Hugo The Great Dane: The Perfect Season To Bring Home Puppy

Choosing when the perfect time to bring your new puppy home can also be very crucial to your puppies training development. Choosing the right season to bring a new puppy home can help many new dog owners to train your puppy. House training and walk training are very important things to actively enforce right from the night you bring them home. By bringing home your puppy in the colder months, house and walk training your puppy can occur much faster and with little training knowledge.

Training your puppy that the house is no place to go to the bathroom is the first thing you should focus on. Starting a routine from the first night is crucial. Starting on an every half hour schedule is best. Your home will be very unfamiliar to your new puppy, and at 6-8 weeks their bladder is small and fills quickly. Taking your puppy out every half hour to 45 minutes for the first day will help your new puppy make the difference between outside (bathroom) and inside. In the colder months your puppy at 6-8 weeks will not like the cold very much and may still be getting used to low temperatures. When your puppy is exposed to the cold, they will naturally have to pee. The more times in a day you can take your new puppy out the easier it will be for your puppy to understand that he/she is to go to the bathroom outside and will be more willing to hold their bladder until they can get outside. Training your puppy to last through the night is also very important. By taking water away an hour before bedtime and taking your puppy out right before heading to bed, and crate training all take part in training your puppy to sleep through the night. Your puppy will wake up early in the morning, taking them out and going right back to bed if you like to sleep in will let them drain their bladders and learn they do not decide the time to wake up for the day.

Training your puppy how to walk and stay with you (basic obedience) will help prevent accidents, unwanted interactions and uncomfortable tense walks with your (soon to be full grown) dog. When it is cold outside your puppy will naturally want to stay with you by your side. I grew up breeding dogs, and the one thing I noticed was the difference in time it took to train the puppies to come when called and walk training. In the warmer months when we had puppies, taking 6-8 puppies 4-9 weeks old outside to play by yourself can be very difficult. The puppies are quick to want to explore and check everything out. They often took twice as long to poop and pee as the puppies who were born in the cooler months. Taking 6-8 puppies 4-9 weeks old outside in the colder months seemed to be a breeze. They would all poop and pee right away and follow me around the property where ever I went sticking right with me. They have the instinct to stay with the pack leader when in threatening situations, and the cold to a 4-9 week old puppy can feel very threatening. By training your puppy proper walking in the cooler months will prove to be a benefit when the warmer months come and your puppy has already learned proper obedience.

In conclusion, getting your puppy in late winter/early spring or mid fall/ early winter will help you to properly train your new puppy good obedience for the warmer months to follow. Your puppy will still be very much in the puppy stage when the warmer weather comes, and a puppy with established routines and obedience will make for a more balanced puppy. Do not wait to start establishing good obedience and proper bathroom routines, your puppy will be looking for a pack leader from the time they leave their mother (their pack leader their entire life.) By taking advantage of that opportunity and not mistaking it as a sad sorry puppy will help your puppy to establish that connection with you.