Puppy Training: Basic Commands and the Five-Minute Plan

Through a simple chain: behaviour happens → marked at the right moment → rewarded → named later. The puppy sits, your marker lands in exactly that second, the treat follows — after a few repetitions he offers the sit, and only now does it get the name. Whoever drapes the word over wriggling attempts from the start links it to everything except sitting.

The marker word is your precision tool: one short, always identical word (or a clicker) that freezes exactly the moment being paid. It solves the biggest beginner problem — the treat is almost always too late; the marker never is.

And: you train what you want to see, rather than fighting what you don't. Instead of “no!” for jumping up, there's reward for four paws on the floor; instead of scolding for stealing, a swap for something better. That inversion is the entire difference between modern training and permanent correction.

Because in an emergency it saves lives, and in everyday life it means freedom: a dog that comes reliably can run where dogs may run. So the recall gets special treatment from week one: the best treat, the biggest party, zero negative consequences — nothing the dog dislikes ever follows his coming.

It's built ridiculously simply: recall word (once, cheerfully), puppy arrives — jackpot. First across the living room, then the garden, then on the long line with mild distractions. The word never gets burned: if you wouldn't bet on him coming, don't call — go and get him.

The two classics that ruin recalls: calling to end the fun (leash on, party over — from now on he comes slower) and calling without consequence management (he learns ignoring has no cost). Antidote: call often, reward, release back to play — and in uncertain situations keep the long line on until adolescence is through.

Fewer than Instagram suggests. Four or five cues carry ninety per cent of daily life; the rest is freestyle. Sit emerges from a treat guided slowly back over the puppy's nose — the rear sinks by itself. Down from the sit, treat moving vertically to the floor. Stay grows in seconds and small steps: duration first, then distance, then distraction — never raise all at once.

“Drop”, or the swap, is the underrated fourth cue: puppy has something in his mouth, you cheerfully offer better, he drops, marker, reward — and often gets the object back afterwards. He learns: giving things up pays and isn't a loss. That is lived prevention against resource guarding.

For everything, the three-D rule applies (raise Duration, Distance, Distraction separately) plus the change of scene: a sit in the living room is not yet a sit in the meadow. Practise each cue in three or four places before you call it “known”.

If an exercise fails three times in a row, it's almost never about will: the step was too big, the distraction too strong, the reward too boring, or the puppy too tired. The answer is craft, not harshness — halve the demand, simplify the environment, upgrade the reward, shorten the session.

An interrupt cue — a neutrally built “stop, that's not worth it” — is still sensible and deserves clean training: word, orientation to you, reward for the reorientation. What it isn't: a permanent “no!” wallpapering the day, let alone yelling or scruff-grabbing. A puppy punished for mistakes doesn't stop making mistakes — he stops trying new things near you. That is the most expensive learning loss of all.

And get company: after puppy class, now is the natural moment for the adolescent course. Puberty is at the door — with a trainer alongside it stays a phase instead of becoming a rift. The training planner on this site structures the practice weeks in between.