over time. This can help build confidence and create a “nothing is novel” sense in the puppy, which will lead to a very balanced and even-tempered adult dog.
Get Your Puppy Off to a Great Start With Nova Pack
Nova Pack offers in-home training, board-and-train programs, and puppy day school to help you get your dog off to a great start. Our training is personalized for each dog, and we focus on building confidence rather than just obedience training. Contact us today to schedule a consultation for your new pup—we look forward to helping you get started on the right paw!