Most puppy training advice starts in the wrong place. It starts with commands. What to teach, how many repetitions, what treat to use. All of that matters eventually. But it's not where to start. How to train a puppy effectively begins before any command is introduced, in the relationship between you and your dog and who holds the calm in it.
Luke Buchanan, Owner of The Toe Beans Co and Sydney's Puppy Trainer, has worked with hundreds of puppies across Sydney's Eastern Suburbs, Inner West, and North Shore. The puppies that progress fastest aren't the cleverest breeds or the most food-motivated. They're the ones whose owners built the right foundation first. This post covers what that foundation looks like and how to build it from day one.
Why the first eight weeks at home matter more than anything else
Your puppy arrived home with a nervous system that's firing at full capacity. Everything is new. Every sound, smell, surface, and person is being assessed and filed. The 8-to-16-week window is the most neurologically plastic period in a dog's life. The patterns you build now, the emotional associations your puppy develops with training, with you, with new experiences, get wired in more deeply than anything you'll do at 6 months or 2 years. This isn't an argument for urgency. It's an argument for getting it right.
The Relational Leadership framework starts with one principle: a dog that has a calm, consistent leader doesn't need to manage the environment itself. It doesn't need to patrol, react, or demand. When you establish that dynamic early, training doesn't require correction. The puppy is already oriented toward you, already looking for information about how to behave. Commands land faster, settle behaviour resolves earlier, and the arousal ceiling of the dog drops permanently.
Before any commands: the three things that need to be in place
If you try to teach commands before these are established, you'll get slower results and harder-to-fix habits.
First, manage arousal before you start. A frantic puppy can't absorb new information. The 8-week-old who just had a play session and is still bouncing won't retain anything. Wait for a calm state. Reward it when it appears. You're starting from settled, every session.
Second, sort out your reward. Dry kibble on a full stomach isn't a reward. Real chicken, cheese, or high-value training treats are. Test what genuinely excites your puppy before starting, and keep pieces small, about the size of a fingernail, so the puppy stays motivated across a session rather than satisfied after three bites.
Third, establish your marker. Pick one word, "yes" works well, said clearly, in the same tone each time, the instant the behaviour happens. This marker tells the puppy the precise moment it earned something. Get the timing right before you add any commands, and the whole system becomes sharper.
How to train a puppy: step by step
- Start with attention, not commands. Sit on the floor with treats in your pocket. Don't ask for anything. When the puppy makes eye contact with you, mark and reward. You're not demanding focus; you're reinforcing it when it appears naturally. This builds voluntary engagement before you've asked for a single command, and voluntary engagement is the foundation everything else sits on.
- Introduce sit first. Hold a treat at nose level and slowly move it back over the puppy's head. As the back end drops, mark and treat. Don't say "sit" until the movement is happening reliably without the lure. The word should label a behaviour that's already occurring, not try to conjure one from scratch. Add the word on repetition 5 to 8, once the pattern is reliable.
- Keep sessions short. Three to five minutes, two or three times a day. End before the puppy loses interest. End on something the puppy already knows, so the last thing you reinforce is success. A puppy that leaves a session wanting more learns faster than one that was pushed past its attention window.
- Generalise early. Once sit works in the lounge, test it in the garden, then the footpath, then a quiet park. Each new location is essentially starting from scratch. This is called generalisation, and most training stalls here because owners assume that a command learned at home transfers automatically to the real world. It doesn't. You have to build it in each new context.
- Add distractions gradually. Once a command is reliable in a calm location, add a mild distraction, another person in the room, then a noise, then another dog at a distance. One distraction at a time. Rushing this is the most common reason recall and basic commands fall apart under real-world conditions.
- Apply the 5 Golden Rules outside sessions. Commands taught in five-minute sessions won't transfer to daily life if the broader leadership framework isn't in place. The rules operate all day. Calm greetings, waiting at doors, no attention until settled: these reinforce the same message your training sessions are sending. They're not separate from training. They are training.
- Build from foundation commands toward the practical ones. The first three commands to have solid are sit, settle (lie down), and name response. From those three, recall, stay, leave it, and loose-lead walking all develop faster. Don't jump to recall before sit is reliable in multiple environments. The Complete Puppy Program covers the full command sequence across its 26 modules, including the exact order for introducing each skill.
Common mistakes and how to fix them
Training when the puppy is over-threshold is the most common reason progress stalls. Owners set aside time to train and push through even when the puppy is frantic, overtired, or distracted by something outside. A focused three-minute session with an attentive puppy does more than twenty minutes with one that's operating at high arousal. Stop. Come back.
Repeating commands is the second one. "Sit... sit... sit... SIT." By repetition three, the puppy has learned that "sit" means nothing in particular, and that the actual cue is the escalating tone of voice followed by the hand gesture. Say the command once. If nothing happens, prompt using the lure. Then try the command again. One repetition, one prompt if needed.
Luring past the learning window keeps the dog following food rather than making decisions. Fade the lure within five to eight repetitions. Move your hand the same way but without the treat in it. The treat comes from the other hand after the marker. If you don't fade the lure, the behaviour won't transfer to a verbal cue alone.
Inconsistency across the household is what creates a dog that listens to one person and ignores everyone else. If sit works for the person who trained it but not for anyone else in the family, the dog has learned that the cue is person-specific. Every person in the household needs to use the same word, the same marker, the same reward system.
How to know it's working
The first indicator, usually from weeks two to three, is voluntary check-ins. The puppy makes eye contact without being prompted, waits at a door instead of charging through, pauses on a walk to look back at you. That voluntary attention is the clearest early signal the training is taking hold.
The second is behaviours holding without a treat visible. If sit only works when you're holding something in your hand, the behaviour hasn't transferred from luring to learning. Once your puppy sits on a verbal cue with an empty hand, the command is genuinely understood. For simple behaviours in a calm environment, this happens within 10 to 20 repetitions.
The third is a lower default arousal level day to day. A puppy who's settled faster, who checks in more, who isn't following you anxiously from room to room, has absorbed the leadership message. That baseline drop is the foundation for everything else. If you want support working through any of this, you can join the free Toe Beans Co community for Sydney dog owners.
Want help putting this into practice?
The Toe Beans Co runs a free SKOOL community where Sydney dog owners get access to training guides, Q&As, and direct support from Luke. It's free to join.
Upcoming Puppy Schools in Sydney
If you're based in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs and want structured, in-person guidance, Luke runs regular puppy schools across Bondi, Paddington, Surry Hills, and surrounding areas.
Check upcoming dates and book your spot
Frequently asked questions
Q: What age should I start training my puppy?
Start the day your puppy arrives home, typically around 8 weeks. The socialisation and learning window opens before vaccinations are complete. Basic marker conditioning, sit, settle, and name response can all begin immediately. Waiting until 12 or 16 weeks means losing the most neurologically receptive period for the simplest commands.
Q: How long does it take to train a puppy?
Simple commands like sit are usually reliable in a calm environment within 10 to 20 repetitions, which is two to three days of short daily sessions. Transferring those commands to real-world conditions with distractions takes three to four weeks of consistent practice. Recall, the most critical command, needs six to eight weeks of daily proofing to be reliable under real pressure.
Q: Is there a puppy trainer near me in Sydney?
The Toe Beans Co offers in-home puppy training and group puppy schools across Sydney's Eastern Suburbs, Inner West, and North Shore. The Complete Puppy Program includes a 1:1 at-home session, 4-week group school, and a 26-module online course. Luke works with puppies from 8 weeks across all the major training foundations.
