Dog Training Johannesburg

Dog Training Johannesburg Various Training venues around Johannesburg. Benoni
Midrand Do You Want a Dog Who Can Go Anywhere? We can help! Book a call"

We are a full service dog training company located in Durban KZn with Branches in JHB , Knysna, Cape Town and Mossel Bay. We offer a number of different training programs to meet the needs and skill level of you and your pup from teaching basic foundation skills to modifying unwanted behavior. Each program is subject to a consultation during which your trainer will assess the behavioral needs of y

our dog or puppy and work to formulate a personalized training plan to help you achieve your goals. We understand that our clients live active and busy lives, and we are pleased to offer many flexible training options such as: Board & Train, Private Coaching, Group Classes and our All day Puppy School.

👉The truth about 14-16 weeks is that you’re in a consolidation phase. The big milestones already happened, socialization...
15/06/2026

👉The truth about 14-16 weeks is that you’re in a consolidation phase. The big milestones already happened, socialization window closed, self-control emerged, juvenile period began.

✅What’s new is teething, and what you have now is time to solidify patterns before the next major shift.

👉Around 16 weeks, adult teeth start pushing through and baby teeth start falling out. You might find tiny teeth on the floor or stuck in toys. More importantly, you’ll see behavioral shifts: more chewing, some irritability, possibly less interest in food when gums are sore. This isn’t regression, it’s discomfort. Their mouth hurts.

👉Everything else that looks like backsliding during this period usually traces to teething pain, not lost training. Keep training sessions shorter if they’re struggling to focus, offer appropriate chewing outlets, and don’t panic if behaviors you thought were solid suddenly look shaky. The patterns you built are still there, they’re just harder to access when your puppy is uncomfortable.

👉Here’s what makes these two weeks valuable as you’re not juggling new developmental milestones. You get to take what you built and turn it into habit through repetition. The behaviors that become automatic now, recall, door manners, handling tolerance, settle are the ones that will hold when adolescence adds pressure at 4 months.

✅Use this window strategically. Whatever’s solid now stays solid. Whatever’s shaky gets worse under adolescent testing. This is your chance to shore up the weak spots before hormones make everything harder.

✅You’ve already done the hardest part, navigating the fear imprint period and building foundation during the most sensitive developmental window. Now you’re just making sure it sticks.

🐾 Follow puppy program for confusion-free training

✅Day One Puppy Course
✅Adolescent Reset Course
✅Calm & Capable Course (teaching how to be alone)
✅Breeder/Trainer Course
✅FREE mini course: Should I Get a Puppy?
https://thesmartdog.co.za


15w

➡️The velcro puppy phase doesn’t last forever and it’s not supposed to. From 12 weeks the juvenile period brings a natur...
11/06/2026

➡️The velcro puppy phase doesn’t last forever and it’s not supposed to. From 12 weeks the juvenile period brings a natural increase in independence they venture further, stay gone longer, and get absorbed in smells and sights in a way they didn’t when the world still felt overwhelming.
Most owners panic when this happens and interpret it as the puppy getting harder to manage. It’s actually the opposite. A puppy who had no independence was getting their confidence from you because they hadn’t built any of their own yet. A puppy who starts to drift and explore is using confidence they built over the last four weeks. That’s the work paying off.

➡️What matters now is what happens when they drift. Do they check back in voluntarily? Do they respond when you call? Do they still orient to you in a new environment even when something interesting is nearby?

➡️Those are your markers.

➡️Recall being reliable when there’s nothing more interesting than you is not recall. It’s just a puppy with nothing better to do. Real recall gets tested now when there’s a smell, a movement, another dog, something rustling in the bushes. The puppies who come back reliably at 6 months didn’t learn that at 6 months. They built a history of check-ins being worth it starting right now.
Every voluntary check-in they offer is a training opportunity. Mark it, reward it, make it the best decision they made all day. Do that enough times and coming back to you becomes a habit before adolescence makes it harder.

✅Save this. And follow https://thesmartdog.co.za

✅Research from Duke University tracked puppy cognitive development from 8-20 weeks and found something that should chang...
10/06/2026

✅Research from Duke University tracked puppy cognitive development from 8-20 weeks and found something that should change how you think about everything before this point.

✅Self-control is the ability to override an impulse and choose a different behavior. One we all know puppies have a very hard time with. But good news it is getting better during this 12 -14 week stage.

That means the 9-week-old who couldn’t hold a sit for more than half a second wasn’t being difficult. The 10-week-old who launched at every distraction regardless of what you asked wasn’t ignoring you. Their brain genuinely could not override the impulse. The hardware wasn’t there yet.

✅At 12-14 weeks that changes. Not completely, as they still have their moments, but it is getting better. For the first time they can start to pause before reacting. Hold a position under mild distraction. Choose calm when something exciting happens nearby. These feel like small wins. They’re actually enormous developmental milestones.

✅What this means for training is that this is now the window to start building impulse control deliberately. Not through correction when they fail, but through setting up situations where they succeed at overriding an impulse and get a clear signal that the pause was the right choice.

