Five Mistakes to Avoid With a New Puppy

Five mistakes to avoid with a new puppy

Royvon has been training puppies and adult dogs since 1959, and starting a puppy's training journey early is consistently one of the biggest factors in how their life together with their family turns out. Here are five mistakes we see new owners make most often, not in any particular order, since every puppy's temperament shapes what matters most for them individually.

1. Not setting a training strategy from the start

Your puppy is constantly learning from day one, whether you realise you're teaching them or not. A proper plan starts as early as choosing the breed itself, researching what a breed will genuinely need as they mature, rather than relying on generic, one-size-fits-all information online. Royvon's own puppy training starts before your puppy even arrives, we visit your home to talk through your specific circumstances, including a detail that surprises a lot of owners: keeping your puppy's favourite toys and chews out of reach until you actually need them for training, since constant availability quietly erodes their value as motivators.

2. Setting inappropriate expectations

Wanting a perfectly behaved puppy immediately, before they're developmentally ready for what you're asking, sets both of you up to lose motivation. Pushing for a fixed result too fast often leads to repetitive drilling that puppies, like toddlers, simply find boring, and a puppy who doesn't find fun with you quickly learns it's available elsewhere instead, showing up later as chasing cars, ignoring recall once a scent grabs their attention, or jumping up at strangers for attention.

3. Incorrect socialisation

Socialisation is often reduced to "getting on with other dogs," but it's much broader: introducing your puppy early to cars, buses, trains, the vacuum cleaner, winter coats and hats, umbrellas, whatever they'll need to be comfortable with as an adult. It's easy to assume a puppy's natural focus on you will simply continue as they grow, but well-behaved adult dogs are the result of ongoing training and reinforcement, not a happy accident. If home becomes all repetitive drilling while other dogs represent excitement and freedom, a puppy learns fast where the real fun is.

4. Repeating boring exercises

Delivering remote puppy training through lockdown gave us a truly useful window into home training routines, and a consistent pattern: committed owners getting short-term results from repetitive drills, without the puppy actually enjoying the process. Motivation isn't only about the treat at the end, the activity itself needs to be enriching. Puppies whose limited training time is all repetition miss out on the exercise and mental stimulation they also need, and go looking for it elsewhere, usually as mischief.

5. Not enough focus on play

What motivates a very young puppy doesn't always hold as they grow, even food rewards lose some shine once a dog discovers how much the wider world has to offer, which is often exactly when recall starts to slip. Play is what reliably keeps a dog's attention through this stage. Puppies know instinctively how to play with littermates, but not necessarily how to enjoy toys or games with you, working out what really excites your puppy and building their motivation around it pays off enormously, it meets both mental and physical needs and makes training far more enjoyable for everyone involved.

Getting the right support

We offer puppy training programmes both online and at our secure sites in Esher and Merthyr Tydfil. Get in touch to book your initial puppy assessment. Learn more about our puppy training programme and our cognitive enrichment hub and How to Choose a Puppy From the Litter and Royvon's Puppy Training Philosophy: An Enrichment-Led Approach.