10 Ways to Celebrate National Puppy Day!

It’s our favorite holiday of the year! Here’s our favorite ways to celebrate this special day with your furry BFF!

The Puppy Academy student: Rocket!

March 23rd is National Puppy Day! So how can you make the most out of this day? We put together a list of our favorite things to make it one to remember. From fun gift ideas to interactive games, check out these Top 10 ideas that made the list:

1. Plan an Adventure for Your Puppy

There’s nothing more exciting than taking your puppy out on a new excursion! Since puppies love to run, sniff, and explore, this is one of our favorite ways to enjoy your puppy on National Puppy Day! 

If you are in the midst of training your puppy and planning on an outdoor adventure, use this as an opportunity to work on some outdoor Recall (Come command) training with a long fifteen to a twenty-foot leash. 

We recommend that you wait until your puppy has received the necessary vaccinations and medication to go out on hikes. But don’t think this idea is out if your puppy hasn’t gotten all of them just yet! You can practice Recall in your yard, and add in some fun routines like targeting Place to make the training activity more engaging!

2. Grab Them A Healthy Treat They’ll Love!

As a new puppy parent, you’re constantly on the lookout for healthy food options for your pup. Having a treat that you feel as good about giving them as they do about devouring them is the ultimate win-win! And that’s why we crafted our very own high-value, single-ingredient hypoallergenic treat that is not only tasty, but provides essential nutrients for growing pups!

Get your hands (and paws!) on our single-ingredient, certified organic turkey bacon strips that can be easily torn into the most perfect training treats! Grab them here and get a special National Puppy Day discount while supplies last!

3. Gift Your Puppy Some New Toys

If you’re not planning an adventure why not spoil your puppy at home with some new toys? As your puppy starts to grow they’ll need some toys to direct their teething and puppy energy! 

Good chew toys are always a must-have, especially for a growing puppy. The teething phase can last until your puppy is six months or older. This is a good opportunity to switch out some of their older chewed-up toys that may be starting to fall apart for a newer set that can withstand that strengthening bite.

Opt for some interactive toys that will work your puppy’s mind and let you play together. Puzzle toys or snuffle mats are great for breeds with high drives that love to work. These toys let you hide a few treats so your puppy can work out the puzzle and get to their reward! Tug toys like ropes are great for one-on-one playtime. And for some puppies that prefer toys over treats, squeaky toys are a great alternative for puppy training rewards.

For more toy ideas and our go-tos, shop our Amazon store for our curated list of favorite and most useful puppy supplies we love to use in school at The Puppy Academy!

4. Enroll in Puppy School Together!

Puppy training is the greatest way to bond with your puppy while teaching them excellent manners. If you’re looking for a fun activity with a massive pay-off, enrolling in the right puppy training program will the best time and money spent with your pup!

We love to integrate obedience commands with tons of varying distractions because it simulates real-world situations you will most likely find yourself in with your pup. One such routine called Place Patterning where you will teach your puppy to target different spots as their “Place”, teaches them not only where to go and hang out at in the home, but when you’re in a new environment also.

For Place Patterning and brushing up on other super helpful skills like Recall and loose-leash walking, our Online Puppy School shows you how to do in simple steps so your pup catches on real quick!

Check out more about our Online School here:

5. Play the Over-Under-Through Game!

Puppy training and games go hand in hand. When it comes to raising a confident puppy, the Over-Under-Through Game is one of our favorites! 

You can set up a mini obstacle course at home for your puppy using empty cardboard boxes, stools, towels, bubble wrap -- you name it! The goal is to safely expose your puppy to different surface textures, sounds, sights, and even smells, to get them feeling comfortable for the real-world and build their problem-solving skills!

The best part of this puppy training is that it’s a game! Lay some treats out across the course you created so your puppy can sniff them out and get rewarded for finding them. Over-Under-Through will challenge your puppy to step out of their comfort zone, engage in new experiences, and have lots of fun in the process!

6. Put Together a Puppy Play Date

The Puppy Academy students: Melanie & Mimi!

Socializing your puppy is not only for fun; it’s a key part of their behavioral development.

Quality is more important than quantity when it comes to successfully socializing — take the time to find the right personality match for your puppy. Always monitor your pup and step in to interrupt any rough or questionable play behavior.

For our socialization guidelines and what to look out for, check our our socialization blog here!

7. Give Your Puppy Their Own Memory Book!

You’ve probably seen those adorable first year photo albums for babies and all their milestones during their first year. So why isn’t there one for puppies? They’re our fur babies after all!!

We thought it was only appropriate to create a special book dedicated to puppies documenting their puppyhood experience….so the Puppy Memory Book was born!

In it, you’ll be able to add photos for those special moments like the day they came home, their first bath, first walk, first car ride, and so much more! Check it out and get yours here for the perfect National Puppy Day gift!

8. Donate Supplies to a Local Shelter

National Puppy Day is for all pups, including the ones still waiting to find a home. 

Head over to the website of the shelter or rescue organization of your choice to learn about what supplies they may be needing. Dry and wet food is always welcome but oftentimes items like cleaning supplies, toys, grooming supplies, and bedding are in demand.

