House Training

It is crucial to start training and socialization when your dog is a puppy to prevent unpleasant habits from forming. Enroll your Appenzeller puppy in puppy kindergarten /obedience classes and expose your puppy to different people, other dogs, and various locations as much as possible to boost its comfort and confidence around strangers. This will help prevent any overly suspicious or aggressive behavior they may display towards strangers later on in life.

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Early training includes showing your puppy where to ‘eliminate’.  For this, you must take your puppy to a designated spot in your back yard or another area where it is acceptable to pee and poop. This can help prevent a lot of cleanup at home.

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Always use positive-reinforcement training methods, such as treats and praise. And keep training sessions fun and varied to hold your dog’s attention.

 

Appenzellers are an extremely intelligent breed and can learn new tasks quickly. However, they are also capable of independent thinking and require owners that can demonstrate loving but firm leadership, consistently. If an owner is meek or unsure, these dogs can quickly assume the role of the pack leader and start trying to dictate terms. This can be dangerous considering how strong an Appenzeller can be. For this reason, Appenzellers are not recommended as a dog breed for first-time owners.​​