Environmental enrichment is a lot of interactions that you can have with your dog. For instance, when you have puppies, if you take them for long walks and get them outside, and they've seen different things, they're going to come in and be tired. You can play inside games; dogs love to play hide and seek. You can hide and then call them, and they'll come running and looking for you. There are such things as puzzles where you have food, and they have to do a specific little activity to get the food, which exercises their brains a lot.

Tired animals are happy animals; they behave better. Some people take them to daycare so that they've had a whole fun day and experience, and they come in, and they sleep a little bit better that day and the next day. One of the most fun things a dog loves is to explore an environment. They just love to go for a walk; they love the smell things and see things. So all of that is part of their environmental enrichment.

All the dogs should have a distemper and parvo vaccine. Also, they need to have Bordetella, which we commonly call kennel cough. Grooming, boarding, daycare, and obedience facilities will recommend the canine influenza vaccine as well. And then certainly when they're old enough - at 12 to 16 weeks - they need to have their rabies vaccine.

Old dog, new tricks. It's probably much harder. As I mentioned in a previous video, the longer a dog has a negative behavior, the longer it's going to take to retrain that. If the dog has been sleeping or getting on your couch for five years, and you want to train your dog not to get on the couch, you're not going to teach them that in a week. That's going to take many weeks or months of consistent messages to them that that's not appropriate. So it's never too late to train a dog, but it does become harder when they are older.

It can be tempting to want to punish your dog when they misbehave, but really, it means that your dog is not trained appropriately. So punishment isn't really the best way to train your dog. The best option is to provide them with the appropriate instruction so they get it right. For example, when puppies wake up from a nap, they're going to need to go pee. It’s much better to take your puppy outside, tell them to go potty, and then praise them. If you're still busy making your coffee and your puppy's sniffing around the corner inside the house, is that the puppy's fault or is that your fault? This is why it’s best not to punish them.

They're going to learn much more quickly from positive reinforcement. There is some training you can do with a clicker. You can train them to respond to a click or a sound, and that can be a negative stimulus for them. Clicker training needs to be done correctly, however, or you can actually make it much harder for them to understand what is going on. So you should really only use more advanced techniques from a special trainer.

First of all, be sure you take your dog into a veterinarian first, make sure that they're healthy. Get them started on their vaccines. The vaccines don't have to be completed to be able to meet new people and new animals. Make sure that the people whose animals you meet are also vaccinated and well taken care of. Make sure that they’re on flea control, and they're current on their vaccines.

Get them started right away. They used to recommend that you introduce your dog to 400 people when they’re between the ages of eight and 16 weeks. So it’s quite a lot to do, but you might want to go to a park and sit down and have different people and animals approach you or walk by you—so they can see airplanes, trains, the wind, the rain, all those kinds of things are all helping the socialization.

No, you don’t need to punish them. What you want to do is to avoid the bad behavior. If you have a dog that potties in the bedroom, close the bedroom door. If you know they may be aggressive because of their food or special toys on the floor, then pick that up so that they don't guard that toy. So try to avoid problems to begin with, always use positive behavior, distract them, and have them do the right behavior and reward them.

“Sit”. If your dog can sit on command, they’re pretty well trained. You want your dog to lie down. That isn't quite as useful. “Come” is another crucial command for your dog to know. If your dog is running in the park and they see another dog, you need them to come back. “Heel” or “here” are also useful commands. When my dogs were younger, we taught them to go potty outside, so that was a useful command. If we go through the airport, I can find some grass and say to my dog, "Let's go potty." And we'll find a little patch. And hopefully, that means that he goes on the grass and not on the airplane, which wouldn't make him popular.

Straightaway. The first time you get a new dog from the shelter, or you get a puppy from a breeder, you're going to want to start training them to fit in with your lifestyle. That's going to involve feeding at set times, taking them out to the bathroom after you have fed them, or when they wake up from a nap. All of that is part of the training to get them used to your lifestyle. Once they've completed all vaccinations and your dog is safe to be around other dogs, you can also take them to a trainer, and that will depend on how old your dog is.

I think the most fundamental question ever is the knowledge to come. Because if at any time...there's a squirrel that ran across a yard, or a car coming by, or a child, or aggressive dog, or a rainstorm, then you need your dog to come back to you as quickly as possible. “Come” is the number one command they should know.

Sitting is so important for when you go to your front door to greet a guest; they might sit and behave. They might sit and behave before they get fed. You certainly don't want them jumping on you when you're eating your dinner. So “sit” is a very good command to know. I think another one might be “off”—off the bed, off the chair, off the wall, off the back seat of the car. Whatever it is so that they know that that wasn't where they were supposed to be.

And the last one I think is essential is teaching them to drop it. Dogs that pick up anything, they might pick up an acorn, a leaf, a grape that fell in your house, any type of plant, maybe a piece of gum on a walk. They need to understand that drop it means to drop that out of their mouth. And of course, we know it's for their safety; they don't know why we're asking them to do that. Those are the things I think are the four basic things for them to know.

We think dogs should start obedience training immediately when you get them. If you get them as a puppy, you'll want to enroll them in a puppy class. Start your pup’s vaccines, and they will continue to be vaccinated and be current as the classes go on. They say puppies learn something new every day, so what we want them to do is learn the right things. If it's not a puppy and it's an older dog that you've adopted or acquired, again, you want to start with a routine right off the bat—where their food is, where their water is, where they're expected to go potty, their leash, walk, etc. And dogs love repetition and schedules, so they should probably pick up your family’s habits pretty quickly.