How to Manage Your New Puppy in His New Home

Managing a puppy’s environment is key to helping him make the right choices. Management is ever changing as the puppy goes through different stages so be ready to adapt when you see unwanted behaviours.

Keys to Managing the Environment

Great puppy set up.  An X-pen keeps puppy contained.
A piece of linoleum keeps clean up easy and protects
the hardwood.

1.       Create a space that your puppy can call his own like a crate or a pen. This is your puppy’s safe space. Place the crate in a spot where you will spend a lot of your time. This will ensure that your puppy will be included in all goings on. It will also allow you to supervise your new buddy, discouraging unwanted behaviours. Some place close to the outside door will be handy in the event he needs to go to the bathroom.

2.       Create boundaries for your puppy. Populate your puppy’s crate with his things: blanket, toys, water bucket, and appropriate things to chew. This helps your puppy to associate the items in his space as his and things outside of his space as off-limits.

3.       Establish a routine. Repetition forms habits. A prime example of this is house training. The object is to not let him relieve himself indoors. Begin by taking your puppy out every hour to go to the bathroom and slowly increase the time between outings.  But be prepared to adapt, if an hour is too long make it every 30 minutes or less, if necessary to start. Take the same route to go outside each time: pen, outside, bathroom. Pen, outside, bathroom. Very quickly, your puppy will understand that the only place to relieve himself is outside.

Following these three principles sets you up to teach your puppy many skills. And it’s never too late to start managing your dog’s environment. Give it a try and let me know how you make out by commenting below.