Contrary to what you might have been told, it is quite necessary to start training your puppy soon after you bring it home. However, it is not training in the accepted sense of the word. It is more like playing with the pup utilising toys and treats and should be a pleasant experience for both owner and pup. Before starting out on training, there are a few things to be said which you should adhere to in order to give your pup a chance to grow up happily.

During the first few days your pup has to make some major adjustments. It has just left its mother and its brothers and sisters. All the smells around it are new. You should therefore not start any training at all for the first few days, but give your pup a chance to get used to its new environment and to get to know you. Members of your family and household should allow the pup to explore its new surroundings in its own time and should not take too much notice of it (except for toilet).

Excessive handling, in particular, is undesirable. Friends and children should be discouraged from rushing at the pup and playing with it continuously. It still needs a lot of sleep.

Select a suitable place for the pup to sleep, preferably inside until it is 4 months old. It must be warm and comfortable, free from drafts & have suitable bedding. The laundry is generally a suitable place to sleep your pup. If it cries the first night, as many puppies will do in strange surroundings, and without their mother, brothers and sisters, the best and easiest way is to put your pup in it’s bed or in a crate next to your own bed. If it then cries, you only need to put out your hand and stroke it. It will then go to sleep again. After only one or two nights, that problem should have been overcome and you should then be able to sleep it in the laundry or elsewhere. A good tip on making the pup’s transition from breeder to its new home as smooth as possible, is to take a blanket/rug or something similar to the breeder and allow pups to play and lie on it. Then when you bring baby pup home, the rug comes with you permeated with all those good puppy scents of its litter mates. Baby pup will feel more secure with these smells and consequently, new puppy owners will also have an easier settling in period.