Dog Training & Care Guides

Practical, force-free guides from the team behind PupPlan — written to actually solve the problem, whether or not you use the app. From your puppy's first week to recall, reactivity, feeding and enrichment. New guides are added regularly.

🐶 Puppy Basics

Just brought home a puppy? Start here — the essentials for the first few months.

New Puppy Checklist: Your First Week

What to buy, how to puppy-proof, surviving the first day and night, and the early routine that sets everything up right.

9 min read · Puppy Basics

How to Potty Train a Puppy

A step-by-step house-training plan: routine, confinement, reading the signs, handling accidents, and a realistic timeline by age.

9 min read · Puppy Basics

Crate Training a Puppy

Build a puppy who loves their crate — the right size, the introduction steps, night-times, and what to do about whining, without flooding.

8 min read · Puppy Basics

How to Stop Puppy Biting and Mouthing

Why puppies bite, teaching bite inhibition, what to do the moment teeth touch skin, and managing the evening "witching hour".

8 min read · Puppy Basics

Puppy Socialisation: A Complete Checklist

What socialisation really means, the critical window, and a checklist of sounds, surfaces and people — done safely before vaccinations are complete.

8 min read · Puppy Basics

🎯 Training & Manners

The everyday skills that make life with a dog calmer and easier.

Clicker Training for Beginners

How to charge the clicker, mark behaviours with perfect timing, avoid the classic beginner mistakes, and fade the clicker out.

7 min read · Training Basics

How to Teach Sit, Down & Stay

Teach the foundation cues with luring and marker training — plus the three Ds and a reliable release cue that makes "stay" stick.

8 min read · Training & Manners

How to Train a Reliable Recall

Build a rock-solid "come when called": choosing a cue, charging it, long-line work, proofing against distractions, and recall games.

9 min read · Training & Manners

How to Stop Leash Pulling

Why dogs pull, the right equipment, the "be a tree" and "reward the slack" techniques, and turning sniffing into a reward.

8 min read · Training & Manners

How to Stop Jumping Up

Why dogs jump, removing the attention reward, teaching a polite "four-on-the-floor" greeting, and managing the front door.

7 min read · Training & Manners

Teach "Leave It" & "Drop It"

Two life-saving cues taught with trades and rewards — so your dog gives up dangerous things instead of guarding them.

8 min read · Training & Manners

10 Easy Dog Tricks to Teach

Step-by-step, force-free instructions for shake, spin, roll over, high five, bow and more — fun that builds focus.

9 min read · Training & Manners

🧩 Behaviour & Fears

Force-free help for the trickier stuff — reactivity, anxiety, barking and the teenage phase.

How to Help a Leash-Reactive Dog

Why dogs bark and lunge on lead, finding the threshold distance, desensitisation and counter-conditioning, and the "look at that" game.

9 min read · Behaviour & Fears

How to Help a Dog with Separation Anxiety

Spotting true separation anxiety, building independence, the absence-training ladder, and when to involve a vet or behaviourist.

9 min read · Behaviour & Fears

How to Stop Excessive Barking

Identify the type of bark — alert, demand, boredom, fear — and the right fix for each, plus why anti-bark collars backfire.

8 min read · Behaviour & Fears

How to Desensitize Your Dog to Fireworks

A sound desensitization and counter-conditioning protocol for fireworks fear — plus how to survive fireworks night itself.

7 min read · Behaviour & Fears

Surviving the Teenage Dog Phase

Why your once-perfect puppy seems to forget everything in adolescence — and a calm, force-free survival plan to get through it.

8 min read · Behaviour & Fears

How to Read Your Dog's Body Language

Tail, ears, eyes and posture — the calming and stress signals that warn of a bite, and why a wag isn't always friendly.

8 min read · Behaviour & Fears

How to Calm a Hyper Dog

Why more exercise often makes it worse — and how sleep, settle training and calming enrichment actually help.

8 min read · Behaviour & Fears

Cooperative Care: Vet & Grooming

Teach your dog to willingly take part in nail trims, grooming and vet exams using consent and rewards, not restraint.

9 min read · Behaviour & Fears

❤️ Health & Nutrition

Keep your dog healthy, fed right, and on schedule.

Puppy Vaccination Schedule

A clear, vet-guided timeline: core vs non-core vaccines, when puppies can safely go outside, boosters, and worming and flea timing.

8 min read · Health & Nutrition

How Much Should I Feed My Dog?

Why the bag's guidelines are only a start, how daily calories are worked out, body condition score, and the 10% rule for treats.

8 min read · Health & Nutrition

Caring for a Senior Dog

When dogs become senior, the health changes to watch for, joint and weight management, and keeping body and mind active.

9 min read · Health & Nutrition

Keeping Your Dog Safe in Hot Weather

Spotting heatstroke, emergency first aid, the pavement test, and how to keep your dog cool and safe in summer.

8 min read · Health & Nutrition

My Dog Won't Eat: What to Do

Fussiness vs illness, the red flags that mean see a vet now, and what you can safely try at home.

8 min read · Health & Nutrition

🧠 Play & Enrichment

Tire the brain, not just the legs — enrichment is how you get a calmer dog.

15 Dog Enrichment Ideas to Beat Boredom

Easy nose work, food puzzles, foraging and training games — most using things you already own — to tire your dog's brain.

8 min read · Play & Enrichment

Why Do Dogs Love Squeaky Toys?

The science behind the squeak, how to use it as a training tool for focus and recall, and helping a dog who loves squeaks too much.

6 min read · Play & Enrichment

How Much Exercise Does My Dog Need?

How much exercise by age and breed, why mental exercise counts just as much, and the puppy over-exercise trap.

8 min read · Play & Enrichment

Put the Guides into Practice

PupPlan turns these techniques into guided courses with step-by-step lessons, homework, and progress tracking — plus a built-in clicker, squeak toy, dog whistle, and desensitization sound library. Free 3-day trial.