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How to train a puppy?
DaftChris
Spiritually conflicted. Not of this world. Veteran
Yesterday, my boyfriend came home with a surprise: an 8 week old lab/rottie mix. He went with his friend to get her dog and the owners revealed that if no one claimed the other one, they would have sent him to the pound. So now, we have another addition to the house.
To those who know how, how can we train this puppy efficiently? We have a fenced in yard, and he is going to get very big; so he eventually is going to be an outside dog. Until then, how can we:
1.) Limit accidents in the house? He goes to the bathroom outside with no issue, but, being so young, doesn't go to the door to indicate he needs to go outside.
2.) To stop chewing?
3.) Crate train until he goes to live outside? We have roommates, so this may be an issue.
4.) To stop eating the other dogs food?
And speaking of the other dog.
He was a rescue and wasn't treated very well by his previous owners. When we got him, he didn't use the pads well and almost always went on the floor. After a while this stopped, but started again a few months ago. He goes number one on the pads well, but almost always misses with number 2.
How can we re-train him to not miss the pads when he does is business? If it matters, he is a 1 1/2 year old Chihuahua.
To those who know how, how can we train this puppy efficiently? We have a fenced in yard, and he is going to get very big; so he eventually is going to be an outside dog. Until then, how can we:
1.) Limit accidents in the house? He goes to the bathroom outside with no issue, but, being so young, doesn't go to the door to indicate he needs to go outside.
2.) To stop chewing?
3.) Crate train until he goes to live outside? We have roommates, so this may be an issue.
4.) To stop eating the other dogs food?
And speaking of the other dog.
He was a rescue and wasn't treated very well by his previous owners. When we got him, he didn't use the pads well and almost always went on the floor. After a while this stopped, but started again a few months ago. He goes number one on the pads well, but almost always misses with number 2.
How can we re-train him to not miss the pads when he does is business? If it matters, he is a 1 1/2 year old Chihuahua.
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Comments
2. Puppies chew. Get the dog some chew toys so that he can do it in a way that is not destructive.
4. Just don't allow it? Say "no" or something. Although, that is only an option when you feed the other dog at a designated time and that's it. If he can access the food whole day long, then i have no clue.
You got yourself a working breed dog. You will need to find something to do with your dog, either training tricks, really long walks or a dog sport. I think this would be the only way to train him efficiently. Otherwise you are just asking for trouble.
2. Puppies NEED to chew. Buy him a rubber ball or something.
3. I don't know what crate train means, sorry.
4. Set up a schedule for dogs' lunch/dinner. When giving them food, separate them by placing their food bowls in different rooms.
5. For your other dog, I recommend letting him stay for a long periods of time outside. He will learn to do his 'business' there.
Other pieces of advice : 1. give different types of food to your dogs. The puppy, will require something with a high level of protein and the other will require something with less protein than the previous. Also, puppies will eat more times a day than the mature dogs, so you'll have to see when your puppy wants to eat and how much food shall you put in his bowl.
2. make sure your puppy is properly protected against internal and external parasites, and make sure he has his vaccination done properly.
p.s. : I'm a vet school student.
I recently read some of the book called How to Raise the Perfect Dog.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Raise-Perfect-Dog-Puppyhood/dp/0307461300
I would strongly recommend you take a look. He adopts 4 or so pups of various breeds and talks about training them on a daily basis. It is most likely available at your local library.
Puppies will adjust to the structure of life you provide them. For less-than-desirable habits it is good to redirect their attention while they are growing up -- he talks about various methods in the book whereby he uses things that appeal to the dogs' smell-sense to have them lose interest in chewing on stuff and whatnot.
You probably won't have to read the whole thing, but there is a lot of awesome information in there.
First, on minimizing indoor accidents. Let the dog go outside, get off your butt and go out there with it, and praise it when it does its business. We have installed a dog door to the fenced in back yard for when we are gone most of the day. The dog will naturally poop after exercise like walking and running, and tend to do so after they eat. It won't take long for it to get the message.
