#1 Dog Trainer for Anxiety Dog Aggression Separation Anxiety Reactivity

Bringing a new puppy into the home is one of life's greatest experiences. Not only are they adorable, but they also bring so much joy into a home and can easily lift the spirits of a household instantly. All of a sudden everyone in the house has a purpose. Whether its feeding, playing or cleaning up after, everyone instantly becomes happier. This sometimes does not last that long. Within months or sometimes weeks the dynamic of the house has changed for the worse. Now everyone in the house is stressed, your puppy now runs the house, starts biting everyone, wont settle and gets extremely stressed whenever someone leaves.... What went wrong? This is a question a lot of dog owners start to ask themselves as they struggle with their new family member. Well I'm going to let you in on a little secret that you wont find many places on the internet or in any puppy school.

The one secret to maintaining a balanced puppy and to make sure that your puppy doesn't develop anxiety issues to teach your puppy to respect your personal space. That's right it is as simple as that. If you've done your research on looking after your puppy or have been to puppy school, you'll learn the importance of teaching your puppy to sit, stay maybe even shake, but if your puppy develops anxiety, these things will not mean much to you or your puppy. 

Think about this. Your puppy gets seperated from its Mum and siblings and put into a strange new world. Our role is then to make it feel as comfortable as possible to eliminate stress on your beautiful new family member. It normally takes a few days to a week for the puppy to settle in sometimes longer. This is where it can start to go pear shaped.

From the time the puppy enters the home it is surrounded by a lot of excited energy. It then starts to crave this energy and affection and which we are more than happy to provide. It then chases this because it makes the puppy feel good. We then have a puppy that follows us everywhere and always wants to be on top of us. Everytime your puppy does this, you give it even more affection. This is what leads to anxiety because the puppy doesn't learn to relax away from you and settle on its own. Then we all go off to work and school and wonder why our puppy gets stressed. This is where the problems start. We kill them with kindness and then as they get older they end up what i like to call "velcro dogs". They are constantly stuck to you. 

This can all be prevented within the first couple of weeks of bringing the puppy home. After the puppy has settled in and is comfortable, as hard as it is, you need to teach the puppy to respect your personal space. Teach it that it doesn't need to follow you everywhere you go. Teach it that overexcited behaviour isn't going to get it the affection that it craves. A great way to teach this is to sit on the floor. Your puppy is immediately going to run up to be on top of you. Don't let them. Move them away from you at about an arms distance. They will keep trying. Don't give in. After doing this consistently, they will then learn and sit slightly away from you. As soon as they do this, give them a treat, but throw it to them where they are seated. This will then teach your dog to respect your space, remain calm, look at you for direction and will realise that they will only get affection when they are calm. We are training the brain for years of calm, relaxed energy which is what everyone craves. Once the puppy learns to settle then you can introduce further training and because they will be calmer, they will also pick up the training a lot quicker. They will also relax when you have to leave. Take the emotions out of it. You're puppy will love you more for it. Use yourself as the treat that they have to work for. Not just get everytime they want it and you'll have years and years of happiness.