When you get a new dog or puppy, puppy training should start right away. It is one of the most crucial steps in both bonding with your dog and ensuring that it behaves. Training itself has the following benefits to your dog:

• Teaches your dog that you are the alpha of the pack.

• Ensures that your dog is using its brain.

• Allows you to spend more time with your dog.

• Raises your dog's self-esteem.

Clearly there is a lot of benefit to dog training in general, especially when you first let your dog into your home. Below are the first dog tricks you should train your dog and the reason they are beneficial.

First Dog Tricks

• Dog's Name

You should always start by teaching your dog its name. To do this, you must take a handful of treats, say your dog's name and give your dog a treat. Your dog should fully understand that when you call out to it you are expecting it to respond, and when it does respond it gets love and a great reward.

• Sit

Next you should train your dog to sit. Sit is useful because it works as a starting point for a variety of other tricks. It also is one of the best ways to keep your dog calm and collected, especially when you need your dog to leave you or your guests alone.

• Come

Next you should train your dog to come on command. This is vital for your dog's safety. The better your dog understands the "come" command, the more likely you will be able to call your dog away from danger.

• Stay/Wait

Stay and Wait are both separate commands. "Stay" refers to the position that your dog is in. Teaching your dog to stay is a great way to ensure that your dog doesn't go running into danger or become too hyperactive when guests or other dogs are around. "Wait" is useful as well. Wait is essentially the "stay" command, except that you train your dog by the door. Your dog will learn that when you yell "Wait" your dog should stay put instead of running out of an open door.

• Leave It

Finally, you should also train your dog in the "leave it" trick. "Leave It" is when you teach your dog to keep something on the ground and ignore it instead of putting it in their mouth. You want your dog to learn the "leave it" technique so that you can ensure that it does not eat anything dangerous, such as when you spill chocolate on the floor.

Additional Tricks to Follow Up With

Once you have trained in those basic tricks, you can follow up with some less useful but still no less important tricks:

• Down – Down is essentially the same trick as "sit" but not quite as useful.

• Off – Off is a good trick if you do not want to let your dog on your furniture or need to find a way to get your dog to stop jumping on you.

There are a number of other tricks that you can train your dog. You can train your dog to bark on command or bring you the leash. You can train your dog to high five or go inside of its crate on command. There is no limit to the number of different tricks you can train your pet.

However, it is important that you at least start out with the basic tricks listed above as early as possible. The sooner you train your dog with those tricks, the more well behaved and loyal they will be.