Joined: Nov 2011
Posts: 339
be gentle
1/6/2017 at 4:37 AM
Training your Puppy
Puppies may act a bit like one or another breed depending on what breed they actually turn out to be, if cross-bred. It is a good idea to buy a book on the breed you have. You will then find out what a dog may be like based on breed genetics. The rest is a matter of your loving training technique. You should follow this guide to successfully train your puppy.
1. Puppies will want to dominate situations and it will bite for sure, sooner or later. If the puppy does anything you don’t want it to do you must correct it by immediately saying NO only once. Never say NO more than once. At that same moment you gently grab the scruff of it’s neck and give it a firm shake and then hold it down while you growl at it. I know it sounds silly but you must behave at the dog’s level of thinking. By actually doing this you can train it very quickly. You behave like the big boss dog and the leader of the pack. The puppy will naturally want to follow your lead and challenge you when it gets bigger. This shake correction will not upset the dog like a spanking would upset a dog. When it gets older it may challenge you and growl at you or bite. An experienced trainer can help you if your dog becomes dominant over you and you can’t make it stop. You must not allow any biting to continue. The next thing a dominant dog will definitely do is it will bite some visitor. Biting a person is a fatal mistake that can actually have your dog destroyed. That little shake by the scruff is all it takes to make it stop that kind of behaviour.
2. You want your puppy to go pee & poo outside, not on the rug. It will definitely need to go outside within 15-20 minutes of eating and drinking. It will pee more often than that if it always has water so don’t always give it water. Feed it in the morning and then at 5:00 before you eat your supper. Then it’s not so hungry when your dinner is on the table. Put paper outside the door to get it started going outside if it’s very young. Put it out a few minutes after it eats and drinks and then don’t let it back into the house until it’s finished. Put a coat on the dog if it’s cold outside. Be there to praise every success at first. Tell it to “take a pee” when it pees and tell it to “take a poo” when it poos. It will quickly learn the meaning of those words and it will pee and poo on command. The dog will learn that all trips outside are for these purposes. Make everything a clear routine and the dog will quickly learn the routine. Praise every success. You will be amazed how that subtle routine will work out in your favour. The dog should wait at a doorway until you tell it to go out.
3. Teach the dog to speak to you on command. Your dog will come and get you by barking softly when it wants outside. It will answer your questions. The first trick is harder to teach but once the dog learns a trick the next trick is easier. Feed it by hand. Let it get good and hungry before you feed it again. Do not give it all the food it wants all the time. Give it lots of clean water but not all of the time. Take food away after it stops eating. If you don’t do that you will lose control the most powerful training device you have. A hungry dog is a healthy dog. Feed it nothing after 5:00 PM to clean it out before bedtime. It won’t mess in the house at night unless it eats late. Take a few minutes with it in the morning to teach it to speak, sit, stay, and get a reward of food bits that you feed by hand. The dog learns that everything comes from you. Teach it to be patient and wait. It will love you if you control all the food and water. Don’t treat it like a person. It will not understand you unless you treat it like a dog.
4. Do not yell at, spank or strike a dog. It will have no instinctive idea about that sort of behaviour because that behaviour does not exist in nature. Striking will only ruin your dog’s character. Your only correction should be shaking the dog’s scruff gently or more firmly if necessary. Growling makes perfect sense to a dog and it will not repeat anything you don’t want, if it understands clearly what you don’t want it to do. Be clear about your commands. If you catch it peeing in the house you say NO once and quickly put it outside by saying “OUTSIDE” while you growl, shake it by the scruff and put it out. It will quickly learn. The growl and shake does not make it fear you. It makes the dog respect you. After the dog is 7 – 8 months old, take it to an obedience school. The dog will learn everything from you. If you know how to do all the techniques you will not need the school. Ten minutes a day during your morning walk every morning is enough time to create a champion obedience dog. Use a choke chain when on leash and learn how to use it right. The choke chain is not tight on the dog’s neck when it’s used right.
5. Be patient and loving. Your dog will know lots of words and will do lots of tricks for you by the time it’s two or three years old. It will definitely not happen instantly. Dogs are dogs, not people. If you treat your dog like a person you will actually be abusing it. Dogs love to bark, so let it bark. Encourage barking at a stranger. Teach it to stop barking on just one command, “QUIET”. Do not repeat a command and do not ever shout at your dog. Dogs can hear really well. Think about that. It will obey a whispered command if it knows that you will shake it every time it does not obey your whispered command. Do not shake a dog so hard that you hurt it. Hurting the dog is absolutely not necessary at all. The shake of the scruff is a figurative correction. That little shake simply makes a point so the dog will know who’s the boss. Hug up the dog after you shake it. Read this again in a month or so. Good training will actually save your dog’s life because it will obey your command to sit and stay, every time. Tell it what you want and then correct it until it does it. Do not let the dog do anything like jump up on your furniture until you tell it to do it. Good Luck.