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*Well, almost a perfect puppy…..when people see me out and about with my well-behaved service dog puppies they say: “I want a perfect puppy too! tell me how you did it?”
My name is Colby, I created the Puppy In Training blog to tell our story about raising and training guide and service dog puppies and to help you train your puppy.
Whether you’re just thinking about picking up your first puppy or you’re a grizzled veteran of the dreaded puppy vampire teeth this blog will help you on your way to a well-behaved, perfect practically perfect puppy (just like Mary Poppins: “Practically Perfect In Every Way”).
This page contains information to help you get up to speed quickly and start working on some of the basics of raising and training a puppy.
About You And Your Puppy
QUICK TIP: No matter if you’re about to bring home a puppy or already have one tearing up your house you’ll want to take a look at our new puppy checklist. We include anything and everything we could think of that you need for your new puppy.
If you’ve reached our site then you are probably in some way, shape, or form associated with/in love with/frustrated with/enamored with a puppy (or future puppy).
I’m taking an wild educated guess as to who you are to help you find the information you need to make your puppy raising journey as pleasant as possible.
Puppy Raiser: You are a puppy raiser (or future puppy raiser) for one of the many guide or service dog schools around the globe.
If this is you then you might be most interested in our Puppy In Training TV series, a YouTube TV show that documents our journey with our third Guide Dog puppy in training, Dublin. Check out Puppy In Training TV!
Pre-Puppy: You’re still in the decision making process: Should you get a puppy? What kind of puppy should you get? Lets start you off with 5 tips you can use when bringing home a new puppy.
Post-Puppy: The bliss pain of puppyhood! Thank god puppies are cute adorable creatures because after the initial bliss of bringing home your puppy you realize this is going to be no easy chore.
Potty training, crying, yelping, howling, barking, biting/nipping, jumping, digging, counter surfing these are all parts of the joys of raising and training a puppy. Lets get started with some of the most common puppy problems:
Dog Lover: The majority of the site revolves around puppies and our journey raising and training guide dog puppies. However, it’s been many years since we started writing to the blog.
Two of our puppies are well into adulthood. Stetson is 12 and Raven is 5 years old. Unfortunately, we lost our beloved Linus last year 🙁
We can’t leave our older puppies out of the mix! So you might notice from time to time we will veer off and talk about Linus, Stetson, Raven and dogs in general
Stetson has considered a career as a therapy dog and Linus wanted to get certified as a K9 Nosework dog.
So, even if you’re puppy is no longer a puppy there is a spot here for all dog lovers. Read more about K9 Nosework and/or Therapy Dogs.
Pet Product Advertiser: If you’re hoping to advertise one of your products on our site then congratulations you’ve done more than 95% of pet product advertisers. We wrote this blog post specifically for you: A Post For Pet Product Advertisers.
Puppy In Training Is Everywhere
Well, not really…but we do keep an active presence on some of the most popular social media channels.
- YouTube – up to this point with posted Puppy In Training TV videos and Product Review videos on our YouTube Channel. Check it out and subscribe!
- Pinterest – we love visual search and enjoy collecting and pinning our favorite content.
- Facebook – we have an active page on Facebook with over 70K “likes”. If you love cute puppy pictures this is where we post most of our favorite puppy pics from our various outings and events.
Most Popular Puppy Products
Are you looking for a popularity contest? Some of our favorite products are also reader favorites. Here’s a list of the top 5 puppy products we sell on Amazon:
- SmartLove Snuggle Puppy – a plush puppy with heat pad and beating heart. A great toy for new puppies.
- Rocco & Roxie Stain and Odor Eliminator – if you have potty accidents make sure you get an enzymatic cleaner to completely remove potty odors.
- The Puppy Primer – a great introductory puppy book. It’ll give you a good foundation to start when raising and training your puppy.
- Dog Crate – Midwest Life Stages – we crate train all of our puppies and we’ve used the same Midwest crate for all of our puppies for 15 years.
- Grannicks Bitter Apple Spray – does your puppy bite, chew, destroy things? Bitter Apple Spray can help deter these unwanted behaviors.
That’s our top 5 and must haves in any puppy starter kit. By the way did I mention we have an extensive essential new puppy checklist. Oh yeah, I did…
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For?
Okay U2…if you’re still confused, you still don’t have a perfect puppy, and you still can’t find the answer to your puppy problems please leave us a comment below and we’ll do our best to answer your question.
