How exciting! You’ve chosen a breed which has a personality and lifestyle to suit your own, and which is well within your means to support financially, and emotionally.
Before you bring him home, do sort out your welcome. He, or she, will need to arrive in the new home and find a bed, food bowls, water bowls, suitable puppy food, chewy things, toys, and a calm loving family. I assume you wouldn’t bring a baby home unless you had a great supply of nappies, formula, a crib and so on? Same with a pup, you don’t have to buy expensive equipment, but it does have to be safe and suitable for your particular dog.
Plan carefully, and you can avoid expensive mistakes with your new family member. You will need to book an appointment at the vet’s for inoculations, but not until your pup has settled in for a few days.
The first few days should be a great opportunity to get to know each other, so ensure that you are home with no distractions. This way you can house train and ‘chew’ train in the first few days. Bringing a pup home and then going out to work for eight hours a day is likely to end in disaster.
House training
Each time your puppy eats, or wakes up from a sleep, he will need to wee and possibly poo. You will need to be aware of this, and take him straight out to the toilet area and give a cue, such as ‘hurry up’. He will soon associate this with the action of toileting, which is a great boon when, in later life, you are out and about together.
‘Chew’ Training
Each time your puppy picks up your socks, shoes, whatever, simply say calmly, ‘no’ and give him his own chewy bar or bone to chew. He will soon realise that some things belong to you, and some to him.
Car Training
Take your puppy for short trips on a daily basis. Always fuss him and make it a positive experience, so he will look forward to trips in the car.
Separation Anxiety
Separation anxiety is where a dog doesn’t understand being left alone, becomes stressed, and either howls, or trashes the house. In order to avoid this, you need to either prevent or alleviate the stress, and teach your dog that being left home alone is fine. There are two sides to this coin: either he thinks you are not fit to be out on your own without his supervision (quirky but true) or he thinks you have no right to desert him.
As a pup he will have no opinions about this, so this is an ideal time to teach him. Here’s what to do:
- Give him a catch phrase, such as, ‘I’m off now’
- Give him a treat in his bed or crate
- Leave the room
- Return to him, walk straight to the bed or crate, and drop a treat there
- Repeat this several times
- Eventually, leave the house, and stay away for several minutes
- Return and treat
If you keep this up, imagine what your pup will think; I just love it when you go out, I get treats, and wait for you to return and give me another treat. No stress, no trauma, no distress, hence no destructive behaviour.
Early training is best carried out with treats, so that you can move your puppy about in a ‘hands off’ way. Briefly, gain the attention of your puppies nose with the treat. Lure his nose in this way until he is in the position you want. Nose up and back, pup will have to sit. Pop in the cue (sit) and you have trained the sit. When he is a distance from you, put your hand out and offer a treat; his nose will move towards the treat and his body will follow. At no time should his nose ever leave his body(!)
Use your imagination to train your puppy to behave in the way you would like him to, and then join good, well run classes to socialise your dog, and progress your training.
No good classes in your area? Why not find out how to train to run these yourself?
If you would like to find out more about puppy training, or training up as a trainer, do visit my website, www.petsbehavingbadly.com or email me at learn2teach@aol.com
Christine Woodall