# New puppy



## Karen1211 (Aug 19, 2018)

Hi everyone, I am new here. We have had Molly our 8 week old puppy for a few days now. We are in the process of crate training and it’s going ok. My question is, at what age can she begin to walk on the lead and begin simple command training. Is there any point before they get to say around 10 weeks ?

At the moment during her play time she just is too hyper to listen. Although when she does start to tire it’s better but then she just wants to sleep. Thank you in advance, Karen, The Netherlands


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## armgwag (Sep 22, 2017)

Hi Karen,

Welcome and congratulations! I started training my pup when I first got him at 12-13 weeks, some commands (sit, come, shake, potty training & no) took much faster than others. Things like his off leash recall didn't really work until he was closer to 9-10 months. I was not able to get my boy to properly walk on leash till he was around 11 - 12 months. Every dog is different so your experience may vary. If this is your first dog, just make sure you're consistent. Enjoy!


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## gingerling (Jun 20, 2015)

Never too young to begin training! The earlier the better. Just have reasonable expectations and keep it fun.

Start by saying what it is she's doing, like when she comes to you, say "Come!", when she sits, say "Sit!", praise and smooch so she gets a positive context and learns the connection btwn her action and your words, and the reward (attention and affection). If you do this consistently, she'll be pretty much trained in a month.


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## Gabica (Jan 20, 2018)

congratulations and welcome to the vizsla family

you can start immediately, just remember their attention span at this age super short. so u may be able to do 3 sits and your pup will turn around and start chewing on something on the floor as an excuse for teething. use your kibble and feeding time to train, my rule has always been that at least a handful of kibble per meal gets hand fed instead of allowing the puppy to eat from the bowl.

we attach to the pup a lead every day to just drag around in the house, but make sure it does not get caught anywhere . some people do that all day, for us it works to just do it from time to time and always start with a play session so that the puppy associates it with fun. 

be careful related to expectations walking on lead and always start with short sessions at home inside, followed by short sessions on backyard, then very short sessions on the street etc. several considerations: puppy joints do not tolerate the pressure the normal human walk would dictate. if you look at vizslas when they walk off leash, they would go, sniff, run, stop, sniff, come back to handler, sniff, run etc, instead of human starts walking and goes with pretty much the same pace the whole time without really ever stopping. 2. attention span 3. crazy load of sniffable and audible distractions. remember they hear and smell many many times better than us, so walking on the street for them is like us having to be in a perfume shop where all bottles got opened and some even poured out and a rock concert is playing at the same time.


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## Karen1211 (Aug 19, 2018)

Thank you everyone for your advice it’s very much appreciated


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