The saying, “New year, New me” is a common one around this time. I’ve always chuckled a bit at this for a number of reasons, though, ironically, I think it is a great mindset for those in search of a new puppy. Winter and spring are traditionally “puppy season;” however, this sentiment extends to those who already have dogs in their family with behaviors that they would like changed, as well. In both cases, if you want a great experience with your new puppy—or a new version of your current dog—you are going to need to change some things within yourself.

Life Adjustments with a New Puppy

When you first get a new puppy, the saying should be, “New dog, New me.” Going into it with this mindset will make things easier for you, because, at the end of the day, life will be different when you bring a rambunctious young pup into your home. Your sleep schedule will change to accommodate small bladders that can’t make it through the night; you’ll need to make time for play, socialization, and development; you’ll need to take into account a feeding schedule for your pup, and that is all in just the first few days.

Those first weeks and months will be an adjustment period. You will need to get into a new rhythm with your puppy as you both get used to living a life with the other. As that initial adjustment period begins to settle, you may notice that there are behaviors your now adolescent puppy is displaying that you really wish would stop. That is when we get to the idea of “New me, New dog.” Dogs repeat the actions that work, period. If your dog is repeating an action that you dislike, that means that, for some reason, the dog believes that it is the best action. It believes the action is getting what it wants. So, the theory behind changing their behaviors is simple: change your behavior (new me) so that the disliked action no longer gets them the things they want, thus causing them to change (new dog). Simple in theory, not always simple in practice.

The biggest hurdle I see at T's Doghouse that makes this difficult for people to implement is that it can often be hard to see how the behaviors are being successful in the dog’s mind. We tend to look at the situation through the lens of a human (naturally, because we are humans). It can be difficult to see what the dog is trying to get and how its actions are getting those things. Let’s take a look at a few examples, focusing on those who have new puppies.

How to Stop Puppy Biting

Puppy biting is a common concern for new puppy owners. I’ve seen a lot of questions around nipping or biting, and it is one of the most commonly searched new puppy owner concerns on the internet. It is easy to understand the frustration of someone dealing with a nippy puppy because their little teeth are like needles. While these frustrations are justified, it is often more difficult for owners to see how their own actions may be perpetuating the biting.

If you watch puppies interact in the whelping box, there is lots of playing, punctuated by lots of snuggling and sleeping. The way they use their bodies is what distinguishes between times of play and times of rest. When puppies play, they use their mouths with lots of quick motions. On the other hand, when it is time to rest, the way they use their bodies is much slower, and they use longer touches. They may rest their head on another pup, mom may groom them with long strokes of her tongue, and they will lie pressed together as they sleep.

Now, compare that to how people use their hands. Often, biting occurs at times when the puppy feels playful. The biting creates a response from the person of hands quickly pulling away, quick pets on the head before the mouth can swing around to nip them, and overall quick motions of advancing then retreating with their hands. This seems very playful for the puppy, which is exactly what it wanted—to play. The puppy soon learns that if they want playful hands, all they have to do is start biting.

If the goal is to eliminate the biting behavior, look at how you can make biting unsuccessful at getting play. If a puppy nips, you may try setting it down and walking away. This leads it to believe that nipping ends play rather than starts it. Anotheroption may be creating a situation that the puppy wasn’t trying to get into with the biting. For example, when a puppy nips your hand, you may respond by holding onto their lower jaw, keeping your hand in their mouth instead of pulling your handaway. Don’t do this in a way that causes pain to the pup; it is just meant to make the puppy think, “Well, that wasn’t what I was trying to do,” as they try to spit out your hand.

If you make an effort to show the puppy that it gets to play based on other actions—such as sitting or dancing around playfully—and that biting ends the play, the biting will become a thing of the past.

How to Stop a Puppy from Jumping

Jumping is another problem that comes up a lot, and it makes sense when you look at it from the perspective of a puppy. Since they were tiny, they have had human interaction and affection. When they got big enough to crawl around, they knew they wanted this affection, so they would go to the feet of the people around in order to get it. As they grew up a bit more and became a bit more stable, they would get up on the legs of a person to try and get a little closer to the hands that they knew would come down and pick them up or pet them. And just like that, they were trained to jump on people when they wanted affection.

This is an adorable way for them to ask for attention when they are eight weeks old, but once they start growing, it gets less cute quickly. And by the time they are a year old and knocking grandma down the stairs when she comes to visit, it is unacceptable.

In my opinion, your best bet is to get out in front of this problem early, by teaching that they should ask for affection and interaction in a more acceptable way. The same way that they learned to jump because they got picked up when they climbed a human’s leg as a puppy, you can teach them they get affection by sitting instead. It’s easy, don’t pick them up when they are on your leg. Instead, ask them to sit, and when they do, pick them up, pet them, and praise that behavior.

Teaching New Puppies Good Habits

Following this same way of looking at how the puppy is getting what it wants based on the way it is acting, we can begin to shape other behaviors that we will want as the puppy grows and gets older. These can be behaviors both in the home and in the field.

Teaching a Puppy About Feeding Time

Growing up, we had a family dog named Duke. He is a great example of how understanding what a dog is trying to accomplish allows you to shape their behaviors. For years, when he got hungry around feeding time each day, he would begin to follow my mom around and whine incessantly. This was not enjoyed by anyone in my house, least of all my mother. Eventually, it would reach the time that we usually fed him, and we would be quick to do so to get the annoyance to stop.

After reaching a breaking point, we decided the behavior needed to change. Every time he started to whine and follow my mom, she would negative mark the behavior and ask him to go lie down in the corner of the front room, where the carpet met the tile of the kitchen. When he obeyed and stayed there quietly, he got fed. He quickly learned that the proper way to ask to be fed was to lie quietly in that spot and look to whoever was around to pour the food.

Duke still lives at my parents’, and to this day, if I am around during feeding time, I will inevitably look up and see Duke lying in his spot, staring at me. A much more enjoyable request for food than the whining was.

With a new puppy, this is an even easier behavior to implement because you don’t have to break old habits in the process. Simply implement the routine. Whenever you normally feed, have them perform the action before giving them the food. You may have a spot in the house you want them to be—like my family did—or maybe a specific action you would like them to do, such as sitting near the bowl. Whatever the case, ask them to perform the desired behavior and then feed. They will catch on to the fact that there is a routine and way of behaving around feeding time that leads to them getting the food they want.

Patterning Bird Dog Puppies in the Field

A “front running” pattern is a commonly looked for attribute in a gun dog. This simply means the dog is spending most of its time between the “10 and 2” positions in front of you as you hunt. This front running pattern is one that is sometimes trained or addressed in adult dog training, but it can also be shaped with young puppies in the field.

Gun dogs are great at identifying and remembering where they found birds before. You see this often in the old dogs that seem to be able to run from one bird find to the next, always hitting the likely typography and skipping the areas where no birds will be. This is because they want to find birds, so logically, they go to places that look like where they have found birds in the past. You can use that same line of thinking to help your pup run a good pattern early in its life by making sure it only findsbirds between the 10 and 2 positions in front of you.

If the only place your pup ever finds birds is to the front, then it will start to spend all of its time there in an attempt to find more birds. This has to continually be worked on and trained as it grows up and experiences wild birds that may not always be perfectly planted to the front; however, thinking about your bird plants in this way when they are young starts you off on the right foot. It will help your dog naturally do what will be most efficient in the field as it grows up.

Raising a puppy is an adventure that I think everyone should experience during their life. It can be challenging and frustrating, yet fulfilling and joyous as well. But through it all, just remember, the key to the dog you’ve always wanted, is YOU.