January
The Christmas puppies hit twelve weeks
A puppy that came home at Christmas is twelve weeks old by mid January. What should be in place by now, what the socialization window still needs, and where the bundle fits.
The puppy that came home under the tree is twelve weeks old this week. The novelty has worn off, the kids are back at school, and someone in the house has noticed that the puppy is still peeing in the hallway and biting ankles. Twelve weeks is not late. It is the exact age where the next month decides whether you have a well started dog at six months or a project.
What should be in place by twelve weeks
- Sleeps through the night in the crate, and eats every meal in it without complaint.
- Goes to the door, or at least toward it, when it needs to go out.
- Sits for the food bowl and for the leash to go on.
- Knows its name well enough to look up in the kitchen, if not yet in the yard.
- Has stopped biting hard, even if it still mouths.
If two or more of these are missing, nothing is wrong with the puppy. Something is missing from the routine, and it is easier to add now than at five months when the puppy weighs forty pounds and has opinions.
The window is still open, barely
Socialization closes at around sixteen weeks. That leaves a month. The vet will tell you when the ground is safe, and until then the puppy goes everywhere in your arms or in a cart: the hardware store on a Saturday morning, a bench outside the grocery store, the school pickup line with the windows down, a friend's backyard with one calm adult dog. In January the weather makes all of it easy. The same list in July would be a heat problem.
The goal is not for the puppy to play with the world. It is for the puppy to watch the world and decide it is boring. A twelve week puppy that sits in a cart and watches forty people walk past is doing more for its adult temperament than an hour at a dog park ever will.
Recall starts now, in the yard
A twelve week puppy follows you anyway. Use it. Clip a fifteen foot long line to a flat collar, walk to the back of the yard, say the puppy's name once and run backward. When it arrives, pay it well and let it go again. Five reps, twice a day, before the adolescent months arrive and the puppy discovers that squirrels exist. Recall taught at twelve weeks on a long line is the cheapest insurance you will ever buy against a dog that runs at nine months.
Where our team comes in
The Puppy Development Bundle covers a puppy under four months with four sessions of 45 to 60 minutes, at our home in Cypress for $550 or in yours for $750. At twelve weeks that gives us the whole remaining window: session one on the crate and the potty routine, session two on sit, place and the name, session three on recall and the leash, session four on greetings, nipping and what to expect at adolescence. The Christmas puppies are the biggest group we see every January. Book the free consultation while the window is open.
Best Dog University Team
Board and train trainers in Cypress, Houston. 16+ years, 900+ dogs. About our team
