Golden retrievers are a highly popular breed due to their intelligence, well balanced and friendly temperament, eagerness to please and their likeness for human companionship. For these reasons many choose them as their pets and wish to learn how to train a golden retriever puppy from an early age.
Golden retriever training should start right from the first day, training is essential for your dog’s proper mental and physical growth, socialization and obedience skills, when properly applied, training is an rewarding and funny experience for all those involved. You will soon realise your golden might be a bit undisciplined and excited or scared, you need to address this and slowly build up a relationship of trust with him and with time and training he will turn out to be a trustworthy friend and companion.
To begin train a golden retriever puppy you should start from inside your home, this is where everybody stays and socializes, your puppy will learn faster when in a familiar environment. Learn by experience, training and by observation, therefore your actions and of those in your home will be reflected on your puppy. For example, lets assume an environment where there is plenty of hostility and little companionship, it would only be natural if your puppy as he grows would exhibit similar behavior. Of course we wouldn’t want that, so try keeping an healthy, positive environment, family connection, socialization and your puppy will grow with the same qualities as he watched them.
Training sessions should be frequent and short, this is because dogs have a short attention time span and can be easily distracted or bored. Also try ending your sessions with a positive aspect or with your golden wanting more, this will allow him to look forward to the next session.
Golden Retriever Puppy Training Basics
Before going on how to train a golden retriever puppy, you should know that golden retriever puppies usually adapt and insert themselves well enough into the current social order they are inserted into. However with some basic obedience, your puppy will happily take and obey your commands, which can be used to a number of things, ranging from playing games to ordering your puppy to stay quiet and lay down. On the other hand socialization training will teach your puppy how to behave among other people and pets, a proper socialization training is half way towards a well balanced temperament through all your puppy’s life.
As with any other training you must incentive your puppy through the training process, which is more effective when you use positive reinforcement, either by pet and praising your dog, feeding him a treat or giving him a toy whenever completes a given task, obeys your command or does the right thing and behaved well. You will begin to nice that your puppy is eager for human companionship and to please when training, with time you will so realize that harsh punishment and intimidation won’t result nearly as well.
Consistency is the real key in dog training, golden retrievers learn fast as long you keep a consistent approach to the way you train him, repetition and guidance.
Obedience Training Tips
When you train a golden retriever puppy to follow your voice commands or other tricks, remember to work on one thing at once per training session, doing so will allow time for your dog to learn and familiarize it self with the command or trick, as you repeat this session in another times, you will realize he’s becoming better and better at it.
Voice commands should be short and composed of one or two words, more than this will only increase the difficulty and likely hood of confusing your dog when you give him a command.
Consistency is important, be sure you always use and repeat the same words for each particular command.
Discourage Jumping Behavior
Dogs often jump on their owners during homecoming, this behavior can be discouraged quite easily. When jumping, dogs place their paws on our knee line, you can raise one of your knees and give a steady “Down” command if jumping is common. Teach your dog a few basic voice commands like “sit”, “stay” and “down”, use them when your dog jumps or is about to jump.
When your dog no longer jumps be sure to praise and pet him.
Discourage Biting and Nipping
Golden retrievers as other breeds have a natural instinct to chew or bite, specially when they still are puppies. We have hands and fingers we can use to touch and experience things around us, dog on the other hand can only resort to their mouths.
Obtain some chew toys for your dog, specially when he’s still teething, and use food treats and/or praise and petting as incentive to encourage him to bite on the toys and not on other things.
Remember to change the chew toys as your dog grows, otherwise he might swallow and get choked when playing with a smaller toy.
Discourage this behavior and discipline your dog with a steady “No” when he bites the wrong things, and replace those things with a toy instead. If you realize your dog has an addiction to given object and keeps trying to chew or bite it, applying biter spray helps to curve this addiction.