✅Every successful repetition strengthens the circuit. Every time they practice the impulse unchecked, that circuit strengthens instead.

➡️The mistake most people make here is asking for too much too fast because they finally see capacity where there wasn’t any before. Emerging self-control is fragile. It’s the first thing to go under high arousal, fatigue, or big distractions. Keep criteria low enough that they succeed most of the time. Success builds the skill. Failure just practices the wrong thing.

Online puppy courses! visit https://thesmartdog.co.za

👉The research on the socialization window is consistent across decades of studies, the primary period closes somewhere b...
09/06/2026

👉The research on the socialization window is consistent across decades of studies, the primary period closes somewhere between 12 and 14 weeks.

👉What that means practically is that the neurological state that made your puppy naturally curious and less fearful of new things is shifting. Their brain is starting to treat unfamiliar things with more caution. That’s not a malfunction, it’s evolutionary. A dog that approaches everything fearlessly doesn’t survive. But it does mean your window of easy exposure is narrowing.

👉Here’s what people get wrong about this, they panic and try to cram everything in at once. More is not better. A puppy dragged through five overwhelming experiences in one weekend to “fill gaps” before the window closes doesn’t come out more confident. They come out more sensitized.

👉The standard doesn’t change just because time is running out. Calm observation. Short duration. Leave before it gets to be too much. You’re looking for a puppy who processes something new and returns to neutral, that’s your marker that the exposure was productive.

👉What still matters most at 12-14 weeks is anything that causes hesitation or avoidance. The things they’ve already experienced calmly are handled. Focus your remaining time on the gaps such as specific sounds, handling of particular body parts, types of surfaces, environments they’ll encounter regularly as adults.

👉After 14 weeks you can still socialize. It just costs more. Same outcome, more investment. Use the window you have left wisely.

👉👉Follow https://thesmartdog.co.za

➡️At 12 weeks something shifts. It’s not dramatic overnight but if you’re paying attention you’ll feel it they’re a litt...
08/06/2026

➡️At 12 weeks something shifts. It’s not dramatic overnight but if you’re paying attention you’ll feel it they’re a little less velcro, a little more independent, a little more likely to make a different choice than the one you wanted.

➡️That’s not a coincidence. The juvenile period beginning at 12 weeks is a documented developmental transition. The part of the brain responsible for self-control is coming online, which sounds like good news, and it is, but it also means they’re now capable of making deliberate choices in a way they weren’t before. Including deliberate choices you don’t love.

➡️What’s also happening is the socialization window is closing. From 3 to approximately 12-14 weeks, their brain was in a state where new things were processed with less fear and more curiosity than at any other point in their life. That window doesn’t slam shut overnight but it is narrowing. The exposures that happened easily at 9 weeks take more work now.

➡️Training capacity has genuinely increased though. Research from Duke University found that self-control reaches adult-like levels between 12-14 weeks meaning puppies at this age can start to override an impulse in a way younger puppies simply couldn’t. That’s why training that felt impossible at 8 weeks starts to stick now.
The next few weeks are about building on what you have before adolescence adds a whole new layer of complexity. What you practice now compounds. What you let slide now also compounds.

👉👉Follow https://thesmartdog.co.za


15w

➡️The confidence increasing at 11 weeks means they’re also developing opinions about what happens to their body. At 8 we...
07/06/2026

➡️The confidence increasing at 11 weeks means they’re also developing opinions about what happens to their body. At 8 weeks most puppies are fairly compliant they’re still orienting to a new world. By 11 weeks they have preferences. They’ll pull the paw back. Shake the ear out. Mouth your hands when you reach for the collar.

➡️This isn’t defiance. It’s a puppy who hasn’t fully learned yet that handling is safe, predictable, and worth being calm for.

➡️The goal isn’t to push through resistance it’s to never create enough pressure that resistance is their only option. You start small enough that calm is easy. One paw. One second of stillness. Release. That’s it.

➡️You’re building a history where handling always ends calmly, never in a struggle, so their nervous system learns there’s nothing to fight.

➡️Nail trims are where I see the most resistance at this age, and where most owners make it harder than it needs to be. At 11 weeks I’m not using dog nail clippers at all. I use human nail clippers and just take the very tips off. The blade is thinner, the cut is cleaner, and there’s far less pressure on the nail. Less pressure means less sensation, which means less reason to fight it. You’re not trying to do a full groom, you’re just building a history of calm, quick, and done. That’s the whole point right now.

➡️Where people go wrong is skipping the small steps and going straight to full nail trims before the puppy has any foundation for it.

➡️One second of calm today. Five seconds next week. A dog who holds still at the groomer by six months because you taught them calm was always the way out not struggle.

➡️All my online courses are at https://thesmartdog.co.za

👉Research on early puppyhood is consistent as it tells us what happens in the first 12 weeks has a bigger impact on how ...
06/06/2026

👉Research on early puppyhood is consistent as it tells us what happens in the first 12 weeks has a bigger impact on how a dog handles stress, novelty, and learning than almost anything that comes after. Not because of tricks or commands, because of how their nervous system learned to process the world.

