(How could you resist buying a book whose title promises a perfect puppy in 7 days, and has such a cutie on the cover?)
The hubby brought this book home from the vet and put it right into my hands. I was skeptical. A perfect puppy in 7 days? Sounded way too good to be true.
Turns out a perfect puppy in 7 days isn't unattainable! My puppy isn't perfect, but we've only been following the plan for 2 days. And I'm going to give the hubby and myself a little leeway; we both work full-time, so we can't "train" for a full 16 hours a day like the author of the book did with her puppy. But on the very first day, my puppy mastered the first training step, which is teaching him to "sit to say please." This means that every time he wants anything, he needs to sit near my feet and make eye contact. I reward him for doing this with either a treat & praise, affection & praise, or granting him the thing that he wants. After I'm sure he's 100% on this, I'll only need to grant him the thing that he wants. We even had my family over tonight, so there were new people (distractions) and he still remembered to sit to say please when he wanted affection or to be on a chair or lap. My folks were quite impressed!
I also love how many photos were in this book. The cover blurb does not lie: there really must be 400+ photos in there! That reassured me that I was following the instructions correctly. It was also really reassuring to see photos of dogs who were frightened/anxious versus just whiny. That helped me to better read my puppy's reactions to things and know whether he was really scared or just whiny.
Personally, the best part of this book is that the training is broken down into many small steps, so that I can feel a good sense of accomplishment along the way and not get frustrated.
I'm just astounded at how much I learned about puppy development in such a short and sweet book, and that my puppy was able to learn some "manners" already! We're on the road to a perfect puppy, thanks to Dr. Yin!
*The hubby purchased our copy of Perfect Puppy in 7 Days, and I'm glad he did!
Interesting. How old is your puppy? Mine is about 3 and a half months and she is rapidly improving with things like sitting before she can eat and not biting. I might have to pick this up.
ReplyDeleteBridget, my puppy is only 8 weeks old! We started training him early. It probably helps that at this age, he naturally wants to follow us around and be near us. Best of luck with your pup too!
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