Imagine Yourself as a Puppy

Just imagine that you are suddenly taken from a warm and familiar environment where mom, dad, sisters and brothers were and brought to a very unfamiliar house.  You cannot understand the language of the humans in this new place.  The new humans do not smell like your breeder, nor do they look like him or her.  All the humans here seem to be giving you directions.  They are looking at you, handling you, and they all smell so different than those you left behind.  When you don't understand what they are telling you, they seem to start yelling at you.  Then, they lock you in a strange room all by yourself and worse than this, put you in some kind of a box that has bars on it and resembles "jail."  Now, everyone is gone, and you are all alone here, locked up in this jail-like box.  What would you feel like doing the most?  If you were about to pee, you would probably pee right now inside the jail box.  If you needed to poop, that would happen too right now.

Now imagine that someone comes to help you in a calm and friendly way.  Suddenly, this new place is not so scarey, and you feel like maybe joining in with these humans and perhaps becoming friends with them.  Ah, but even if they are the nicest of all nice there is, you still don't know any of the rules here!

New puppies entering into a new environment do sense the change from life with mom, dad, littermates and familiar breeder or breeders.  They experience fear and panic, happiness and excitement just the same as humans do.  As humans, we must realize that puppies cannot reason like we do, even though they do experience many of the same kinds of emotions, and they do not understand English, Spanish or any other language you speak as a human.  They do not understand our complex sentences, yelling and hitting either.  Yelling and hitting only frightens puppies more.

With some patience and understanding of puppies, you will be able to explain your expectations and rules they must live by in no time at all.  Your puppy will begin to feel more secure and everybody is happy!