Usually in my blog posts, I share with you my best tips and advice for training your puppy. But, what I hear time and again from my training clients in real life is that it’s really useful to hear about where I went wrong with my own dog. So I thought today I would share with you my biggest puppy regrets.
If you’ve followed us on socials or read our blog for any period of time, you’ll be familiar with Duke Silver. Duke is 8, as of February 2026 and is a working lines Springer cross Cocker Spaniel. I often refer to Duke as my teacher dog- which is really a polite way of saying he’s been a massive pain in my butt over the years! He’s quite a complex dog behaviourally and has some physical health issues too. But, most of the issues I’m still working through nowadays with Duke stem from things I should have noticed and addressed when he was a puppy.
Puppy Regrets
So up first on my list of biggest puppy regrets is thinking that my puppy would grow out of the problems I was having with him. In the past 7 years I’ve worked with thousands of puppies. Across all the breeds I’ve worked with, there’s only one behaviour I would say every puppy grows out of eventually, regardless of training. That’s puppy biting. And that’s because a lot of puppy biting comes from them teething, so once that’s finished the biting tends to remedy itself.
But every other puppy problem? Yeah, they take work to improve. Peeing and pooping in the house? Toilet Training. Destroying stuff? Probably bored and needing an outlet. Pulling on the lead? Doesn’t know how to walk calmly on a lead yet- more training needed.
For Duke specifically, I thought he would grow out of hating being home alone. He didn’t. And honestly, he never really has. Because I’d always had dogs that were fine left at home, I just figured Duke would get used to it. Sure, I built up his time alone, but the time periods I left him for were far too long. I started with 10 minutes and I really should have started with 10 seconds! Separation anxiety is still now, 8 years on, our biggest struggle with Duke. I truly believe that if I had recognised what was happening- and not assumed he’d grow out of it- he may not find it so hard to be home alone nowadays.
So, if you’re struggling with something with your puppy, whatever it may be, and you’re thinking ‘oh, they’ll just grow out of it, surely?’. Think twice. It might seem like more work right now, but it’s always easier to help a puppy learn something when they’re still young. The longer you leave it, the more of a problem it will become and the harder it will be to change. Especially if they hate being left home alone!
The fun stuff
Next up in my list of puppy regrets is spending too much time on the fun stuff and not enough on the boring, but important, stuff. I absolutely love training the fun stuff! Give me agility, games and trick training all day long. One of the reasons we got Duke in the first place was because I wanted a dog who would enjoy doing that sort of training. Over the years we’ve had a great time and won several awards for our trick training.
You know what I didn’t enjoy so much? Getting him used to being handled at the vets. Grooming. Getting him used to wearing a harness and lead. Leaving him home alone for very short periods of time… The boring stuff! But not doing this critical work has come back to bite me so many times. Duke absolutely hates the vets, so much so that he has to be sedated for even the most minor of treatments. It’s incredibly stressful (and expensive!) for everyone involved. And it almost certainly could have been prevented by spending time on it as a puppy.
It’s so easy to think that these things won’t be any issue for your puppy. Sure, you might be lucky and never work on these things and just end up with a dog who tolerates grooming and handling anyway. But it’s not something I’ll ever leave to chance with another puppy. So, I don’t regret doing the fun stuff. But, I sure do regret not doing the boring work now.
The wrong kind of exercise
Lastly, one of my biggest puppy regrets is over-exercising my puppy. Or, more accurately, inappropriately exercising my pup. I honestly think that if I had known then what I know now, I may well have prevented the signs of arthritis I now see regularly in Duke. I did what so many people do with their puppies. I stuck to what I thought were age appropriate time limits for walks. But, then I came home and would throw the ball for ages, getting him to chase and retrieve it along slippery wooden floors. I now know that it’s the ball throwing on the slippery floors that may well have caused damage to his still developing joints.
If I were to get a puppy again now, I would do longer walks but ditch the ball throwing almost completely. I have an article about whether playing fetch is bad for your dog here, if you’re interested. It may be hard to imagine your puppy getting old and stiff whilst you’re still working through biting, toilet training and other typical puppy problems. But age they will, and prevention is always better than a cure. The fantastic organisation canine arthritis management has some really useful information on preventing arthritis that’s worth a read whilst they’re still young.
Bonus regret
Last but not least, I have one major regret from before even bringing Duke home. I truly did not do enough research on the breed I was bringing home. I didn’t look into whether it was the right breed for my lifestyle and whether I was prepared for common spaniel problems. I didn’t do enough research on a decent breeder either. I spotted a litter available locally on a website and we had Duke home with us within 48 hours of seeing that post! That’s exactly what not to do when you’re thinking about getting a puppy…
Of course, Duke is a big part of our family now and we couldn’t imagine life without him. But we could have saved him and us a lot of stress and difficulty over the years by doing our research beforehand.
What next?
- Need one-to-one help with your puppy? Book in a call with Laura here to discuss training.
- Read more blog posts here.
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