Drawing up a plan of action is ideally where you need to begin when preparing for training your puppy, as it will help a great deal in making a puppy’s or adult dog’s transition from his familiar surroundings to the new and strange world you are providing for him. Puppies can become very stressed and anxious when parted from his family, and he finds himself in new and unfamiliar surroundings with a whole range of new and unknown faces and scents.
Fully grown dogs are not immune to bouts of anxiety caused by everything new that happens to them when they get relocated. You need to be constantly reassuring your dog when you move him to a new home; all he’ll see in his new home will be strange surroundings and no familiar faces.
Although it is not always possible, try to get to know your new puppy before he moves in. There will be some familiar ground for him then, when he does finally move to your place. The benefit of taking this approach is that when you begin to look at, how to train a puppy he will already be used to you and better able to learn his new skills. If this is not practical, you could ask the old owner for something from the dog’s bed, like a blanket or toy of some kind or anything that will help the dog adjust to his new surroundings and adjust to his new home.
Pretty much everybody agrees that the best time to introduce your puppy to his new home is when you will be at home for a few days on the trot. This way you’ll always be there while he’s finding his feet. During the holidays is ideal – providing of course you’re at home and not on vacation. Please don’t move you dog in, then home him in kennels while you go on vacation. Spending lots of time with him when he moves in will pay dividends in building your relationship and go a long way to beating his home sickness and stress of leaving his friends.
When we bring a new baby home, we make heaps of preparations and fill the home with everything we think the baby will need for a happy and healthy start, training a puppy should be no different. Having a different number of legs shouldn’t mean you get less priority.