Over the past year, I have seen too many puppies lacking confidence and self-esteem. They are shy, withdrawn, and fearful of experiencing new adventures and situations. In this article, I will share some things you can do to build more confidence in your puppy with some of the components of our puppy training program.
Help Them Navigate Through Challenging Situations: This includes walking through doorways, up and down stairs, and going for car rides. Puppies that are afraid of basic things in their life need help to overcome their fears.
Don’t Baby Them; Encourage Them: If you treat your puppy like a baby and they never overcome their reluctance to learn and explore new things, it will not grow internally. Building confidence involves encouragement from you.
Stop Spoiling Them: As your puppy learns, you cannot spoil them with affection and too much praise. Use praise for encouragement; save the affection for a life reward after they have done something good or have overcome an obstacle that was holding them back.
Socialize Them Early: This means taking them to meet many people and other dogs starting at 12 weeks old. This will help them get desensitized to sounds, noises, and distractions. Their confidence will increase with every outing to new places and meeting new people.
Leash Training: The sooner you get them walking on a loose leash and going for walks in your community, the faster they will build confidence. In my book, Leash Training Your Puppy, I explain how to teach this technique and how important it is for your puppy.
Other Activities: Such as target training, agility training, and other dog sports will help build your puppy’s confidence and help them overcome their fears. A dog that sits home all the time doing nothing does not have the opportunity to grow and learn new things that help their confidence.
These are just a few of the ways to build confidence in your puppy. You should start from the first day you bring your puppy home and encourage them to become a mentally stronger dog over time.
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