Teaching Your Dog Good Manners In the Backyard

by Heidi Atwood

You may be lucky enough to have an outside area for your puppy to explore and play in, and this can be a wonderful place for a puppy to have fun. However, turning a puppy loose in a yard can lead to some unwanted habits or even safety concerns that you will not want to continue, such as picking up or eating things your puppy finds on the ground, digging, and barking at distractions. 

When bringing a puppy to your yard, keeping them with you on a leash for the first weeks or months will give you the opportunity to monitor their behavior, reward good choices, and help them learn how to handle more freedom in the yard…later on. If a fence does not enclose your yard, you can use a long, lightweight leash to give the puppy a sense of freedom to run and play, while you have the ability to keep them close to you while they are learning the rules of the yard, and allow more room to run and play when they handle it well. Using a long leash can give your puppy a sense of freedom yet will enable you to reel them in if they aren’t handling that freedom well. 

Puppies explore their whole world with their noses and mouths. They are also tempted to pick items up that they shouldn’t, including potentially dangerous items such as rocks or random things they discover. By supervising your puppy closely, you can direct their attention to something more rewarding and fun. One of the first cues I teach a puppy is “Leave it”, followed by “Drop it”. These cues are taught in Lessons 2.9 and 2.14 of the Basic Training Program. I want to teach my puppies to ignore certain items on the ground and to drop them on cue if they do pick up something they shouldn’t have. You can even bring samples of the items you want your puppy to learn to ignore inside, to work on them specifically and in a less distracting area. 

If your puppy is persistent, keep visits outside quite short at first, increasing the length of time allowed in the yard gradually. 

Digging is a natural instinct for a dog, and one that they find immensely fun! However, creating holes in the lawn is not something that we usually want to continue, so this is a behavior that you will want to interrupt every time, and redirect your puppy to a better choice. Bringing out a favorite toy and/or some food rewards is helpful for distraction. Puppies have very short attention spans, and this is a time when that comes in handy. Digging is another behavior for which you can use the cue “Leave it” to teach your puppy that it is more rewarding to ignore areas they are interested in digging.

Barking at other dogs, neighbors, birds, squirrels, and other distractions can be annoying, and a puppy might consider this a fun game unless we help them learn that it is more rewarding to NOT bark or react to these sights and sounds. This can be done by spending time with your puppy in the yard, ready to reward them before they have a chance to bark any time you hear or see something they might react to. Giving distance from exciting things that they see is helpful. For example, if your puppy can see your neighbor in their yard and is overly excited, take them farther away or even watch from a window inside your home so that you can reward calmness. There is usually a distance at which a puppy feels too far away to become reactive, so use this distance to encourage calmness and move closer to the trigger as your puppy handles it. 

You can help your puppy consider the exciting sounds of the outside world more normal by using sound desensitization. Look up youtube videos of the sounds of creatures, dogs barking in the distance, traffic, and any sounds that you think your puppy might bark at, play them randomly and frequently, starting at a low volume. Reward your puppy for listening calmly, and increase the volume gradually, so that these noises become regular sounds to the puppy. 

Sometimes, distractions will be very hard for a puppy to ignore, such as hearing another dog on the opposite side of the fence. Keep these socialization experiences fairly short, and remove the puppy from the area if it gets too hard for them to handle, and try again later. 

Doing some normal and positive activities in the yard with your puppy is a great way to show them that good things happen in this space. Playing, training sessions, body handling, and other rewarding activities can help a puppy consider the yard a positive environment where normal activities happen. Even sitting on a patio chair cuddling can be a fun and positive, yet calm activity. 

You can help your puppy learn to entertain themselves in the yard by providing fun toys and even mentally stimulating stuffed kongs, lick mats, and similar items that will encourage calmness. We want your puppy to enjoy their time outside, but also prevent unwanted habits that can become long-term annoyances, not only for you, but for your entire neighborhood. 

If you don’t have a fenced yard, you can teach a puppy to respect their boundaries. We have a blog post dedicated to boundary training: https://www.baxterandbella.com/post/boundary-training-for-your-dog. 

Even if you don’t have your own outdoor space for your puppy to explore, these methods can be used when visiting parks, other people’s homes and other public spaces. Go ahead and get outside - and have fun with your puppy!