How to Train a Pit Bull Puppy Basic Commands

You might be surprised how early you can begin training your Pit Bull puppy basic commands. In fact, as early as 10 weeks old, you can start adding some fun, reward-based training sessions to your puppy’s routine.

Of course, very young puppies have short attention spans. You will only have about 10 minutes before she is bored or distracted. So, we have chosen three basic commands that you can work on in short bursts throughout the day. As your puppy gets older, you will be able to train more complex behaviors in longer training sessions.

In addition to learning new behaviors, working with your puppy from a young age will help her to get used to learning and come to look forward to your training sessions – after all – they are such a fun and rewarding experience!

This guide includes three basic commands: 'sit', 'stay', and 'drop it'. We will also offer you some simple principles to make sure your training is successful regardless of what behaviors you want to teach your Pit Bull puppy. 

It is important to think of training time as a fun game you play with your Pit Bull puppy. Consider it a game that you are going to try to set up so that she wins – as often as possible. That is, it is your job to make sure that you are setting the bar low enough that she can do the behavior and get the reward.

Any final behavior can be broken down into tiny steps, or some behavior in the direction of what you are looking to perfect. For example, you may want your 'sit' to include your dog sitting until released, however, in the beginning, you will take even a second of that butt hitting the ground before rewarding. Over time, you will slowly raise the bar until she will sit for as long as you like before being released.

The secret to great dog training is knowing when to move that bar – what will count as “good enough” for a reward is going to be a moving goal post. It is your job to move it at a pace that your Pit Bull puppy can handle.

In addition, just ignore failure during a training session. If you use corrections during training it is likely to give her a bad taste about training, which will not be in your best interests long term. 

A clicker is an inexpensive piece of equipment that does nothing more than make a sharp clicking sound when you squeeze the button. Professional trainers love this simple tool because it is very powerful. It allows you to “mark” a desired behavior the instant it is happening, buying you a few seconds to actually get the reward to the dog.

However, you do not really need a clicker to use this technique. Instead, you can make your own sound or use a unique word while training as your “marker.” The trick is to ALWAYS follow that sound up with a food reward. If you make a mistake and mark the wrong behavior, it still needs to be followed by a reward.

If you are not using a clicker, then just use whatever you have decided for your “marker” when the instructions say to click/reward.

Use small bits of soft treats or other tasty food rewards when training your Pit Bull puppy basic commands. However, since this breed tends to be extremely food motivated, you can also use some of their regular kibble rations for training sessions. Mixing that with some more interesting foods like little bits of cooked chicken is another great idea.