First of all, I would like to explain to you, who you are dealing with. The Tibetan Mastiff is an unsurpassed and strong leader making all its decisions exclusively on its own.

This is the most important point that you should be well aware of starting your joint journey.

What does a well-bred Tibetan Mastiff look like? And what to strive for in raising your puppy?

          It is strong, brave, proud and incredibly smart. A dog that carries its dignity high and does not tolerate familiarity from strangers. It is friendly and independent! It seems it does not notice strangers, which is falsely allows them to think that the dog is supposedly always cute and cuddly. But, it is not true. Despite its complete calmness, it is always ready to defend its family with lightning speed and ferociously. The Tibetan Mastiff is the universe and the space, which is not possible to explore to the fullest extent.

How can we then raise our puppy, having touched this incredible creation of nature, without harming or spoiling it?

The secret of success in raising a baby puppy lies in mutual love and respect! Now it seems to you that this small, funny baby puppy, which is finally next to you, having overcome a huge distance, will always be like that. However, it’s not true! The puppy grows very quickly, absorbing everything that happens in its surrounding. And very soon this baby, still weighing 50 kilograms, may become difficult for you to control. Only its respect towards you should become that very secret lever for controlling the baby.

What does this respect start with? The answer is simple. This respect starts with you!

From childhood, a puppy needs to be shown that it can unconditionally trust you and that you respect its opinion. However, here it is very important not to confuse all this with all-permissiveness!!!

 “I love you! I definitely respect your opinion! But, you will do what I want!” How do you like that?

Here is a portrait of a well-bred Tibetan Mastiff. )) We remember that the Tibetan Mastiff always makes its own decisions. Therefore, if the dog is brought up correctly, it will see everything through your eyes, and its decisions will most times satisfy you. What is most important, simple change of your voice intonation will let the puppy understand that you would like it to change its decision. You understand that if your dog at the age of 2 years, weighing 60-70 kg, decides to catch up with a cat, you cannot stop him. What if there are 2 dogs? What if the cat runs across a busy road? And what if instead of a cat there will be someone else’s child?

Now you understand how important it is for you to teach a puppy, and most importantly, learn how to interact properly with your baby puppy. Now you understand how little time you have for all this. After all, how much does your baby weigh today? 35 already? 40? You have a lot of work ahead!

Try to show immediately the puppy everything and indicate the limits and boundaries that it should not go beyond. For example, a puppy is not allowed under any circumstances to bite the owner or growl at him or her. Subsequently, you will ensure that the puppy would listen to you unquestioningly. However, please remember, that a Tibetan Mastiff is not a service dog! The Tibetan Mastiff must hear what you want from it and then decide on its own whether to do it or not. Here we must take into account that the puppy needs a small amount of time. After all, it does not want to do what you said, but apparently, it will have to. Try to make sure that you always have a puppy treat in your pocket. We are not talking about table feeding. It is a taboo! Each time the puppy approaches you at your request or makes a right decision, give it a treat. And praise! This will allow it to understand very quickly what you like and what behaviour you expect from it.

Please also remember that the Tibetan Mastiff cannot be forced, but it can be negotiated with! It seems to be testing you for strength and compliance with its ideas about you. It seems to determine for itself which of two of you is the leader. And when it feels and understands that you are the leader, it will be ready to follow you through life. And we are not talking here about the execution of commands and impeccable listening, with such a development of events, all this, will definitely happen. We are talking about the super trust that a dog will give you. Having such a relationship, you can even be launched into space together.

This recognition must be achieved through love, kindness, positive interaction and encouragement. Be careful! Cruelty and violence are strictly prohibited! You cannot even imagine what your dog is capable of if pushed into a corner by a manifestation of cruelty.

However, there may be another option. The puppy will feel your weak point. And I do not mean the dimensions. It will feel the weakness of the spirit, uncertainty in making decisions, confusion, and weakness. And you know what your dog will do? It will take full responsibility for you. Having perceived itself as the eldest in the family, it will begin to educate you. What should you wait in this case for? It would be an uncontrollable dog that drags you along on a leash at different speeds from one bush to another; a dog that will not allow you to feel comfortable and confident when together in public. The decisions made by your puppy will be unexpected and unpredictable for you. Going to a busy city instead of pleasure, furore and admiration of others from the power and beauty of your baby puppy will bring huge stress for you.

Now you have a clean slate. Now you start writing your story, and each word in this story will depend on the path you choose. Please also remember that there are no bad, stupid and harmful dogs. There are people that are not able to build interaction and communication with an animal in a proper way.

Now let us discuss directly the commands that help to quickly interact with the puppy and feel great next to it in public. Remember, the dog must always understand what you want from it. With this purpose, you need to talk to it! Sometimes it would take hours to tell it something important. However, when interacting, the words should be clear with the appropriate intonation.

Each family, depending on its members, the lifestyle of the owners, the desire and ability to travel with a dog, etc., will have their own daily set of commands. I do not want to impose on you my vision of the necessary, so-called strategic reserve. However, using the example of one command, I will show you a scheme that will make the learning process quick and understandable for the baby puppy.

           The scheme of all commands is simple: Name (we draw the attention of the puppy to ourselves), a command (one or more clearly pronounced words) and impact. What is the impact? It can be anything. If the puppy complied with the command, it is a treat and praise. If the puppy did not follow the command, you need to provoke it to fulfil your wish. There are a million ways and tricks here.

And the impact in case you did not manage by cunning to make the puppy decide to follow your command.

Remember, we strive to ensure that almost every your request would be fulfilled by your own decision to fulfil it. ))

For example, the command “Come to me” implies that the puppy has time to think and decide whether you need it. Only when it sincerely believes you, it will do it. To accelerate this process, feed the puppy with a treat and praise it if it makes the right decision. A puppy will not perform the same action over and over at your command just to please you. The Tibetan Mastiff is not a clockwork doll and not a service dog mindlessly following orders. The Tibetan Mastiff is a companion, friend, personality, and the space, for which the mere receipt of a 20-fold “Sit” order from you is already humiliating. It will do everything you need and everything so that you were calm and felt good next to it. It is your friend!

One more very important point in raising a puppy: we definitely stop any manifestations of aggression in the baby! I will talk about the aggression of the baby puppy in my next article.