What are the most important things to teach your new puppy?

Most puppy owners are eager to work on things like sit and stay. I want the focus to be on socializing that puppy (teaching the puppy about sights, smells, sounds, people, and other dogs), teaching the puppy not to jump up or nip at your heels, and teaching the puppy to pay attention to you when you say its name. If I had a puppy, my puppy would:

1 - Never see the inside of a food bowl: All food would come either from me for sitting, looking at me when I say its name, or coming when called. Any food I wasn't using for training would go into interactive feeding toys for my puppy to figure out.

2 - Go with me to a new place every single day: No matter how tired I was, my puppy would go to the vet's office to say hello, a Home Depot to see sights and sounds, a children's playground, or a shopping center every single day for the first few months of its life. I want a puppy that is not afraid of new experiences.

3 - Get fed for sitting from as many people as I could possibly find.

4 - Be crate trained and trained to stay alone comfortably.

Sure, there are other things I would teach and we would do a lot of training, but these are the things I'd focus on for the first couple of months of that puppy's life!

============================

This content is written by Cara, Austin Dog Trainer