Puppy Training Schedule by Age — What to Teach and When

Why timing matters

Puppy training isn’t just about what you teach — it’s about when you teach it. A puppy’s brain develops rapidly in the first year, and different skills are best introduced at different stages.

Teach socialization at 14 weeks? Perfect timing. Try it at 7 months? You’re fighting an uphill battle. Start leash training at 8 weeks? Smooth. Start at 6 months with a 60-pound dog who’s been pulling for months? Much harder.

This schedule maps out exactly what to focus on at each stage so you’re always working on the right thing at the right time.

8-10 Weeks: The Arrival Phase

Your puppy just came home. Everything is new. Your priorities are simple:

Focus areas:

• House training. Take them outside every 1-2 hours, after meals, after naps, after play. Reward immediately when they go outside. Start the crate routine.
• Crate introduction. Door open, meals inside, treats dropped in randomly. No closed door yet unless your puppy goes in voluntarily.
• Name recognition. Say their name, reward when they look at you. 10 times a day. Build the reflex: my name = something good.
• Handling. Touch their paws, ears, mouth, and tail daily. Pair with treats. This prevents future vet and grooming battles.
• Socialization. New people, new sounds, new surfaces — 2-3 new experiences per day. Carry them in public until vaccinated. Keep everything positive.

Don’t worry about yet: Sit, down, stay, leash walking. Your puppy doesn’t need formal commands right now. They need to feel safe, learn the house rules, and experience the world.

10-12 Weeks: Building Basics

Your puppy is settling in. Time to layer in the first commands.

Focus areas:

• Sit. Lure with a treat over their nose. When their butt hits the floor, mark and reward. 5-10 reps, 3 times a day. Keep sessions under 3 minutes.
• Name + eye contact. Upgrade from name recognition to sustained eye contact. Say their name, reward for holding your gaze for 2-3 seconds.
• Crate training progression. Close the door during meals. Build to 5-10 minutes with the door closed while you’re in the room.
• No-bite training. Enforce the rule: teeth on skin = fun stops. Every time. No exceptions. This is the critical window for bite inhibition.
• Socialization continues. You’re still in the critical window. Maintain 2-3 new experiences per day. Different people, dogs (vaccinated), environments.
• House training continues. Stick to the schedule. Accidents will happen. Clean with enzyme cleaner, don’t punish.

Keep it short. Puppies this age have the attention span of a goldfish. Training sessions should be 2-3 minutes max, multiple times per day. End on a success.

12-16 Weeks: The Critical Window Closes

This is the most important month of your puppy’s life. The socialization window is closing. Everything you haven’t exposed them to becomes harder to introduce.

Focus areas:

• Socialization blitz. If there are gaps in your checklist — types of people, sounds, surfaces, environments — fill them now. This is your last chance at easy, natural socialization.
• Down. From a sit, lure a treat to the floor between their paws. When their elbows hit the ground, mark and reward.
• Stay (introduction). Ask for a sit, hold your hand up (palm out), wait 2 seconds, reward. Build to 5 seconds, then 10. Don’t add distance yet — just duration.
• Leash introduction. Attach a lightweight leash and let them drag it around the house (supervised). Don’t pull on it. Let them get used to the feeling.
• Come (recall foundation). In the house, say their name + “come.” Reward big when they arrive. Practice 10 times per day. Build the reflex before you need it outside.
• Puppy class enrollment. This is the ideal age to start group puppy classes — your puppy gets structured socialization, supervised play, and professional guidance.

4-5 Months: Adolescence Begins

Your cute, compliant puppy is becoming a teenager. They’ll start testing boundaries, “forgetting” commands they knew last week, and developing selective hearing. This is normal — and this is where many owners give up. Don’t.

