Puppy Training Basics: What to Teach First, and Why

Teach the things that expire first — socialisation, handling and being left alone all have a developmental window that closes — and leave sit, tricks and formal position work until later, because the sequence is set by the puppy's development rather than by what is easiest to teach.

Some of this expires and some of it does not

A puppy's first months contain a deadline that nothing else on the training list has. The MSD Veterinary Manual puts the socialisation period at 19 days to 12 weeks and describes the following juvenile period as "use it or lose it" — previous socialisation lays the groundwork, and exposure has to continue.

AVSAB's position statement on puppy socialisation puts the stakes in one sentence: behavioural problems, not infectious disease, are the leading cause of death in dogs under three years of age.

Sit has no deadline. Neither does down, paw, or walking to heel. Every list that starts with sit is starting with the item that could be safely left until March.

MSD's own caveat applies to the window as well: the onset and duration of these developmental periods are influenced by genetics and environment and "should not be considered absolute". Treat twelve to sixteen weeks as a strong guideline rather than a cliff edge, and keep going afterwards.

What to teach a puppy first

Run these concurrently from the week the puppy arrives. Sessions are two minutes long and happen six times a day, not the reverse.

Exposure, at an intensity the puppy can cope with

New surfaces, sounds, people, vehicles, other dogs — but quality over quantity. MSD is explicit that sensitivity to stress is heightened during this period, so frightening experiences should be carefully avoided, and a puppy showing fear should have the thing introduced gradually at a non-threatening intensity paired with food and play.

Handling, before anybody needs to handle it

Ears, paws, mouth, tail, and being held still, several times a day for a few seconds each, always paid. This is the item that quietly decides whether examinations, nail trims and grooming need sedation later, and the full version is in puppy bath and handling training.

Being alone, in doses that are too small to matter

MSD's advice is to teach the puppy to rest on a mat out of sight for gradually increasing periods, and to give it activities it can enjoy on its own. Ten minutes on day one; the households that skip this are the ones with a separation problem at eight months.

A mouth with somewhere legal to go

Tug, retrieving, chasing games, chews and food-stuffed toys, because MSD describes mouthiness as a behavioural need for exploration and play rather than a fault. The rule for teeth on skin is in puppy biting.

Name, attention, and coming back

A name that predicts food, and a recall built in a corridor before it is ever tried in a field. Recall is the only skill on this list that has a safety consequence measured in traffic.

House training and the confinement schedule

Outside with the puppy, food reward immediately after elimination, supervision indoors to prevent opportunities, and confinement when supervision is not possible — MSD's regimen, and the crate half of it is in crate training a dog.

Then sit, down and the rest

Once the expiring items are running, the position work is easy and pleasant, and it will still be easy in a month. Nothing about it is urgent.

Should I wait until the vaccinations are finished?

No, and this is the single most consequential decision in the list. MSD notes that postponing socialisation until a puppy is fully vaccinated misses the important window and increases the risk of fear and anxiety problems later.

The evidence it cites is specific: a study of puppy class participants found no difference in canine parvovirus infection rates between vaccinated puppies that did and did not attend socialisation classes before sixteen weeks. MSD's conclusion is that puppies may be enrolled in a well-run indoor class from eight weeks.

That is a class held indoors on a cleanable floor, with puppies of a similar age whose vaccinations are under way — not a public park. The vaccination side of the same decision is in our guide to the puppy vaccination schedule.

What "advanced puppy training" actually means

There is no advanced puppy stage in any developmental framework. What people mean by it is one of two things, and they are worth separating.

The first is proofing: taking behaviours that work in the kitchen and making them work in the street, with distance, duration and distraction added one variable at a time. That is not a harder skill, it is the same skill in more places.

The second is adolescence-proofing, and it has evidence behind it. Asher and colleagues found a passing phase of reduced trainability and responsiveness during adolescence that was specific to the dog's own carer, and concluded that adolescence is a vulnerable time for the dog-owner relationship. A puppy whose foundation skills are heavily practised before six months has more to fall back on when that phase arrives — the details are in dog fear periods and adolescence.

Class, or one-to-one?

A class is the right default for a healthy puppy, because half of what you are buying is not instruction. It is other puppies, other people, a novel floor and a controlled environment during the window when those things matter.

