A New Puppy

Although I am a certified dog trainer and work with puppies on a regular basis, I have not had a puppy in my house for over a decade.  Outside of my 10 year old dog, Cody, my other dogs have been older dogs that I adopted.  And though I tell people every day that the decision to adopt a puppy should not be made lightly due to the amount of work and patience involved, I decided this year to make that commitment again myself.  And a puppy is a commitment.  Dogs are not disposable because they become inconvenient. They are companions.  They are family.  If you want a puppy, be prepared to raise it through the good and challenging.  Or don't get one.  And I was reminded quickly how much work and attention a new puppy takes.  Don't get me wrong, puppies are awesome!  Little bundles of love.  But if you want to do things properly you need to first make sure you have the time needed to start them off right and do right by them.  That means potty breaks outside even in the freezing cold every hour and every time they decide to play hard, drink, or eat.  And it also means starting the socialization process right away so they meet new people, new dogs, and get introduced to new and novel objects and places while they are still young and more likely to approach something new with curiosity, versus avoiding it out of fear because it is new and different.  I was lucky enough to get my new pup Renegade from someone who raised him right from birth.  Making sure he was socialized around sounds, people, other puppies and dogs.  So I knew his brief history and knew that he knew only good things before coming to me.  But regardless, it is my job to make sure he knows nothing but good from this point on.  And I know very good people struggle trying to do their best for their puppies and even older dogs they adopt.  So I decided to chronicle my training of Renegade so you can see, we all go through the same things.  Even we trainers have to put in the work and can't wave a magic wand to teach a dog.  And I will share the frustrations right along with the fun and training.  Because life is a mix of all of that.  But that's what keeps it interesting.  So come with me on this journey.  Hopefully I can help a few folks who aren't sure how to handle a situation or who just want to know what they should be doing because this is their first dog, or they haven't had to train one in a long time.  First I will tackle housetraining.  So keep an eye on this blog for that in the next couple days.  Let's do this.