Training Your Pomeranian Puppy

It’s important to start training your Pomeranian almost as soon as you bring him home. Proper puppy training and socialization is vital to having an obedient companion that will become a valued member of your family and your community.

Even though your puppy may have a bit of a short attention span, it’s easier to train a puppy than an adult as the puppy is free of baggage or memories of past training issues. In other ways, however, the puppy can be more difficult to train than an older dog.

One challenge to training a new puppy is that puppies are more easily distractible than adolescent and adult dogs. Everything is new to a puppy, and every new experience provides a new chance for distraction. For this reason, it is best to keep training sessions short when working with a puppy, and to end each training sessions on a positive note.

But all work and no play make puppy a dull dog so it is important to let your little Pomeranian get in some play time during the day as well. Socialization is very important, especially in young dogs and will allow your dog to grow up to be a good canine citizen as well as curb agression.

A properly socialized dog learns how to play properly with other dogs, and overly aggressive play is punished by the other dogs in the play group.

This type of play learning is something that happens among siblings in litters of puppies. As the puppies play with each other, they learn what is appropriate and what is not. Inappropriate behavior, such as hard biting or scratching, is punished by the other puppies, by the mother dog, or both.

Unfortunately, many puppies are removed from their mothers and sold or adopted before this socialization has fully occurred. Therefore, puppy play sessions are a very important part of any puppy training session. Most good puppy preschool training programs provide time in each session for this type of dog interaction.

Another part of training that should not be overlooked is to make sure your dog gets to experience new events and locations. It is important to teach your dog to be obedient even when he is in a new place that he is dying to explore and when there are other dogs and people around to distract him.

One great way to socialize your puppy both to new people and new dogs is to take it on a trip to your local pet store. Many major pet store chains, and some independent ones as well, allow pet parents to bring their furry children, and these stores can be great places for puppies to get used to new sights, sounds and smells. Of course you will want to make sure the store allows pets before heading over.

It is important for puppy owners to structure their pet’s environment so that the puppy is rewarded for good behaviors and not rewarded for others. One good example of this is jumping on people. Many people inadvertently reward this behavior because it can be cute. While it is true that jumping can be cute for a 10 pound puppy, it will not be so cute when that puppy has grown into a 100 pound dog.

Instead of rewarding the puppy for jumping, try rewarding it for sitting instead. This type of positive reinforcement will result in a well behaved adult dog that is a valued member of both the family and the community at large.

This type of reinforcement can also be used in potty training the new puppy. For instance, teaching a puppy to use a unique surface such as gravel or asphalt is a good technique. The theory is that the puppy will associate this surface with going potty, and therefore be reluctant to use other surfaces (like your kitchen carpet for instance) as a potty.