As for the pad, we have one in a corner of the bathroom because our little terrior refuses to go outside when it's raining. You just gotta put up with the occasional near miss. After all, his or her front paws are on the pad. Far as they're concerned, they're being good dogs.
The above poster is right. Puppies and even older dogs chew. Give them rawhides to chew on and make sure the closets with the shoes are closed.
Please don't raise a dog indoors and then banish it to a doghouse outside after it's grown. That's cruel. The dog thinks of your house as its home and wants to be with his or her family and won't understand what it did wrong that is making you punish it. If you can't put up with a large dog sharing your home, then please find another owner right now.
I've known people who crate train. You lock the dog into a cage when you're not home, or when you have company over, when it misbehaves or you just don't feel like having a dog around like when it's time to sleep. It's better than trying to keep the carpets clean when training a puppy. Some people overdo it, but it's better than locking it outside in the yard.
Understand that behaviour is different to training.
Training is the icing on the cake.
behaviour - IS the cake.
you have to ensure the one supports the other.
A well-trained dog, doesn't mean it will always behave the way you want it to.
A well-behaved dog will be far more responsive to good training....
If you want any help, feel free to PM me.
Chewing-kong products are awesome.
Crate training-Establish a routine. When do you need the puppy to use the crate? Don't expect a large breed dog to be happy in a crate for hours and hours a day. Large dogs need exercise, and quite a bit of it. If they don't get it, they will be unhappy and as a result, so will everyone that has to live with them. We crated our dog when we were gone (if we were gone more than a few hours we always had someone take her for a walk and play with her, or we boarded her) and at night. We no longer crate her at night, now that she's finally out of puppy phase, she sleeps in the living room at night. She's a boxer, so her puppy phase lasted over 2 years, LOL. She likes her crate and uses it as a place to go to get away from the kids sometimes. Don't use it at punishment if you expect the dog to want to be in there, or to spend nights in there, or whatever. You don't want the dog to associate the crate with bad punishment/bad things. Our dog currently is put in her crate during our meal times, otherwise our 4 year old throws food to her, lol. We just have to tell her "Laila, time to go in your room" and she'll run down there and lay in her crate until we call her up. We don't even have to close the door. If we are going to be gone for more than a half hour or so we'll crate her as well otherwise she gets bored and starts tipping over the garbage and such. She probably spends an average of 10 hours a week in her crate.
Not saying all pets aren't an investment in patience and time. But big dogs especially because if you do not establish the correct behavior early on, they will make everyone miserable with their behavior. They'll chew things, break things, bark, jump etc. We had a poorly trained large dog when I was a kid, and he dog chewed apart an ENTIRE couch once when we were gone for a couple hours. Destroyed the entire thing. It wasn't the first, last, or only significant thing the dog ruined. But it was our fault for not properly training him and not knowing what we were getting into owning a larger dog and properly training him from the start.
Buy a book on dog training
Watch youtube - lots of stuff there on dog training - internet probably has everything you need if you're patient to locate it.
Go to puppy classes.
You'll need training as much as the dog - it's more of a "how to communicate effectively with a canine human wannabe" than "How to get him to do exactly as I want all the time" - the latter is impossible - the more you try, the more he will p1ss on the floor just to tell you that it's impossible.
Such a lovely time when getting to know their little personalities - enjoy.
Dogs are by nature social pack animals...they want to be with you and your family, not tied to a dog house or tree outside. If you are not going to be comfortable with a big, playful, sloppy, sometimes clumsy dog living in your home 23 hrs of the day, please don't get a big dog.
An inside dog will be just as unhappy if you don't provide him with enough attention. And if the dog is unhappy, the owner is pretty soon as well
Also, the "dog wants to be with you, so he must be inside" logic doesn't really hold up. A dog wants to chew furniture and clothing, pee everywhere, mate with every other dog around, eat your chocolate, kill rodent pets etc. But it just doesn't work this way. You have to decide on the boundaries and keep them, while keeping in mind the needs of the dog. Dogs have also "by nature" lived outside for thousands of years. So this argument is equally as valid.