Alone-time training. Few things are more important to teach a city pup. Even puppy parents who work from home occasionally like to leave the house, right? Shop? Go to a movie? Well, dogs are social creatures and quite territorial, too. Make sure your puppy doesn’t grow up to fear and dislike being alone—or gets into the habit of barking vigorously at passers-by or neighbors. Being calm and comfortable when home alone is a learned skill and you can’t start early enough.

Bite inhibition. This is exactly what it sounds like: Teaching your puppy not to bite down so hard with those sharp baby teeth. Remember, puppies are born to chew. For the first year of their lives, they think of little else. To chew is to explore. To chew is to play. To chew is to feel good. Chewing is a natural and healthy dog behavior, but unless your puppy learns to control the force of his jaws, he’s going to get into all manner of trouble. Your hands will be scarred from play biting, for example. Your slippers will be munched, your newspaper shredded. And the other dogs at the park won’t want to play with the rough kid.

Your puppy learns bite inhibition from you (take one of our classes and learn how) and through play with other puppies (enroll him in daycare—the perfect place to learn this skill). What’s more, you can’t teach this vital skill to a grown dog, it has to be part of early learning.

Crate training. Your puppy’s crate should be her favorite place in the world, a safe and comfortable haven. Why? Because crates are fabulous management tools. They’re useful for house-training, transport, brief alone-time, settling, and they give your dog a cozy spot to hang out if the Super Bowl party gets a little overwhelming. But your puppy isn’t born with a strong love for spending time in a padded fiberglass box. You have to create and continually encourage this preference with treats, toys, and fun outings. (For example, driving to playgroup or puppy social in a crate links the crate and the soon-to-follow playtime in your puppy’s mind: Getting into my crate means good things will happen. Ergo, I like my crate.) In our classes, we’ll teach you how to crate train your puppy in gentle, easy steps.

Chewing. Nothing is more natural to puppies than to chew. In fact, it’s a confident puppy’s response to most things—food, toys, playmates. A sniff, maybe a lick, then straight to chewing or play biting. The snag is that everything looks like food, a toy, or a playmate to a puppy: Couch cushions, Christmas decorations, socks, furniture legs, electric cords, other puppies’ ears, and your fingers, to name but a few. But despair not. Daily exercise and a little careful training will soon have your puppy chewing only on sanctioned chew toys. And one of the great side effects of our daycare program and puppy socials is that puppies learn bite inhibition and learn to tell floppy ears from fluffy toys.

Digging. What can we say? Dogs dig. Some more than others, granted, but every dog has the potential to fall in love with this quintessentially canine pastime. Does living with a terrier mix, for example, mean the end of growing plants in your house or having lovely flower beds in your yard? Absolutely not. Ample exercise and mental stimulation can dampen even the most enthusiastic digger’s tendencies. The rest can be trained to be directed in appropriate ways.

Handling. Ideally, your puppy should love, love, love to be touched. At an absolute minimum, your puppy should be fine with it. Why? For one thing, you want to be able to safely handle your pooch throughout her lifetime in countless situations. You’re the one who has to check her for ticks after a hike in the forest. Or yank the chicken bone she just found on the street from her mouth. And then there’s everyone else: Groomers, vets, friends, children at the park. While most puppies are tolerant of and even eager for cuddles, they all have to be patiently and gently taught to accept and actively like handling of paws, ears, mouth, and so on.

Impulse control. Puppies are not exactly known for patience. When your puppy wants something, which is most of the time, he’ll go for it. He’ll jump on people he wants to greet, try to get at the coffee table cookies, pull on his leash to get to an alluring tree, bark for you to throw the ball, and lunge at the treat you were planning to use as a reward for sitting. Some of this is downright cute in a little puppy. Less so in a grown dog—regardless of size. A toy poodle barking incessantly for his tennis ball is no more appealing than a Lab mix dragging you down the street while on leash.

What’s the remedy? Teaching your puppy to control his impulses. It’s a job that begins the very first time you successfully reward him for sitting or keeping his paws on the floor when greeting you. But there are many inventive ways to practice and solidify this important skill. Take our training classes to learn some.

Long-term confinement area. A dog-proofed area in your home where your puppy can spend more time than in a crate. For example, an ex-pen or a section of your kitchen closed off with a baby gate. In here, your puppy should have a bed or crate, water, food, his self-entertainment toys, and, at the other end of the area, a newspaper or ‘piddle pad’ for going potty.

Nuisance barking. Dogs bark for a number of reasons. To guard territory, to ask for something, or out of frustration when they can’t get to something they want. Nuisance barking—also known as boredom barking—happens when a dog who doesn’t get enough exercise or mental stimulation is left alone. Having a nuisance barker is unfortunate anywhere, but especially so for doggie parents in a crowded city like San Francisco. Most houses stand very close together, and in apartment buildings? Forget it. Plus, a bored dog is not a happy dog.

As with so many behavior problems, the answer is exercise and stimulation. Get your puppy good and tired. Walk him several times a day. Teach him to fetch and play tug. Take him to a puppy social for an hour-long play session. Consider daycare or hiring a dog walker.

Under-stimulation. Puppies are not people. They don’t read the newspaper or watch TV while you’re at work. Your puppy needs daily physical and mental workouts to thrive and learn good manners. Otherwise, boredom and excess energy will have him tearing through the house, chewing the tassels off the Oriental rug, barking, whining, or digging through your potted plants. And he’s not being naughty. He’s being a puppy.

Aside from vigorous exercise and playtime with other dogs, training sessions with your puppy provide valuable stimulation. Having to pay attention to you and learn new skills is wonderfully exhausting for small puppy brains. So are puzzle toys or digging one’s dinner out of a Kong little by little. In our classes, puppy parents learn to enrich their pup’s life easily and enjoyably—and the stimulation pups get in our daycare sends them home happy, tired, and much more likely to be well-mannered.