Start with the cues that keep a puppy safe
The first cues are not chosen for cuteness. A puppy who looks at you when their name is called, comes when called, and will leave something dangerous alone is a puppy you can keep safe in a kitchen, a garden, and eventually out in the world. Those three — name response, recall, and leave it — earn their place at the top of the list because each one interrupts trouble before it happens.
Everything else is built on the name response, so teach that first: say the name once, reward the look, and repeat in short bursts. Recall follows naturally by adding your chosen recall word to the game once your puppy is already racing toward you happily indoors.
Sit and down: the everyday manners cues
Sit is usually the first position cue a puppy cracks, because you can lure it by moving a treat slowly up and back over the puppy's head until their bottom tips onto the floor. Reward the instant it lands, add the word once the movement is reliable, and you have a polite default behaviour for greetings, doors, and food bowls.
Down takes more patience. A young puppy may pop up repeatedly or wriggle sideways, so reward stages — a lowered head, bent elbows, any shift toward the floor — in a quiet place with no audience. Keep both cues cheerful and brief; a puppy drilled until bored learns that training predicts tedium, and responses get slower.
Leave it and drop: the mouth-management pair
Puppies pick up everything, so two cues protect them from their own curiosity. Leave it means ignore the thing entirely, taught first with a treat under a closed hand and rewarded with a different treat when the puppy backs off. Drop means open your mouth and let go of what you already have, taught as a trade: offer a tasty swap, reward the release, and give the original item back often during practice so your puppy learns that dropping things does not always end the game.
Practise both with boring objects long before you need them for a chicken bone or a dropped tablet packet. Cues rehearsed calmly at home have a chance of working in a real emergency; cues first attempted during one do not.
Settle and loose lead: the second wave
Once the first five are landing, add a settle on a mat — a place cue that sends your puppy to lie calmly in one spot, built by rewarding any interaction with the mat and gradually expecting longer, quieter stays. It pays off at mealtimes, when visitors arrive, and later in cafes and waiting rooms.
Loose-lead walking grows alongside these, a few steps at a time in the garden: reward your puppy for being beside you with a slack lead, stop when the lead tightens, and go again. Teach one cue at a time in sessions of a few minutes, end on a success, and only layer distractions — outdoors, other dogs, visitors — once the cue works in a quiet room.
When slow progress is a signal
Most puppies pick up these basics within days of short practice. Book a vet check if your puppy seems unable to hear cues in quiet settings, cannot focus even for seconds in a familiar room, or shows sudden behaviour changes alongside slow learning, since ears, eyes, and general health all feed into how a puppy learns. A reputable trainer who uses reward-based methods can also help if the whole household is struggling with timing.
Short sessions happen more reliably when they are shared out rather than left to one person, and KinsLe's Care Teams let you rota this puppy's daily cue practice between family members, with each mini session marked off when it is done.