Bring your new puppy into your life during your annual holidays, if you work.

Make sure you have two weeks to settle puppy into your home. If you picked puppy up at 8 weeks old then the next two weeks are the equivalent of one quarter of his life. If you stick to a schedule during those two weeks, feeding, playing, toilet time, bed time, pretty much at the same hours, then your new puppy will settle into his new life really quickly.

Do not be tempted to take it walkies or even much car riding, except to the vet to get his shots, keep life as simple as possible.

Hand feed your puppy. Sit down by his bowl and put your hand in there and help him to eat. Your hand will be like another puppy's head and he will feel comforted by that.

Give your puppy a harmless (i.e. check the stuffing and eyes of the thing) soft toy to play with and sleep with. Preferably something a bit bigger than him that he can nestle into, chew on and pull. Second hand stores and Op Shops have wonderful pre-loved toys looking for puppy homes, very cheaply.

Play with your puppy. My best game is a piece of old sheet about 50cm long tied in the middle with a soft cord which gives me a one meter long handle. Flanalette sheet is best. I pull it along the floor slowly and then jerk it. When puppy pounces I let him land on it and still it. Then when he lets it go I pull it along the floor some more. Eventually I can pull it along the floor with him diving on it like a cat chasing a toy, - same action. I can then start to raise it off the ground a bit and let it drop. I can run along dragging the toy and he follows me and jumps on it.

Words of caution, when he grabs the toy in his mouth DO NOT pull him along with it by his mouth, We are not attempting to lift him off the ground or do any stupid things, we just want him to follow it and jump on it and have a chew at it. You can flick it over his head so he spins around to grab it. At 10 weeks I find about 15minutes in two lots of play per day is sufficient. Do not do it to death. Roll a nice big ball for dog as well. A nice soft ball that he cannot fit in his mouth is good. Small balls, marbles and other round objects should be moved right off the property.

Which incidentally brings me to the statement that prior to getting a puppy, walk around the quarters he will be living in, sleeping in, playing in and make sure there are not dangerous bits and bobs in those places. Like what? Easily accessed electrical cords, protruding nails. Heaps of old garden bricks precariously ready to fall down, old toys in sandpits small metal trucks, bits of plastic toys. Things that can fall, cut, or lodge in throats.

When puppy is twelve weeks and living happily in his crate and playing happily with you, the family cat, other family dogs etc, put his puppy collar on in the mornings and take it off at night. I quite like cat collars for first collars as they have an elastic inset which makes it safer than a tight dog collar. Of course if you have a Mastiff Breed puppy then a cat collar will be out of the question size wise and you will need to use a fairly large collar, but get a really soft collar and as wide as possible for the big breeds. Have a spare bit of that cord we were talking about with the sheet above. About half a meter to a meter long depending on the size of your breed. This type of cord is available from craft shops and comes in various colours. It is quite tough and very soft, doesn't chew through easily and bits don't fall off it. Anyway, when you are with your twelve week old, playing, feeding etc, tie the piece of string to the collar and let it trail behind, as he passes by you just stand on it and bring him to a halt. Puppy will turn and look up at you, make eye contact and say 'Good Dog Fido' and if you have treat food with you, give him a tiny treat. You can do this three or four times a day. You can also pick up the piece of cord and give it a bit of a light tug, again he will spin round and look up and you will repeat 'Good Dog Fido' and treat him if possible. After a few days this will be totally natural behaviour and when you put a leash on that puppy there will be no trauma or drama , it will be part of his life.

By the time your gorgeous puppy is 16 weeks and fully vaccinated, he will be on a light lead, he will be making eye contact with you when you say 'Good Dog Fido', he will be playing vigourously with you and able to entertain himself with his ball and soft toy, he is happy with all people , nobody has shouted, or yelled at him or beaten him with a newspaper etc. He will trot outside and look for piddle spots, but sometimes still have accidents. He will travel in his crate in the car, sleep happily all night in his crate in the house. Walk a little way up the road and back, happy on his lead, and is ready for his first training school.

Take your puppy to a Dog Training School for one hour a week or one hour twice a week if possible. Do not go to puppy training with the view that you want to raise a genius, just relax and let your puppy socialise, follow the trainer's instructions. Take your toy pull along thing to puppy class, feed your dog treat food at puppy class and generally let your dog take in the atmosphere. If you and your puppy do not get the hang of sit stays and come to me, don't get hung up about it. If your dog is pulling on the lead to get in the door/gate to the class after going for a couple of weeks, you have done exactly as necessary. From 16 weeks to 25 weeks mucking about in the company of other dogs, in another place and maybe learning a very short sit stay, and able to chase his toy in company and still make eye contact with you when all around is the bedlam of other puppies is awesome.

Some of the reasons that puppies grow into snarly dogs at other dogs, is mishandling at puppy school by their handler, a rushed, stressed owner/handler is the worst enemy of puppy training. Go to puppy training in your oldest gardening clothes. If you bleed from accidental nipping, go the whole hog and wear your garden gloves as well. Sit on the ground/floor with your puppy and allow other pups to come up to him. Do not restrain him, snatch him away or lift him off the ground away from other dogs. Let him loose(in a suitable space of course), to make friends with the other puppies.

Now generally I like puppy schools where the toys and minis are separate from the big dogs and giants at the start. This avoids the owner/handler of small dogs going into major panic as a masterful looking chocky lab pup ambles over to her tiny maltese. The panic that the owner/handler feels then goes straight to the heart of the little dog who becomes fearful and snappy, while the chocky lab looks on bewildered at the little fella and takes an instant dislike to small white fluffy dogs, which may(pardon the pun) dog the chocky for the rest of his days as well.

Not all socialisation is good socialisation. If a puppy is exhibiting terror at puppy class on the first day, then some damage with other dogs has already happened somewhere. Remove the dog from the class group. Give the handler a chair about ten meters away and just let them sit there doing their own thing for the whole hour. Week by week move the terrorised puppy closer. If it means that that is inch by inch then so be it. If ten meters is not far enough then move it further away. At the end of your ten week? sometimes puppy training classes, as a trainer I would ask that owner/handler to come to the next set of classes absolutely for free. This owner/handler dog combination is the one that needs your help the most. I guarantee that puppy will excel in the next session. But always make sure he is the first one in the space - get the owner to come ten minutes early and let him get a handle on the venue. There should be no more problems.

However, I have digressed. If I have separated big dogs from small dogs, say big dogs on Mondays and small dogs on Tuesdays or whatever, I would , after two weeks, ask my most boisterous small dogs to come to the big dog class and my most timid big dogs to come to the small dog class. Again with the change in sizes and the time and/or day of lessons, I would keep the visitors on the outside of the class circle and slowly integrate them into the full working session. Sometimes this is quick, sometimes not, but the good thing is it is reverseable, if it doesn't work out you can pop them back into their original classes. My vision would be that at the end of ten weeks the two classes are one. But then there might be that one or two who need another ten weeks to really get it right. The reasons can be, the inability of owners to get to every class or the odd puppy with over exuberance or panic problems. The very odd new team need some one on one and a bit of extra guidance.

So here we are at the stage where we have a happy,playful pup who is 24,25 weeks who likes everybody and gets on with all dogs, is able to sit and stay a bit, lie on his mat on command and come when he is called.

So we are ready for the next step in entertainment of our new dog. Walkies........