Pug Training Tips

Start Early

• Begin training your pug as soon as possible, preferably while the pug is fairly young, suggests the Complete Guide to Responsible Dog Ownership website. A younger pup hasn’t had much time to develop bad habits, which usually makes training easier. Nip any undesirable behavior your puppy displays in the bud now. For instance, chewing on furniture and food stealing—common pug bad behavior—should be stopped as soon as you notice it. The longer you let it go on, the more it becomes ingrained into the pug’s behavior and is harder to break. The Pug Village website suggests correcting bad behavior the first time the pug displays it, or else you are teaching the pooch that it is acceptable.

Give Lots of Praise

• Pugs learn best with positive encouragement, as opposed to punishment. For instance, the Pet Care Education website suggests giving your pug a treat when it acts in an acceptable manner rather than punish it when it does wrong. If your pug tends to bark at people, don’t yell at it for doing so. Instead, hold a treat up to its nose when it starts yapping away and when it sniffs the treat and becomes silent while doing so, say “good dog” and give it the treat as the reward. In this instant, you are rewarding your pug for its silence. After a few times, your pug will likely catch on to what it needs to do to earn that tasty morsel.

  The Complete Guide to Responsible Dog Ownership agrees that pugs respond best to positive and gentle reward-based training methods that are filled with rewards and praise. Receiving this attention from you gives your pug confidence, along with something to strive for.

Take Control

• Though small, pugs are filled with a whole lot of dog. This boisterous attitude can become problematic if the pug is allowed to think it is in charge of its home, which ultimately includes you. Since pugs are already stubborn and somewhat difficult to train, it is important to establish your leadership role as soon as possible. If not, your pug will not respect you and will never obey you, as a result. You need to let the pug know that you are the head of the home, followed by your family and the pug is the lowest head on the totem pole.

  To establish your dominance, always walk ahead of your pug through doors and up and down the stairs, suggests the Dog Breed Info Center. If the pug is in your way, make the pug move instead of you moving around it. Do not let the dog sleep on your bed, as this is an alpha position. Instead, provide a bed for the pug on the floor. Always eat before the pug, and then allow the pug to do so when you are done. All members of the household should employ these techniques so that the pug knows it is the lowest-ranking member of the home. While these techniques may sound trivial, they typically work wonders in letting a pug know its position in the pack.