Focus areas:

• Leash walking. Start structured walks. When they pull, stop. When the leash is loose, walk. Be patient — this takes weeks to solidify.
• Stay with duration and distance. Build to 30-second stays. Start adding distance — one step back, then two, then three. Always return to reward (don’t call them to you from a stay).
• Place command. Introduce a bed or mat as their designated spot. Lure them on, say “place,” reward for staying. Start with 10 seconds, build to 1 minute.
• Leave it. Hold a treat in your closed fist. When they stop nosing at it and look at you, mark and reward with a different treat. This builds impulse control — one of the most important skills for an adolescent dog.
• Recall with distractions. Move recall practice to the backyard, then the front yard. Use a long line for safety. Increase difficulty gradually.
• Continue socialization. The window is closed, but maintenance matters. Keep exposing them to new things — you’re reinforcing confidence, not building it from scratch.

5-6 Months: Teething and Testing

Your puppy is teething (losing baby teeth, growing adult teeth) and testing every boundary you’ve set. This is the hardest phase for most owners.

Focus areas:

• Consistency above all. Your puppy is testing whether the rules still apply. They do. Every time they test a boundary and you let it slide, they learn that persistence works.
• Impulse control. Wait at doors (sit before going outside). Wait for food (sit before the bowl goes down). Leave it with increasing difficulty. These exercises are more important than any trick.
• Chewing management. Teething makes chewing irresistible. Provide appropriate chew toys (frozen Kongs, bully sticks, Nylabones). Supervise or crate when you can’t watch them.
• Proofing commands. Take sit, down, stay, and come to new environments. The backyard, the sidewalk, a quiet park. Commands only count if they work outside your living room.
• Leash manners in real environments. Practice walking on busier streets, past other dogs, around distractions. This is where reactivity starts to emerge — catch it early.

6-8 Months: Solidifying the Foundation

The worst of adolescence is here. Your puppy may regress on house training, recall, or general obedience. This is the age where dogs end up in shelters because owners didn’t prepare for it.

Focus areas:

• Don’t give up. Regression is normal. It doesn’t mean training failed — it means your dog’s brain is reorganizing. Keep training. Keep enforcing. They’ll come through it.
• Group classes (Level 1). This is the ideal age for our Level 1 group class. Your dog gets structured training around real distractions — other dogs, new environments, professional guidance.
• Off-leash recall work. On a long line, in low-distraction environments. Build reliability before even thinking about taking the leash off.
• Settle training. Your dog needs to learn to do nothing. Practice “place” for increasing durations — 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes. This teaches an off-switch that most adolescent dogs lack.
• Socialization maintenance. New experiences, new environments. A well-socialized 7-month-old is a well-adjusted 2-year-old.

8-12 Months: The Home Stretch

Your puppy is approaching adulthood. The foundation is either solid or it isn’t — and the gaps are becoming obvious.

Focus areas:

• Advanced obedience. Longer stays, greater distances, more distractions. Commands should be reliable in most real-world situations.
• Off-leash work (if ready). Only in safe, enclosed areas. Only if recall is 95%+ reliable. A long line is still your best friend.
• Real-world proofing. Take your dog everywhere. Patios, hardware stores, busy sidewalks, parks. The more environments they succeed in, the more generalized their training becomes.
• Address emerging issues. If reactivity, anxiety, resource guarding, or aggression are surfacing, now is the time to address them — not later. These issues escalate with age.

What if you’re behind?

If your puppy is 6 months old and you haven’t started formal training, don’t panic. You’ve missed the ideal windows for some things (particularly socialization), but everything is still trainable. It will just take more time and patience.

Start where your dog is, not where they “should” be. If your 6-month-old doesn’t know sit, start with sit. If your 8-month-old is pulling on leash, start leash training. The best time to start was at 8 weeks. The second best time is today.

If you’re significantly behind — multiple behavioural issues, missed socialization, no foundation — consider puppy board and train or private lessons to catch up quickly.

The bottom line

Puppy training isn’t a single event — it’s a 12-month process with different priorities at each stage. The owners who follow a structured schedule end up with confident, well-adjusted adult dogs. The owners who wing it end up in our behaviour modification program at 2 years old.

Follow the schedule. Be consistent. And know that every stage — even the terrible adolescent phase — is temporary.