Top Picks For Our Puppies
- BEST PUPPY TOY
We Like: Snuggle Puppy w/ Heart Beat & Heat Pack - Perfect for new puppies. We get all of our Service Dog pups a Snuggle Puppy. - BEST DOG CHEW
We Like: Best Bully Sticks - All of our puppies love to bite, nip, and chew. We love using Bully Sticks to help divert these unwanted behaviors. - BEST DOG TREATS
We Like: Wellness Soft Puppy Bites - One of our favorite treats for training our service dog puppies.
Check out more of our favorites on our New Puppy Checklist.
Heather says
I have two staffy/shepherd sisters who are 8 months old. They were almost toilet trained to pee in the outdoor pen. But then I had builders next door who frightened them and I had to start again. They rarely run outside to pee/poo. They now drop and Pee anywhere in the house without warning. Some times on the move. They rarely go for a pee on a walk and on top of that one has started barking at anything that makes a noise outside the house..I clean every time they pee and follow all the rules about not scolding Tec. My house is starting to smell no matter what and we a ‘re all getting stressed. Any help?
Colby says
Here are a couple posts that might help you:
https://puppyintraining.com/how-to-potty-train-a-puppy/
https://puppyintraining.com/my-puppy-pees-outside-then-pees-inside/
The fastest way to potty train a puppy is to allow as few accidents possible in the house. We do this by managing our puppy’s freedom. Basically if our puppy is not yet house trained we keep him on leash by our side when in the house this way we will notice his pre-potty behaviors like sniffing, circling etc. before he has an accident.
Hopefully that helps. Good luck with your training!
Ruth Berryman says
Hi Colby.. thanks for being here. My puppy Shari is a 5mth Jack Russell x Minni Foxy. she’s following the jack russell line tho. My problem is this… she’s eating and swallowing all the bark off my firewood, ate all my rose bushes, chews on charcoal, blue metal, cement, cardboard , plastic and even a tautliner for the ute. she eats cockatoo and other bird feathers and anything else she can get hold of. I’m convinced shes half goat. her favourite thing to eat though is wood and I mean eat..oh and also the walnuts off my tree. Help!!! Another question Colby..can old engine oil in my soil hurt her in anyway.. please can you offer any advice over my little companion.. Thanks everso much..Ruth
Colby says
She does sound like she is part goat, but so did my first puppy, Linus. Linus ate all the remote controls in our house, a cell phone, five $100 dollar bills, shoes, etc. While Linus did not have the same affinity for wood he was a destructive puppy. Basically during those early days we had to manage Linus more rather than let him roam free to do as he pleased. We used crates and ex-pens to keep him out of trouble when we weren’t home and when we were home we made sure to keep a close eye on him to make sure he wasn’t up to any mischief. As he got older we slowly gave him more freedom until he eventually stopped his destructive behavior at around 12 months old. Of course every puppy is different and you may have to manage your puppy more or less then what we had to do with Linus.
I would check with your vet on the old engine oil. Hopefully that helps. Good luck with your training!
Joy says
I was wondering when training new puppies, at what age do you start taking them inside of different locations (stores, theaters, malls, etc..)? Do you start as soon as the potty training is completed? Are you allowed to take them anywhere a service dog is allowed? I am considering doing service puppy training. I am so happy I have found this website! It will help a lot in making my decision on what I want to do! 🙂
Colby says
We start taking our puppies to different low stress locations shortly after they come home. However, we make sure outings are puppy appropriate. For instance, if we go to a restaurant we go during an off hour so it’s not too crowded nor too stressful for the puppy. We take our puppies most places that service dogs are allowed. Different states have different regulations for where a service dog “puppy in training” is legally allowed to go. Hopefully that helps. Let me know if you have any other questions.
Barbara says
We just brought Bailey Mae, a 7 week old Texas Heeler, home this past weekend. My husband just retired and I work part time, for now. So we have a lot of time to spend training our new puppy. We haven’t had a puppy/dog in several years. I know we need to be consistent and have many questions concerning crate training, nipping, feeding, etc. I googled some of the questions I have and came across your site. I will be taking your advise and tips to help me along the way. Glad I found you.
Colby says
Congratulations on your new puppy! Thank you for leaving a comment. If you haven’t had a chance sign up to our email list. We send a series of emails to help people with new puppies. Please let me know if you have any questions and I’ll do my best to answer them. Best of luck with your new puppy!
Paul Connolly says
Thank you for adding me to Puppy in Training. We just rescued a Lab mix. He was born 01/22/16 so is about 10-11 weeks old. He is approximately 20 lbs. We have had several dogs before. Female cocker spaniel about 15 years old, small lab mix male about 14 years old and most recently a lab mix who developed mast cell cancer on a leg which spread to his abdomen and had to be put down at 5 years old. The first two were seniors who passed from old age. I am trying to train our new pup and I am working on the basics, sit, stay, come, etc. I am feeding him 1/2 up of food 3 times a day. He seems to be hungry all the time. I know labs have a tendency to eat a lot. Is there a schedule of feeding that we should be following? Also is there an index to your blogs? Thanks and I look forward to receiving your tips.. I am retired and want to start early to train my new companion.
