While new puppies are exciting, and a beautiful addition to the family, a good pup is a well trained pup. If you’re brand new to the world of dog ownership, it may be very intimidating to try to find out the best ways to train your new dog. After all there’s an enormous amount of info online, and sometimes they seem to contradict each other. Teach your furry friend the essential commands they need to know with our list of the top 4 commands for every puppy to learn.
Sit
This is definitely a given. Teaching your pup to sit on command is essential as it trains them to pay attention to your voice, including tonality and to do what you ask them to. This can often be taught very simply with treats as rewards when you say “sit”. If they don’t seem to understand you can gently push their butt down until they achieve the sitting position and then reward them with the treat of course. Make sure to say the word “sit” often through this process as they will come to recognize the word in time
Down
This is definitely another big one to learn, but can be a little bit trickier to teach. Start by getting your pup to sit and then bring the treat down to the floor. Don’t let them have it until they’ve slid down to the floor too. Once they have, reward them with praise and the treat of course. This can be useful to learn also to get them to not jump up on people, or swipe food off the counter, so it’s definitely worth learning
Stay
Getting your puppy to learn to stay is essential for your training as it helps him/her learn to not be as reactive to many stimuli. Your puppy will likely be stuck to your side like glue at first, which is natural. It is important, however, to not let your pup become overly attached so that they can never spend one second alone, trust me. You’re going to need a moment to yourself every so often
Come
This is the best command to round off our list because it’s vital to keep your puppy trained to stick close to you when necessary. If you’re walking and they see a squirrel, racoon, or even a skunk, it’s important for them to know when to stick near you rather than yank the leash to go chasing them down