Many shelters and rescue organizations are also volunteer-operated! If you aren’t able to donate supplies, ask about donating your time to care for pups in need!

9. Foster a Puppy

Fostering provides shelters and rescue organizations the opportunity to help more puppies and dogs in need by opening up space. If you are able to, consider opening your home to a puppy looking for their forever home!

Another great benefit of fostering is the level of socialization with people and other dogs it provides, and it’s an introduction to living in a home. Many puppies that come in as strays or surrenders need to learn how to cohabitate and develop good behaviors in order to be placed.  

And you never know, your new best friend could be your next foster!

10. Sponsor a Shelter Pup!

We wish we could give them all a home but sometimes that isn’t feasible and that’s okay! You can still take part in National Puppy Day by becoming a shelter or rescue pup’s sponsor!

If you’ve never heard of this, it’s a great way to help out a puppy or dog in need by providing financial support for their care. Your contribution will ensure that while the puppy is waiting for their forever home, they can still receive proper medical care, nutritious food, grooming, and more.

Reach out to your local shelters or rescue organizations to learn how you can become a sponsor to a puppy in need, or even more!

Happy National Puppy Day to all the pups and pup parents! Let us know which from this list made your top picks this year!

Have more questions about training your new puppy? Ask our trainers LIVE every Wednesday at 1 pm Pacific Time on our Instagram @thepuppyacademy and TikTok @thepuppyacademy during the Ask A Puppy Trainer Show! All replays are posted afterward, and you can catch up on our last ones on our YouTube channel!

Become a Puppy Academy VIP (Very Important Puppy) to get our latest puppy training tips direct to your inbox, for free, each week!

Check out these blogs related to puppy training and more!

Puppy Training 101: Teaching Your Puppy Place Command Routines!

Puppy Training 101: How to Get Your Puppy Responding to Come!

Spaying or Neutering Your Puppy!

Puppy Training 101: Giving Your Puppy Commands -- the RIGHT Way!

Effective communication is crucial for cultivating a strong connection between you and your puppy, enabling them to understand and respond to your instructions. Mastering clear and concise communication ensures consistent and successful teaching of basic obedience commands. Here’s how to consistently convey your commands with clarity and precision, strengthening the bond between you and your new puppy!

The Puppy Academy student: Waylon!

A question we often get from our brand new puppy parents before they get started with puppy training at The Puppy Academy is: "Why doesn’t my puppy listening to me?!” The truth is, it's often not a matter of them ignoring you; rather, it's about clarity in communication, and how they view you. Puppies don't instinctively grasp language nuances; they need guidance that comes from their leader (parent). Overloading commands with excessive words is a common mistake new puppy parents make that confuses them.

But just saying a command, isn’t the same as being clear. You need to engage your puppy so their focus is on you, show them what you want them to do first (you can do this by using a lure which we covered in our previous blog), and say the command to create the association between the behavior and the word. When you first start on the puppy training journey, you’ll repeat a similar formula for each command until your puppy learns each one and can move on to building connections. More to come on that in later blog posts, but first, to help you remember the sequence of how to ask your puppy a command the right way, we developed this step-by-step process that’s easy to remember and follow!

Attention

↓ 

Eye Contact

↓

Command

↓

Marker “Good!” (Reward with food)

↓

Marker “Break!” (Reward with food)

If you haven’t read our previous blog that covers starting your puppy off with the basics, we talk about an effective technique we like to use with our students called “luring” to help gain your puppy’s attention and eye contact. In the beginning phases of your puppy training, you can also use luring as a way to show your puppy what you want them to do! 

Quick Guide on Giving Your Puppy a Command, the RIGHT Way!

Let’s break down what each of the actions in this sequence really means and how you can start to apply them to your puppy training now! 

1. Attention: First thing’s first, start off by gaining your puppy’s attention by calling out their name.

2. Eye Contact: Establish eye contact with them by using a lure with food. To do this: bring the lure up to your pup’s nose so they focus on it, then slowly bring it up to your eyes to draw in their focus!

3. Command: Next, ask the command that you want your puppy to do, for example, “Sit”. For extra direction, use a specific hand signal for the command when you say it, as pups understand body language first!

*Note: at this stage, if your puppy still hasn’t had at least some practice with basic obedience commands, you can continue to use a lure to guide them to perform the command. We’ll cover that in detail in the next section!

4. Marker “Good!”: Once your puppy does the desired command, say the marker word “Good!” and reward them with their food! This helps to reinforce the command and convey that we want them to keep doing what they’re doing!

5. Marker “Break!”: At this point, your puppy has successfully completed what you asked them to do so finish off with “Break!” to release your puppy. 

*Note: For the last point, the goal here really is developing muscle memory, not having your puppy hold the command for a long period of time. 

The Puppy Academy student: Kinsley!

Teaching the Basic Commands: “Sit” and “House”! 

Now that you understand the process of how to give a command, you can start working on the two of the commands you’ll use most on a daily basis: “Sit” and “House” (a.k.a. crate). As we mentioned earlier, you may need to utilize the handy lure technique until your puppy understands the desired behaviors associated with the commands.

