🐾 Week 8 Puppy Guide
8 Week Old Puppy Training: What to Work On This Week
Week 8 is about one thing: building trust and installing the foundational communication tools. Your puppy is in a critical socialization window that closes at 12 weeks. Every calm, positive experience you create now shapes the dog's emotional baseline for life. Keep sessions short (3–5 minutes), end before they check out, and make every rep feel like winning.
What's happening this week
Your puppy just arrived — here's what's actually happening
Eight weeks is the age most puppies leave their litter and join their new family. It's also one of the most sensitive developmental windows in a dog's life. Between weeks 8 and 12, your puppy's brain is actively mapping what is safe, scary, and normal. Every interaction — every surface, sound, person, and animal they meet with a positive outcome — becomes wired as baseline safe. Everything they miss becomes potentially threatening.
This doesn't mean you need to expose your puppy to 500 things in the first week. It means quality matters more than quantity: calm, positive, never-overwhelming. Your job this week is not to train behaviors — it's to build the emotional foundation that makes all future training possible.
That said, there are three behaviors worth introducing in week 8: their name, a marker word, and basic handling acceptance. These aren't arbitrary — they're the communication infrastructure everything else runs on. A puppy who reliably orients to their name and understands that a specific sound means "treat incoming" will learn every subsequent behavior faster and with less frustration.
Skills to work on
3 skills for week 8
Name Recognition
Say the puppy's name once, calmly, and reward the moment they look at you. No repetition — saying the name three times teaches them to ignore the first two. One say, one look, one reward. This is the foundation of every recall you will ever do.
Marker Word (Yes / Clicker)
Pick one marker: a clicker or the word "Yes" (not both). Say the marker, immediately deliver a treat. Repeat. You are charging the marker — pairing the sound with food until the sound itself produces happy anticipation. This marker becomes your precision tool for marking the exact behavior you want.
Handling & Gentle Touch
Touch paws, ears, mouth, and collar area briefly, then reward. Start with 1-second touches; build to 3 seconds. A puppy that accepts handling calmly will be safer at the vet, easier to groom, and less reactive about being touched unexpectedly. This is injury and bite prevention built in week 8.
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Start This Week with FetchCoach →Sample training session
Sample 5-minute training session
Run this as one complete session, once or twice per day. Tiny treats (pea-sized). End the session while your puppy is still engaged — don't push to the point of distraction or shutdown.
Warm up: Marker charging (1 minute)
10 rapid repetitions: say "Yes" (or click), immediately deliver treat. No behavior needed — you're just establishing the marker. Keep it fast, keep it happy.
1 minName game (1.5 minutes)
Say your puppy's name once. The moment they look at you — mark and treat. If they don't look, don't repeat the name. Wait 5 seconds, try again. Do 8–10 reps. Move slightly between reps so they have to find you.
1.5 minHandling (1.5 minutes)
With your puppy calmly beside you, touch one paw for 1 second — mark and treat. Touch the other paw — mark and treat. Briefly touch one ear, then the other. Keep your movements slow and deliberate. If your puppy mouths your hand, pause and wait for them to release before rewarding.
1.5 minCool down: free reward (30 seconds)
Toss 3–4 treats on the floor and let your puppy sniff them out. This decompresses their brain and ends the session on a relaxed, positive note. Say "all done" and release.
30 secCommon mistakes this week
What to avoid in week 8
Using the name to stop bad behavior
"Puppy, NO!" uses their name as a warning. Once a name is repeatedly paired with corrections or interruptions, the dog starts to hesitate before responding — associating their name with something unpleasant coming. Reserve the name exclusively for positive orienting responses, especially in week 8.
Sessions longer than 5 minutes
An 8-week-old puppy has approximately 2–5 minutes of focused attention before their brain checks out. Sessions that run too long produce a frustrated trainer and a puppy that has learned to disengage from training. When your puppy starts sniffing the floor, yawning, or wandering — that's the end of the session, not a problem to push through.
Repeating cues your puppy ignores
If you say "sit sit sit" or repeat the name three times before getting a response, you're teaching them that the first cue is optional. One cue, one opportunity to respond, reward or reset. This is the hardest habit for new owners to break because it feels rude to say something only once. It's not — it's the only thing that produces reliability.
Vet & health watch
Age-specific red flags
Not eating or dramatically reduced appetite for more than 24 hours after arriving home — stress can suppress appetite initially, but complete food refusal warrants a call to your vet.
Loose stools for more than 48 hours — can indicate stress, diet change, or parasites picked up at the breeder or shelter. Bring a stool sample to your first vet visit.
Lethargy beyond normal puppy sleep cycles — puppies sleep 16–18 hours per day, but when awake should be alert and engaged. Persistent dullness or unresponsiveness is not normal adjustment.
Discharge from eyes or nose — clear discharge can be normal; yellow or green is not. Respiratory symptoms in a very young puppy should be seen promptly.
Vomiting more than once in a 24-hour window — especially combined with lethargy. Your puppy cannot afford to get dehydrated.