- The first week home for a new puppy
is a very impressionable time.
And there are a few exercises that you should be doing
with your new puppy during their first week home
that will really help speed up the learning process.
In this video I'm going to teach you six exercises
that you can do with your new puppy
that will help them to become a well-behaved
four-legged family member who loves to listen.
I'm Ken Steepe, this is Hippy Hippy Shake,
welcome back to McCann Dogs.
(acoustic instrumental music)
(dog barking)
Now the first thing you need to keep in mind
is that puppies have tiny bellies
and they also have really short attention span.
So as you're working with your puppy
for the first couple of weeks,
keep those training sessions really short
and take advantage of all the natural training opportunities
that are presented to you.
For us, we'll often portion out
a little bit of the puppies food,
whether it's their breakfast or lunch or dinner or whatever
and use that for training.
We know that we have a motivated dog to work for food
because it's their feeding time
and we're also not giving our puppy too much food
over the course of the day.
Now the first thing I want to talk about
is the response to name.
Now, before your puppy knows their name,
it's just a word, they've never heard it before.
So we need to do something to build value on that word
and the first thing we're going to do
for the first few repetitions is just say their name
then reward them.
And it goes a little something like this, I'll say, Hippy,
then reward.
Hippy, then reward.
Now I'm making it really easy for Hippy right now
and I'm building value on that word.
But in just a few sessions
you'll be able to make it
a little bit more challenging for your puppy.
Now here's where we're going to increase
the challenge of that response name
a little bit for your puppy.
I want you to wait for a moment when your puppy's distracted
which probably won't take that long
because puppies are naturally pretty distracted
by all of the things in their environment.
But have a few treats in hand.
When your puppy gets distracted,
call their name and put a treat on their nose,
turn them in toward you and yes, reward
when your puppy is facing you.
That way they're gonna start to understand
that every time they hear their name
they need to turn in toward you.
And I'll show you how it goes, kind of like this.
I'll get her distracted.
Hippy.
I'll turn her toward me.
Yes, good girl.
So do that a few times.
And I'll try it again.
Hippy.
Turn her toward me.
Yes, good girl, very nice.
Hippy.
Turn her toward me.
Yes, good girl.
Hippy is starting to understand
that every time she hears her name
she needs to turn toward me
because something good is about to happen.
Now something you need to keep in mind
is that when you've got your puppy at home
avoid using their name all the time
unless you're training this exercise.
The last thing you want to do
is water down how important that word is.
So we use something like, "Here, pup, pup, pup."
or "Here, here, here." or something like that
until we're ready to train our puppy's name
and that way that name is always something valuable.
Another thing that we like to do
for the response to name training
is after you've had a few successful repetitions
of turning your puppy away from a distraction,
you and a partner will sit at either end of a hallway
and one person will hold the puppy
and get them really excited.
The other person will have some food
and they might use some exciting language
to really keep the puppy's focus and keep their attention.
Then they'll call the puppy's name
and that partner will release the puppy down to them.
It really builds motivation and drive
for an excited response to name.
In those first few days of your puppy coming home,
make sure you have an opportunity
to get them accustomed to their collar.
Now, when you pop your puppy's new collar on
for the first couple times, they may itch and scratch at it
and it's just them getting used to it,
it's like you wearing a new pair of glasses
or something like that.
But it's going to be important down the road
for you to keep your puppy safe, keep your young dog safe
that you can have a collar on them safely,
you can clip a leash to it.
And even more importantly, be able to put on a house line,
which is something we talked about in a previous video
and I'll link that in the card above.
Puppies explore the world with their mouths,
so a great way to engage with them
is by using something like an interactive toy.
I've got this Bungee Tug here.
The other great thing is for those of you
who want to do dog sports in the future
or you want your dog to have a great retrieve or a fetch.
Having toy driving your dog is going to be really important.
The other great thing
that you can start doing with your puppy
is laying the foundation for their out
by engaging with the toy and then presenting some food,
Hippy's gonna start to learn what the out command means.
So let's get started.
With your puppy I want you to get that interactive toy
and animate it on the ground.
Make it look really exciting,
so that your puppy get gets interested in it.
I'll show you with Hippy Shake.
Ready?
Okay, get that tug!
Tug, tug, tug!
So when your puppy gets...
Hippy Shake's got it now, she's starting to tug on it.
When your puppy gets a hold of that toy
and it seems really excited about it,
you're gonna say, "Out" and then you can present the food.
Very nice, good girl.
We'll try it one more time to get her even more excited.
Ready?
Get that thing.
Oh, she's very excited now.
Tug, tug, tug, tug, tug.
You can see how much she loves playing this game.
I'm gonna tell her "Out" and then present the food.
The great part about using these interactive toys
is that not only does your dog have fun playing with the toy
but they begin to understand that the toy is only fun
when they get to play with it with you.
Now another exercise will always do with our young puppies
are some luring exercises
and that's simply teaching our puppy to follow food.
Now following food is going to be really helpful
if you want to train your dog to do any tricks
or you want to teach your puppy to walk on a loose leash.
It's even helpful for things like the down and sit command.
But with our puppies, as they're eight, nine, 10 weeks old,
we're just going to lure them around a little bit.
And when they really commit to that food,
we might make it as challenging or as easy as your puppy
is capable of following.
We're just going to lure them around,
we're not gonna give them any commands,
we're not going to ask them to do anything.
All they need to do is follow that food.
Now if your puppy gets distracted easily or doesn't like,
seems to not be that interested in the food.
You might need to reward them a little more frequently
or pick a little higher value food reward.
Now don't make it too tough,
you just want to maybe turn your puppy a little bit.
Yes, and reward.
You might want to...
Let's see if I can get Hippy Shake to just move around.
She went into a down position.
I can, yes, reward her.
We're not really looking for anything specific
but we definitely want our puppies to follow this food.
Okay, buddy.
And these luring exercises
are really going to help you down the road
with some of your obedience training.
Now we often talk about the value of a crate
when you're training a puppy
And whether you're using it
as a safe place for your puppy to be
when you aren't able to supervise them.
Or you're using it as a limited space area
so that you can speed up their potty training.
The crate is a really useful tool.
Now, something we need to do with our puppies
is have them build a positive association with that crate.
And a great way to do that
is by feeding your puppy each of their meals
inside the crate.
So I'm just gonna tell Hippy Shake, "Okay"
and then I'm gonna put her dinner inside here.
Now if you have any challenges with your crate training,
we posted a video not that long ago.
And I'll post a card to it above that you can check out
and it'll really teach your puppy
to love being in their crate.
So by doing these exercises in the first few weeks
that you bring your puppy home,
you're really starting to lay the foundation
of learning for your puppy.
You're also beginning to understand how they like to learn,
which can be a really helpful tool
when you're training them.
Now if this is your first time on the channel
and you consider your dog a member of the family,
make sure you hit that subscribe button.
We publish new videos every single week
to help you to have a well-behaved
four-legged family member.
Do you see that playlist beside us?
That's actually our puppy training tips playlist
and I think you're gonna find
some of those videos helpful as well.
On that note, I'm Ken, this is Hippy Shake.
Happy training.
(melodious instrumental music)