For the “Sit” command, it’s common for some puppies to naturally want to sit at your feet if you have a valuable reward in hand. That’s not the case with every puppy though and doesn’t mean that your puppy knows how to sit when you ask them to either. Bring the lure to your puppy’s nose and slowly guide your puppy into a sitting position by bringing the food over their nose and head. This movement encourages your puppy to follow, which will naturally bring their head up, and their hind down! When your puppy sits, say the command “Sit” and you can mark it with “Good!”, then reward them with food! 

Your puppy’s “House” or crate will become part of their daily life, especially during potty training and for their daily puppy schedule. Sometimes though, you might need to encourage your puppy to enter their crate if it’s totally new to them. Train your puppy “House” by applying the luring method again, guiding your puppy into the crate with a piece of food and saying “House” and rewarding them once they enter! You can even give them a few more pieces of food once they are inside the crate to really reinforce the command and to help them feel comfortable in the crate.

If your pup needs some extra motivation to go in, try tossing in a special treat ahead of them to entice them to hop in and get it! For more help with crate training, check out our step-by-step guide to crate training a puppy.

The Puppy Academy students: Beignet and Bear!

7 Tips on Communicating Clearly and Effectively with Your Puppy!

If you’re still having issues getting your puppy’s attention and getting them to listen, take a little time to examine your body language cues and continue to work on the clarity of your communication. The tips below are good to keep in mind when puppy training:

1. Watch Your Tone of Voice

Excited voice = excited puppy! Calm voice = calm puppy. And when it comes to puppy training, keeping calm can help you successfully tackle your puppy training sessions. If your puppy is naturally excitable, keep a calm tone to help your puppy settle down, and keep engaged and focused.

2. Watch Your Energy Level

Confidence helps puppies succeed in puppy training! Remain calm, even if your puppy isn’t at the moment. Let them settle down so you can continue working with your puppy. And remember that your body language speaks volumes. Stand up straight when you are giving commands to establish a leadership role with your puppy and keep their focus on you!

3. Give Your Puppy Time to Respond

Puppies are young and still learning so be patient with them when you are giving them a command. “Sit”, “Come”, and “House” are bizarre words to them still, and they need a little time to process what they might mean. Allow up to three seconds for your puppy to respond to the command.

4. “Sit, Sit, SIT!” Don’t be a Broken Record

If your puppy isn’t responding to the command within a three-second window, don’t fall into the common puppy training mistake of repeating the command over and over until they get it right. All this does is diminish the value and meaning of the commands (and the same goes for their name!) and can lead your puppy to get excited and even tune you out. Instead, repeat the command word again once again in a strong tone, and use the corresponding hand signal and food lure to help guide them as to what you would like them to do.

5. Use Clear Words

“Okay-my-darling-sweet-pup-you-are-such-a-good-boy-now-Siiiiiiit!”  These are all new, strange — and waaaay too many — words and can be very confusing for a new puppy! Your puppy won’t be able to decipher that what you actually want is for them to “Sit”. Use clear, concise single words when you are puppy training to help your puppy learn exactly what you are asking them to do. It will lead to less frustration for your puppy — and you!

6. Leverage is Your Friend

When training, you want to appear to your puppy as the most valuable person and thing in the room, over any other distraction! Your pup’s food is extremely valuable to them, so use it to your advantage by having it on you at all times. (If you don’t have a treat much yet, now’s the time to get one!) You’ll eventually wean them off of getting a reward for every command you ask, but in the beginning, this can provide amazing leverage for you and your puppy will be far more focused and willing to listen knowing you will hand over a delicious reward!

7. Professional Puppy Training Can Make a HUGE Difference

Puppy training is all about building your relationship with your puppy through skills and communication so they learn to respond to you. The beginning few weeks of your puppy’s training will involve consistently showing them the behavior you’re asking them to do, and creating the association between the behavior and commands. It’s easy to become discouraged if your puppy doesn’t get it right away. All puppies are different and some pick up on verbal commands faster than others. But that doesn’t mean your puppy is untrainable!

Working with professional puppy trainers who can give you a plan to follow and tweak training to your puppy’s needs when needed, can get you and your puppy communicating faster than trying to work through it on your own. This is what we help all our clients with in our puppy training school The Puppy Academy and in our Online School! For a simple puppy training program you can easily follow from anywhere with guaranteed results, check out The Puppy Academy Online School:

Have more questions about training your new puppy? Ask our trainers LIVE every Wednesday at 1 pm Pacific Time on our Instagram @thepuppyacademy and TikTok @thepuppyacademy during the Ask A Puppy Trainer Show! All replays are posted afterward, and you can catch up on our last ones on our YouTube channel!

Become a Puppy Academy VIP (Very Important Puppy) to get our latest puppy training tips direct to your inbox, for free, each week!

Check out these blogs related to puppy training and more!  

Puppy Training 101: Start Your Puppy with the Basics!

Puppy Training 101: How to Establish Leadership with Your Puppy!

Why Puppy Training is so Important!