Bonding With Your Puppy

By developing a strong bond with your puppy, certain doors can be opened. If you have a strong bond with your Puppy, it will be more willing to accept discipline from you without being at risk to negative side effects.

It will trust in you and will allow you to take care of its daily needs as well as to inspect its teeth, or examine its paws, or stand over it without feeling threatened or intimidated. The all-important aspect in respect of bonding is that it creates trust. But bonding is not just about love and fuss and all things nice, it is also about mutual respect: this aspect is sometimes forgotten. Without respect, the end result is not true bonding, but a one-way flow of fuss that makes for the beginnings of a totally spoiled pet.

Never forget that when you are bonding or training a puppy, you are not dealing just with a dog, or a breed, you are dealing with a living organism that is a unique individual—it is as complex in its psychological make-up as you your demeanor. How to Bond With Your Puppy Forming a bond with a puppy is an easy task. The basic social instincts of a dog predispose it to want a relationship with you, its pack leader, and other members of your pack which hold a higher rank than it does. You, of course, must assume the pack leader role. The bonding will be in two forms, touch and sound. Touch: It is very important that your puppy is touched very often in a gentle soothing manner.

Do not concentrate your touch just to its head and back, but extend this to its entire body, meaning its legs, its paws, tail, chest and belly. It will especially enjoy your scratching behind its ears, its chest, and its back at the root of its tail. When it is in a subdued mood—just before it has a nap—you can place it on your knee and gently scratch him behind its ears and this will have a very soothing, almost hypnotic, effect on most puppies.

At this time you can gently lift its head up in order to inspect its teeth. You are not doing a physical check up but merely getting the pup familiar with the touch of your hand on every part of its body, so only do this momentarily on its lips. Likewise, you can hold its ear and stroke the inside flap. Stroke the sides of its body and flanks. This is all there is to physical bonding, so it is a case of doing it as often as possible. You should get down on your knees and play with your puppy, let it lick your face by all means as this is a quite natural submissive gesture that it would do with older members of the pack. It's just fine for it to clamber all over you and paw at you just as it would with its siblings and the older members of the pack.

Take care, however, that you are not too rough with the puppy. Vocal Bonding: Never underestimate the power of vocalizations in bonding with your puppy or adult dog. You would think nothing of talking gibberish to a human baby. In this matter puppies are similar to humans, as are most animals. Of course, there is no need to talk gibberish but do talk to your puppy as often as you can. However, always remember that your puppy will not understand a word you say, so your tone of voice is the important thing. .