Hi everybody! I've been getting a lot of requests about what i've been doing in the first week
with my puppy so i'm making this video about what i've been specifically training my own
little pup. Now it really depends on your dog what you train first, and i actually have a video that
i'll link below that's called what to train first and it really depends on your dog's personality,
their genetics, the experience they had in the womb and also extremely importantly what happened
in those first eight weeks will really determine what you need to work on. So for example
the stuff that i did with my previous puppy my little border collie halo is extremely different
than what i worked on with this little one. Oh she wants to eat my microphone.
Basically she couldn't be left alone when i got her so that was the number one
issue that i was working on with her but Halo the breeder had actually worked on separation training
with all the puppies so i could leave Halo for a couple of hours right from the start and he was
confident and all he did was want to go to sleep or play with his toys when left alone, so a huge
focus for this little one has been teaching her to be comfortable left alone and i'll make
a separate video tutorial on working on that with a little puppy or an a dog that you might have
adopted that is struggling with being anxious when you leave them alone. The three things i
focused on with this little pup was, one building our relationship which i would do with any dog
using the attention game, teaching the recall and teaching her an attention noise, a little
kissy noise and i'll link how to train that in the description below, so i could interrupt
her behavior if she was doing something that i didn't like and then i could redirect her to
doing things i do want her to do. So this has been very helpful to interrupt her behavior
say if she was running over to bother one of my dogs i could interrupt her and then get her to
play with one of her toys so that was important. For the separation training i not only worked on
teaching her to be alone but i also worked on teaching her to want to move away from me to
go to her dog bed and to go inside a crate and to go inside a pen, so that movement of choice to go
away from me to lay down to receive reinforcement and really building that concept of laying down.
So at first when i got her if the room was very cold she didn't want to lay down on the carpet
so what i did was use a very cushy blanket that was very soft and velvety and very soft surfaces
like my bed to initially get the behavior of laying down. I also worked on capturing the settle
so anytime i noticed that she was settling i would go and drop a tiny little treat between her paws
and i'll link a video on how to train that in the description below. Your environment and
the social situations that your puppy's going to be in throughout their life will also determine
what you'll focus on. So i live with five other dogs so that was an extremely important
part of her training is to teach her to get on really well with the other dogs. So i made a video
about introducing her to my other dogs and i also have a video on how i introduce dogs to each other
that i'll link in the description below but that was the biggest focus so for her my two main
focuses were teaching her to be confident alone because i saw that as being her number one issue
and being respectful and reinforcing my dogs for being with each other without interfering
with each other and building on positive experiences around each other. The most
important things to work on with your own puppy in the first week that are really important is one
starting to work on teaching the puppy to ignore clothing and fast movements so they're not going
after your shoes your pants the leash and i'll link a video tutorial on how to work on that.
That's extremely important building your relationship with your puppy using the
attention game the recall working on handling and grooming. This pup is amazing with handling
and grooming so i haven't focused on that as much especially because her belly is so tiny
i can only i limit the training to just you know maybe 30 to 60 tiny pieces of food a day because
you know smaller than the head of a pin, because there's just no more room in her belly where with
a larger breed puppy you could work on a lot more in a day using the dog's food. So i've also got
her interested in playing with toys so in the future i can do more training rather than the
limit of how much she can eat per day but with other puppies it's really important to teach them
what to do when they're loose in your living room and this one she's just naturally
with just a little bit of training in the first day of getting her hooked on her own toys
she's ignored everything else around the house and doesn't chew on things yet but if she were
to i would interrupt her and then redirect her using the kissy noise to then play with something
that already exists in the environment so with my little pups i really like to have them loose
in the living room and really watch them 100 of the time and guide the choices that they're making
to set them up for success rather than letting them rehearse things and find out they really
really like them, like chewing on the table legs and things like that. Other things to work on with
just the average puppy is socialization and i have a 30 minute video on socializing a puppy and i'll
link that in the description below. I also have one socializing during the times of covid because
the pandemic hasn't ended yet and i'll link that video so it's how to stay safe and socialize
your puppy at the same time which is what i'm doing with this little one. So i've had
guests visit in my yard where we can socially distance and she's gotten to meet people and
luckily i have my brother staying with me at the moment so it's nice to have someone else coming in
and out of the house so she gets used to that but obviously with covid that's not always possible.
House training is also a really important thing to focus on with your puppy and the way that i
do it is that any time that there's in a change in activity so she's done playing she's done eating
she's done sleeping i will take her out or take her to a pee pad because i want to train her to
go in a box with a pee pad so that i can say for example if i stayed at a hotel she can go there.
Also um there was a mountain lion spotted near my house recently and their owls at night so because
she's so small i've been a little bit freaked out about taking her outside with the other dogs to go
to the bathroom even in my yard so at night i have her go in the box for safety reasons because she's
so tiny it's pretty scary to have such a small dog and i just want to keep her safety in mind
but it's also handy like if you go to a hotel in a busy city you can have the the box with the pee
pad in your room so the puppy doesn't have to go all the way out in the morning to a busy street
where there might not be any grass or anywhere where there aren't lots of people walking back and
forth that might be really hard to get a little tiny dog to go to the bathroom on the streets of
new york or something like that in the future. Hey little one? Thank you so much for watching!
If you'd like to support my work don't forget to like, comment and subscribe to my channel. You can
also become a supporting member of channel Kikopup by clicking the JOIN button. See you later!