Raising a Puppy
Adopting a puppy is often seen through rose-colored glasses. We think of the soft fur and the love and the tiny puppy teeth nibbling on your leg. It’s not often that we consider the commitment that adopting a puppy comes with. Puppies are a time investment, and for those of us who work 40 or more hours a week, we may not realize how much of a commitment that is. At the University of Doglando, we structure our puppy training program to help your puppy grow into a confident, socially apt, well-adjusted, reliable, and content dog.
Developmental Training
When people bring home a puppy, they often expect it to behave like an adult dog. They have expectations of what they need to do, what they should do, and what they shouldn’t do. But as a puppy, your dog is still developing. They’re still adjusting to their senses; they’re still learning to manipulate their whole body to become mobile. Puppies are in development, and being around people is crucial to that development. However, when you work from 9 to 5 or 40 hours a week or whatever it is that you do, you need to provide a replacement for the role that you are supposed to play. You need to care for the puppy, and daycare is not that replacement.
Puppy Training
Our puppy programs are designed in a way that is developmentally appropriate and suitable for where that puppy is. We provide the dog the type of care congruent to its needs in that moment. At Doglando, we break puppy training into three separate programs.
Potty Training: For puppies ages eight to 12 weeks of age, Potty Training focuses on potty training, physical handling and touch, and name recognition and recalls.
Puppy Preschool: Designed for puppies 13 weeks to 20 weeks of age, Puppy Preschool works to develop your puppy’s social skills through focus, engagement, and awareness.
Pre-K9: Puppies five to eight months of age are ready for Pre-K9, a more structured approach that helps your puppy build the foundational skills to generalize their skillsets to applied learning scenarios and teaching them the relevance of that skill in the real world.
Teena Patel is the founder of the canine enrichment campus University of Doglando for restricted canine companions. The University of Doglando is a place where dogs can be dogs and live a fruitful and purposeful lifestyle. To learn more about Teena Patel and the University of Doglando, please contact us online or call us at (407) 574-3160.