One-to-one is worth the money for specific problems: a puppy that is frightened rather than boisterous, house training that is not progressing, guarding, or a household with circumstances a class cannot accommodate. It is not a substitute for the social exposure, and a private trainer who tells you it is has misunderstood the brief.

For either, AVSAB's guidance on choosing a trainer is the checklist. Its green flags are rewards, clicker or force-free methods, preventing unwanted behaviour and teaching a replacement, and an upbeat tone; its red flags are prong or shock collars, leash jerks, rolling the dog onto its back, "balanced training", and the vocabulary of boss, alpha, pack leader, respect, obey and command. MSD adds that dog training is an unregulated industry in the US, which is exactly why the checklist is needed.

Does breed change the answer?

Less than the search suggests. MSD states that there is as much behavioural variation between individuals within a breed as between breeds, and that breed stereotyping "can lead to an inaccurate assessment of an individual dog's behaviour."

Where breed does bite is narrower and more useful: differences are confined primarily to the characteristics the breed was selected for. So a corgi is a herding dog, and the specific thing worth planning for is a strong response to movement — running children, bicycles, ankles — which needs an outlet and an interrupter rather than a different curriculum.

That is the same principle behind our border collie training guide, and it transfers to any herding breed. The list above does not change; the emphasis inside it does.

Where do tricks fit in?

After the expiring items, and they are genuinely worth doing. Tricks are the cheapest way to practise the mechanics that everything else depends on — marking, timing, luring, shaping — on behaviours where a mistake costs nothing.

They are not on the critical path, though, and a puppy that can shake a paw but has never been left alone is not ahead. The mechanics are covered properly in dog trick training, which is the page to read once this one is running.

What age should puppy training start?

The day the puppy arrives, which is usually eight to ten weeks. MSD recommends puppies go to their new homes at approximately eight to ten weeks and that socialisation begins as soon as possible, with a well-run indoor class before twelve weeks.

How long should a puppy training session be?

Two or three minutes, several times a day. Short sessions protect your timing and the puppy's attention, and the AAHA life stage guidelines make the same point about building preventive handling into short, repeated, positive interactions rather than long ones.

What if my puppy is scared rather than boisterous?

Slow down and get help early rather than pushing on. Forcing a frightened puppy to meet what frightens it is flooding, which MSD says initially enhances fear and can make behaviour worse — and what a dog that stops tolerating handling adds to routine veterinary care comes from our own vet cost research.

What this behaviour costs when it goes wrong

This is not only a quality-of-life question. Where it ends in a veterinary bill, we publish the price of that bill from our own dataset rather than leaving the stakes abstract. These are the outcomes it leads to, and what they cost.

Unsupervised chewing and swallowing of socks, toy stuffing, stones or plastic during the exploratory months

An endoscopic or surgical retrieval of the swallowed object. We price it at dog bowel obstruction surgery, $1,200 to $7,976 — $4,383 typical.

Skipping handling practice until the puppy stops tolerating ears, paws, mouth and restraint

Routine examinations that need sedation the dog would not otherwise require. We price it at routine vet checkup (wellness exam), $56 to $130 — $66 typical.

Related guides

• dog trick training — Tricks are where you build marker timing, rate of reinforcement and shaping.
• puppy will not stop biting — Mouthing is a behavioural need with a documented outlet.
• dog fear period — Adolescent fear is a documented developmental stage.
• crate training dog — Crate training a dog is conditioning a place, not shutting a door.

Every guide we have written is on the dog training guide index.

Sources

1. Position Statement on Puppy Socialization — American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior (AVSAB), 2008.
2. Social Behavior of Dogs — MSD Veterinary Manual (Merck), professional edition, 2025.
3. Behavior Problems of Dogs — MSD Veterinary Manual (Merck), professional edition, 2025.
4. How to Choose a Trainer Position Statement — American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior (AVSAB), 2026.
5. 2019 AAHA Canine Life Stage Guidelines — Journal of the American Animal Hospital Association 55(6):267-290 (Creevy, Grady, Little, Moore, Strickler, Thompson & Webb), 2019.
6. Teenage dogs? Evidence for adolescent-phase conflict behaviour and an association between attachment to humans and pubertal timing in the domestic dog — Biology Letters 16(5):20200097 (Asher, England, Sommerville & Harvey), 2020.