Colby says
Here’s a link to an older article about puppy feeding schedules: https://puppyintraining.com/marley-and-me-part-3-puppy-feeding-schedule/. My apologies, but we don’t really have an index to our blog posts. I’ll work on that in the next few weeks. Good luck with your training!
omar faruk says
lol ! give me a cool advice for my puppy. he has shout soo many.
Orwa says
Hi, I have no puppy yet but I want nice one. Can anybody tell me where can I get a nice, cute and sweet one? Please if you feel free.
Colby says
If you’re looking for a nice pet we recommend rescuing from your local animal shelter or rescue. We found Linus on the Pet Finder website at http://www.petfinder.com. Good luck with your search!
Tanya says
Love the site! I was just curious if you have any suggestions, I have 2 puppies that are about 9 weeks old and are starting to go stir crazy. I know I can’t take them for walks, go to dog parks, or anything like that until they are four months and have all their shots. I live in an apartment as of now and have a small patio that is only big enough for them to use as a bathroom, it is not big enough for them to run around in. I was curious if you have any suggestions of what I can do to help these pups run off some energy.
Colby says
Congratulations on your new puppies! One thing you can try that really tires out my puppies is start working on their obedience training. Start doing 10-15 minute (or as long as their attention span will last) training sessions several times a day. You could also play games them around the house like hide and seek, fetch, and the name game https://puppyintraining.com/how-to-teach-your-puppy-his-name/ Hopefully that helps. Good luck with your training!
Emily Chen says
Hi, my dog is a 3-month-old golden retriever., when we take her out for a walk , she keeps on biting on the leash, i pull the leash away, but she is very relentless, when i push her to the ground, she will turn around and bite my hand. when there is food involved, thats the only time she is more submissive. we have tried many methods like ignoring her when she bites but she will just keep on biting us, i am wondering whats your method on training your dogs?? any tips that you can give us?
Colby says
I’m not sure if you got a chance to read our articles on puppy biting, but that may help with your puppy. Golden Retrievers are naturally very mouthy puppies so the behavior your experiencing is very natural. However, you do want to work on it when your puppy is young. Generally, our puppies have gotten less mouthy after their baby teeth fall out at around 4-5 months of age. Take a look at our puppy biting/nipping article: https://puppyintraining.com/the-ultimate-guide-how-to-stop-a-puppy-from-biting-and-nipping/
Good luck with your training!
Becca says
Hi, My dog is not a puppy She is a year and 3 months but I am hoping you can get me some advice. Daisy (my dog) is a Catahoula Leopard Dog/ Australian Shepherd mix. She will bark at new people when they come in the house but sometimes when they have been there for a few minutes and she is fine, but other times she seems tense and nervous the whole time… She has never bitten anyone before, she has just barked but I know not to take any chances. and she also doesn’t like new dogs either… Do you possibly know what could be causing this? I try to exercise her when I can, could it be she isn’t getting enough for her breed and energy level )which is very high). Could she be bored or she wants a job to do because I know some breeds that are working breeds nee to have a job to do… I hope you can help because I got her so she can be my companion dog and travel with me, and I can’t do that if she doesn’t get along with new people or dogs… I want everyone else to see what an amazingly sweet and goofy dog she is! Just in case you wanna see how big she ect she has a facebook page it’s called The Amazing Daisy Duke.
~Becca
Colby says
Unfortunately it’s difficult to tell what’s going on without actually observing your dogs behavior. I’d recommend getting in touch with a professional dog trainer to observe your dog’s behavior and to help work on her training. Sorry I can’t be much help here. Good luck with your training!
AShley says
i would like to adopt a guide dog in the futur
Colby says
Take a look at these articles when you have a moment:
https://puppyintraining.com/how-can-i-adopt-a-retired-service-dog-or-failed-guide-dog/
https://puppyintraining.com/the-ultimate-list-service-dog-schools-with-adoption-programs/
Summer Remmey says
I have a story almost exactly like this! My dog, also Daisy, is a three year old rat terrier mix. I do not know what else she is mixed with… but she is 50 pounds, much larger than a rat terrier! She is just like how you described your dog. Now I was just researching and here is what I found that might be useful: The Catahoula dog breed has a striking appearance and a strong work ethic. He’s a tough dog bred to work in swamps and forests and requires a leader who is firm and consistent, with time to keep him occupied.
Hopefully this helps!