Welcome to Day Twelve!

Does your puppy take you for walks? In today's Training For Success column we teach you about, "Walking on Leash Without Pulling" using loose leash walking. Loose Leash Walking will teach your puppy to walk on a leash without pulling and without the use of tools like a choke chain or prong collar! In yesterday's column we detailed the steps to successfully introduce your puppy to the leash, so be sure you've read that article and followed those steps before implementing today's lesson.

Since Day 9, the Understanding Your Puppy column has been a series on the Three D's of Dog Training. First, we talked about the concept of Duration, Distractions and Distance. In each article in the series, we then took an in‑depth review of each "D," starting with Duration. Yesterday, we covered how to incorporate Distractions into your training plan. Today we conclude with the final installment of the series, where we review Distance and how to add it when training your puppy; read today's column "The Three D's of Dog Training # 4 – Distance."

Yesterday's Kids & Puppies column started a series on how your puppy communicates with her eyes, mouth, ears, tail, fur and nose. Today we discuss what she's communicating with her mouth. Read, "What Your Puppy is Trying to Tell You – Mouth" to learn more.

WIIFM means "What's In It For Me" and this is as important a concept to your puppy training as it is in corporate training for employees. The behaviors that make you crazy are the same behaviors that are natural and needed to your puppy. Training your puppy is behavior modification, to change what is an inborn and naturally effortless behavior to her, and teach her to do something that is totally opposite to her natural skills and reactions. She wants to know why she should expend the effort to stop what is natural, and instead learn something new and unnatural. This is where WIIFM comes in, and it's today's Perfect Pet column, "WIIFM = What's In It For Me!"

Want to know a noise that your puppy can quickly become fearful of? It's the weather alert tone on television! We hear it, we get tense, and we head to a safe room. Winds wail, hail hits, thunder rattles the house and your puppy soon learns that the weather alert means bad stuff is about to happen. Rather than your puppy learning to run and hide under the bed giving you one more body to wrangle to safety, teach her to remain calm when she hears the noise. When she's ready, you can even teach her that when she hears the alert, she should automatically head to the safe room where she will get a great reward; read "Noise Socialization – Weather Alerts" in today's Socialization For Today!

Please enjoy your Day Twelve newsletter. The staff of MyPetTrainer.com is here to assist you, to help you and your puppy learn together with confidence and positive reinforcement.

Together in success,
The staff of MyPetTrainer.com