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First contact!
When you bring your puppy home for the first time, it knows nothing about you, your house or your rules.
A puppy doesn't understand our language or anything about how we live. As the owner, or as the puppy sees
it, the leader, you have the responsibility to ensure that it is cared for properly and that you teach it about
the way it should behave.
Dogs and puppies have no concept of right and wrong or punishment. They do
feel pain & fear; they do read body language and they can sense changes in body odour.
Dogs and puppies are
aware of which behaviours illicit a rewarding and pleasurable experience and avoid experiences that are unpleasant.
For example: If you call your puppy and make a fuss of it or give a food reward, the puppy will associate you with a pleasant
experience. If on the other hand, you scold and treat your puppy roughly the puppy will soon learn to avoid you.
The expression "he/she knows what they've done wrong" is way off the mark.
What is happening
is that the dog is aware of the body language and can sense the hormonal change in body odour caused by the owners anger.
If you add this to the dog's previous experience of the same situation, then it is fairly obvious
that the dog will choose to either hide or cower (making itself smaller) to avoid the confrontation. It has not made
an association with any mischief it may have got up to, but has certainly made the association that the owners body language
and odour is threatening.
House Training
House training can be achieved quickly if a few simple rules are observed.
A puppy under 14 weeks has very
little bladder or bowel control.
Puppies need to relieve themselves as soon as they wake up, after
they have been fed and roughly every hour in between.
Always take your puppy to
the place you have dedicated as a toileting place. Don't just open the door and assume your puppy will know what to do.
Reward your puppy everytime it 'goes' in the right place.
Puppies have a short attention span so give your puppy time to 'remember' what it is supposed
to be doing.
Watch for the signs that your puppy needs to 'go'
- sniffing around, circling,or whimpering.
If your puppy does have an accident
in the wrong place, roll up a newspaper and smack yourself on the nose. NEVER PUNISH A PUPPY FOR A HOUSE TRAINING ACCIDENT.
It is your fault for not watching the signs.
If you don't want your puppy
to mess up the carpet, then don't allow your puppy in the room.
If you remember these rules, house training
will be quick and simple. While you are waiting for this miracle to happen, it is a good idea to confine the puppy to
an area where it is easy to clear up any soiling. Using newspaper or 'puppy wee wee pads' can make
life easier, but you will have to make sure that you wean your puppy off them, other wise your puppy may think any
paper will do!
When it's time for the great outdoors, remember always carry a poopy bag so that
you can clear up after your dog. It's the law, so why risk a fine!
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Before the Great Outdoors!
All pupppies should have a vaccination course to protect them from disease, during this time
they should be kept away from other dogs and off the floor.
However, this doesn't mean incarcerating your puppy
in the house or garden. Far from it, your puppy needs to experience as many different sounds and situations before
it is 14 weeks old.
Take your puppy out, carried safely in your arms. Stand outside a school when the children
are coming out; stand near a road so that your puppy can get used to the sound of traffic; take your puppy out in the
car, safely contained in a travel crate, so that a car journey doesn't just mean a trip to the vet; walk down
a street on refuse collection day, give your puppy a chance to study the big black monsters!; there are many things you
can do with your puppy in preparation for that first walk.
When the vaccination course is complete, sign up with
a puppy socialisation class. This will start your puppy off on the road to being that obedient, loyal companion that
we all wish for.
Biting and chewing
All puppies bite and chew; this is how they learn what tastes good, what doesn't, what
eases thier sore gums when they are teething. Chewing has a calming effect.
Puppies also use thier teeth when they are
playing.
So how do we stop them using us as a chew toy? We need to teach
the puppy that biting or mouthing any human or anything that belongs to a human is a big no-no!
We need to remember
that dogs (puppies) are animals, so we need to think in thier terms. When two puppies are playing they bite and chew on each
other, but if one puppy bites too hard, the other puppy yelps, and walks away. The offending puppy will still try to
play but will be ignored. You will most likely see this puppy play bowing and the other puppy raising one paw, these
are signs that will instigate more gentler play. The offending puppy has learnt that if he bites too hard, no one will
play with him. This is a simple explanation, but it illustrates how we can emulate this behaviour to stop our puppies
biting. So when your puppy starts to use teeth, yelp, really loudly, and stop playing. Your puppy will stop biting,
wait for a few moments, praise your puppy, then start to play again, yes, your puppy will
chew again, but it is
most likely to be less hard. Keep repeating this whenever your puppy bites you or your clothing.
As the puppy matures,
it may start to use its teeth as a way to stop you from grooming or examining your puppy. This is the time to up the
stakes.
When a bitch starts to wean her puppies she can sometimes seem quite harsh, she will emit a short, loud growl
(grruff), this makes the puppies back off. Basically its "No, means no!" Again we can use this to aid our
puppies training. The word "off" or "get off" can be said with this growly tone, I call it
the "growly" off!. As soon as your puppy stops the behaviour it must be verbally rewarded.
NOTE: This is a training aid, the last thing you should be doing is yelping and growling at your puppy all day!
Toys
All chew toys need to be checked for safety.
Squeekers and bells should be inaccessable
to even the most ardent chewers!
In my opinion the best chew toys are the ones you can stuff with food. This keeps
your dog busy and satisfies the need to chew.
Toys can also be made from household items.
Empty plastic cola bottles
can have a few biscuits placed in side them and as the dog shakes it and jumps on it the biscuits fall out of the top. It's
noisy, but dogs have a lot of fun with them.
Old tights knotted together to make "spiders" make good tug toys.
All those odd socks can be rolled up and then pushed into the toe of another sock then wrapped up and either stitched
or knotted to make a soft ball. NEVER leave your dog unattended with soft toys, bits can become chewed off and may choke your
puppy.
Old shoes and slippers are not suitable as toys. Your puppy can't tell the difference between new ones
and old ones. A shoe is a shoe!
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