Well. No. No it isnt.
As soon as puppies are born, they are learning. Mom teaches appropriate play as soon as they are able to interact socially with their siblings and herself. Mothers nip, and growl to teach their worldly wisdom to their babies, and the other litter mates learn to communicate with each other too.
As soon as we get a puppy we can start training. Obviously we dont need to go full on boot camp with them, as they are babies. But we start to teach them where to go to the toilet, not to nip us or our clothes and where to sleep when they are tired. Its all training.
"But we dont want a performing monkey, why bother to train?"
All I can say here is, I understand. I dont want to make any dog into a drone that doesnt think for itself, thats not what training is about. It about guidance and exposing your dog to the endless exciting things in life and behaving appropriately while developing cognition skills and getting them to think for themselves. To exercise that wonderful brain and direct them on to activities that sate the needs to use those outstanding senses of theirs.
Dogs love to sniff, chase, dig, run and so many other things. This is their natural state of being. If we don't satisfy a terriers need to chase, or a "working" dogs need to "work" then we are often going to see behavioural problems arise, sometimes through boredom or frustration.
More often than not, Dogs go looking for their own entertainment and end up angering us humans. But this is generally because they have been misunderstood, under exercised mentally or physically, or have a fear based behaviour.
I tell myself that there are no naughty dogs, just humans without the correct dog knowledge.
So training your dog from an early age is a really TOP idea.
What you dont want is an XL Bulldog growing to 14 months of age, and then realising that his biting and pulling is no longer cute as he drags you head first into oncoming traffic while eating your sleeve.
Or a working spaniel that used to be adorable when digging holes in the sand at the beach, but now your prize roses are chewed to pieces and you have a clump of topsoil stuck between your teeth.
Start early, make it fun, direct them and always set them up for success!
If in doubt, call a trainer to help you....before they are unmanageable.
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