👉The work you did from 8 to 11 weeks wasn’t just training. It was shaping how this dog experiences everything for the rest of their life. That’s not something you can replicate the same way later.

👉Which is why the chaos was worth it. The accidents, the mouthing, the management, the exhaustion you were doing real developmental work during the most important weeks of this dog’s life. That counts for more than whether their sit is reliable yet.

👉At week 11 you’re crossing into the juvenile phase. The imprint period closes, which means experiences won’t leave the same permanent mark but the patterns you’ve already built are compounding now. Consistency from here isn’t starting over. It’s collecting on everything you already deposited.

👉Don’t undersell what you’ve done. You made intentional choices during the window that mattered most. That shows up in who this dog becomes.

👉Are you just gettin a puppy? Take our online puppy course that you start the day you bring your puppy home to create that amazing foundation. Visit https://thesmartdog.co.za

👉There’s a difference between socialization and flooding, and at 11 weeks that difference matters more than almost anyth...
05/06/2026

👉There’s a difference between socialization and flooding, and at 11 weeks that difference matters more than almost anything else.

👉A puppy who sits with you on a bench near a busy sidewalk, watches the world, stays calm, and goes home relaxed? That’s socialization. A puppy who gets carried through a loud environment for an hour, gets rushed by strangers, and is overstimulated the whole time? That’s flooding. And flooding at this age doesn’t build resilience, it can build fear.

👉Overwhelming exposure before a puppy has the coping skills to process it sensitizes their nervous system. It doesn’t toughen them up. You’re not creating a confident dog, you’re creating one that learned the world is unpredictable and overwhelming.
What ready looks like at 11 weeks: quiet observation, short duration, calm exit. Five minutes where they stay relaxed is worth more than an hour of managed chaos. You’re looking for them to leave calmer than they arrived, that’s your measure of a good outing.

👉What not ready looks like: anything where you’re managing their reaction the whole time rather than letting them observe and process.

👉One overwhelming experience during this window can take months to undo. Control the variables. You choose the place, the interaction, and when it ends.

➡️Day One Puppy Course
Adolescent Reset Course
Breeder/Trainer Course
Calm & Capable (teaching how to be alone)
FREE mini course: Should I Get a Puppy?
https://thesmartdog.co.za

👉The “selective hearing” you’re seeing has a neurological explanation that changes how you respond to it.✅At 11 weeks, t...
04/06/2026

👉The “selective hearing” you’re seeing has a neurological explanation that changes how you respond to it.

✅At 11 weeks, the prefrontal cortex responsible for impulse control, decision-making, and voluntary compliance is among the last brain regions to develop. It won’t be fully mature until 2-3 years old in large breeds. What looks like ignoring you is often a puppy who heard the cue, started to respond, and got overridden by environmental input before the motor sequence completed.

👉This matters because punishment for non-compliance at this stage is neurologically inappropriate. You’re punishing a puppy for a brain that DOESN’T exist yet.

✅What works instead is reduce competing reinforcement. If they’re ignoring your recall because a smell is more interesting, you haven’t practiced it in that level of distraction yet. Back up your criteria. Make compliance the easiest available option, not a battle of wills you won’t win.

✅Consistency isn’t about enforcement. It’s about predictability. Puppies whose environments are predictable learn faster because they’re not wasting cognitive resources on uncertainty.

👉The habits you allow at 11 weeks don’t become problems at 6 months because puppies are stubborn (because they aren’t). They become problems because you practiced them 400 times.

✅Day One Puppy Course
✅Adolescent Reset Course
✅Breeder/Trainer Course
✅NEW: Calm & Capable Course (teaching how to be alone)
✅FREE mini course: Should I get a Puppy?

All at https://thesmartdog.co.za

👉At 11 weeks their brain is literally becoming faster. The nerve pathways that were forming at 8 weeks are now more effi...
03/06/2026

👉At 11 weeks their brain is literally becoming faster. The nerve pathways that were forming at 8 weeks are now more efficient, which is why behaviors that looked random a few weeks ago are starting to look intentional.

👉The boldness you’re seeing is part of the same process. The part of the brain that drives exploration and reward seeking develops before the part that controls impulse and judgment. So you get a puppy who is brave enough to try everything and not wise enough to know what’s a bad idea. That’s not a training problem. That’s just where they are developmentally.

👉Your job right now isn’t to stop the confidence, it’s to set up an environment where they can’t make catastrophic mistakes while they figure it out.
The other thing happening this week is the fear imprint window is closing. From 8 to 11 weeks, negative experiences leave a deeper mark than they will at any other point in their life. What they’ve been exposed to calmly and positively is now wiring their normal. You can’t go back and redo those weeks cheaply later.

👉Whatever gaps exist in their exposure, sounds, surfaces, people, handling, now is still your best window to fill them.

✅Online or physical puppy school start as soon as they come home! visit https://thesmartdog.co.za

Address

Benoni
Johannesburg

Telephone

+27812704672

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Dog Training Johannesburg posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Dog Training Johannesburg:

Shortcuts

Share

Category