We start the foundation. Thrive helps you turn it into a great relationship.

Free with every Stony Lonesome pup

Expanding the Circle

Recall, handling, manners, and watching the world

The Big Idea

The goal is to expand the circle selectively: a little recall, a little leash familiarity, a little handling, a little work on manners, and a little watching the world from the safety of your guidance.

The pace matters. Introduce small success after small success at a pace where the puppy can process, feel your love and protection, and start making good choices from this position of unrushed confidence.

Overview

Focus

• Recall as relationship
• Leash familiarity
• Handling trust
• Early manners
• Watching the world from safety

Home Activities to Work into Normal Life

Adventures

Puppy Skills/Habits

• Choose
• Recover
• Re-engage

Owner Skills/Habits

• Read the puppy
• Protect the puppy
• Encourage wisely
• Reinforce what matters

Administration

Let's Begin

Home Activities to Work into Normal Life

• Do a little most days. Keep it short. Stop while the puppy is still successful and is still looking at you as the coolest owner ever and not a taskmaster. Tiny amounts regularly across time are incredibly powerful.
• Recall - excitement and rewards keep this a part of your relationship rather than obedience. If you have 2 people call the puppy back and forth between you. Treats are helpful, but excitement, movement and praise matter most! One person can restrain for a moment to build desire. Good things happen when your puppy sees you as exciting.
• Tug – have tug toys accessible and play tug gently when your pup gets the “chewies”. Keep your hands close enough to the toy that your puppy learns to be thoughtful with his mouth. Don’t invite hard bites. If teeth touch skin, calm things down, and restart with the toy presented clearly. Let the puppy win sometimes. Stop occasionally to pet & calm the puppy. Developing bite and emotional control are tug opportunities. Lessons: staying calm and biting toys keeps the connection. Getting frantic or biting a person breaks connection.
• Handling, whole body, mouth, paws, rub from nose to tail (proprioception). The puppy learns your hands are safe and give pleasure. Gently brush with a soft brush as a quiet pleasant interlude. You can sing to the puppy and make this part of the puppy’s bedtime routine. Very good bonding.

Administration

• Car Safety – Appropriate restraint
• Register AKC Microchip

Puppy Skills/Habits

Building

• • Leash Familiarity – let your puppy investigate sometimes, and other times ask him to move at your pace. The leash should begin as a way to stay connected, not a way to drag the puppy through the world.
  • Crate/housebreaking - Crate and housebreaking continue as rhythm and management. See housebreaking and crate guidance for details.
  • Manners –
    • Bite control: Essential – see comments on ‘Tug’ above.
    • Build the habit of the puppy always saying ‘Please’ before any request is granted. ‘Please’ means a moment of self control before access. Submission and gratitude, really. This could be anything:
      * a bit of silence if whining to be put down
      * sitting before being fed or coming back insid
      * showing off a new trick
      * eye contact (“eyes” command) with a pause.
      Big payoff on this one. A light, humorous spirit can keep everything fun and avoid a test of wills

New

Choices – let your puppy make harmless choices. Ex: do you want to walk this direction or that direction? Do you want this toy or that toy? Do you want the treat that is in this fist or that fist? Hiding two treats encourages scent work. Watch the different thought process when you remove the unchosen treat.

Owner Skills/Habits

• Reading your puppy at the current moment – Curious? Watchful? Shrinking? Recognize when your puppy wants to engage and when he wants to hold back. Puppies go through different development stages, sometimes very rapidly. A puppy may be afraid of something today that he ignored yesterday. (See “Fear periods”.)
• Nails – you don’t have to finish all 18 at the same time. Do this when the puppy is getting sleepy, rather than when he is wound up.
• Patience – if your puppy has an opinion, let him decide between safe choices:
  • Curious/Eager: proceed with in small steps.
  • Neutral/Watchful: continue to observe.
  • Shrinking into you: redirect and increase distance.
  • Frantic panicky yelping or scrambling - the situation went too far, quickly redirect and comfort while leaving as fast as reasonable. This can be hard to predict but can be fixed. Give the puppy some easy wins and praise to restore its confidence. Later, we can help you with a plan to re-approach this experience in small doable pieces.
• Rotating toys to keep them interesting. Put on a schedule.
• If your puppy is nipping, interrupt calmly and redirect. If we did not show you how to do this at pickup, call us before experimenting. Done badly, corrections can make biting worse or damage trust.

This Week’s Reminder 

Your puppy’s circle is getting bigger, but he still needs you at the center.