IMO, teaching OB commands, while important are not nearly as important as teaching life skills to a pup that young. You only have a small window to really get your pup used to and excited about handling, all over, by all types of people. I can't stress how important it is to this at your pups comfort level. If you cant touch his feet yet, then start with his upper body, slowly day by day ( you can do this while feeding him his breakfast, dinner or both) move your way down the body, towards the feet, always ending after a short session and always before your pup get's boored or pushed past their comfort level. Introduce them to the clippers by running them through the process ( pick up foot, touch nail) but then clip the air so the dog gets used to everything but doesnt experince the clip yet. In this way you can get your pup excited about nail clipping before he even experinces it.
My next priority with young pups is bite inhibition. Tons of different ways to approach this, some people use a three strikes your out time out rule, some people will yelp and some withdraw attention. I'm in favour of 1 and 3 as I find with high energy pups, the yelp is just inticing. Either way if your pup ever puts mouth on skin ( and it will happen) either withdraw your attention temporarily, get up SLOWLY and go to another room. Or by giving a ah ah or no and then on the third strike putting them in a time-out. Remember time-out is not supposde to be a punishment as you would never want to associate the crate with anything bad. So use neutral tones and make sure your pup is used to going in to the crate by himself and is comfortable in their before using this route. Time out is simply not reinforcing, the pup is now away from all of the fun and games but gets to come back out after 30-40 seconds and gets to stay out as long as they don't nip you.
I would also start playing self control games, my favourite is the it's your choice game. It's played much like tennis between you and your dog, your serve your dogs serve. To start close your fingers around the treat and show your pup, if he sniffs at and noses it, ignore him, once he stops or pauses open your palm, if he lunges forward, close it immediately, once again if he pauses or stops nosing at you, open your palm. If he lunges again repeat above, but if he hesitates and does not bother you, pick up the treat in your other hand. If he lunges, it's back to your serve, close your palm. Only calmly waiting will get that treat to him. So once you can open your palm and pick up the treat, then he can have it. You can start adding variety to this, using tennis balls, greeting people ( though you need to teach sit and start adding distractions before doing this one) and so on.
Lastly I would start teaching leave it, as puppies tend to mouth things they shouldn't this can be a life saver.
Just remember you have your pups whole life to teach OB commands but only a small window to get your pup to associate new things, places, people and pets as good safe things. Grab a pouch of treats to bring on all of your walks and ask as many strangers as you can find to give your pup a few treats ( ask them to keep their palm open and face up, so your pup doesnt accidently nip them. If you can walk by traffic while dishing out treats, and walk by other dogs and dish out more treats. You can let your pup greet other dogs only if you first ask the owner, if their dog tolerates puppy behaviour ( which is often rude) if they don't know- you dont stop to let them great.
Cheers
Kayla
