The dog training blog...

How to housebreak your new puppy

2005-11-14T04:49:00.000-08:00

Housebreaking your new puppy is going to take patience.

You should begin to housebreak as soon as you bring your new puppy home.

Puppies need to relieve themselves approximately six times a day.

A puppy should be taken out immediately after each meal since a full stomach puts pressure on the colon and bladder.

A puppy is not physically able to control the muscle that allows him to "hold it" until he is about 12 weeks of age.

Before this time, good housebreaking routines should be practiced to avoid having your puppy urinate and defecate all over your house.

Watch for signs of urination or defecation, such as turning in circles.

Using a crate or confining your puppy to a small part of the house that has easy clean up floors are some ways to ensure your puppy does not urinate all over your house.

It is much harder to housebreak a puppy if he smells is urine in places you do not wish him to relief himself.

Understanding your puppy or dog: There are many different methods in which you can housebreak your pet.

Whichever way you choose, it is important to understand your puppy.

Dogs want to please; the trick is to make them understand what it is you want from them.

Dogs do not think the way humans do.

When you are unhappy with your dog, it assumes that whatever it is doing at the exact moment you show disapproval - is the thing that is upsetting you.

For example: If your puppy relieves himself on your floor and you show your disapproval five minutes after he has committed the act, the puppy will think that the mess on the floor is bad.

He will not relate to the fact that it was the act of relieving himself on your floor that you disapprove of.

The dog will eliminate, see the mess and get worried; you are now going to be unhappy.

This is the reason so many dogs will relieve themselves in inappropriate places and look really guilty about it, yet they continue to do it.

Some owners start to think that their dog is being sneaky when really it does not fully understand what it is doing wrong.

It knows the mess upsets you but does not understand that it should stop making the mess.

To your dog, these two things: the mess, and the act, are unrelated.

The trick is to catch your dog in the act and make him understand.

You do not need to hit your dog.

The tone of your voice is enough to make the dog see you are unhappy.

You are not allowed to go in the house.

Immediately take your dog outside to the appropriate place.

Wait for your dog to go again and when and if he does, praise him.

Important: Always praise your dog after he eliminates in the appropriate place.

Crate Training: Before you crate train, please be aware: a dog that is left in a crate all day long, gets let out in the evening after work for a few hours and put back in the crate for the night can become neurotic, destructive, unhappy and noisy.

If you work all day, it is recommend that you find someone who can take your dog out for a long walk in the afternoon.

If this is not possible only use the crate at night.

If you must leave your dog all day long every day and you have nobody to let the dog out during the day, you should find a room without a rug, put down Pooch Pads Reusable Housebreaking Pads, food, water and toys.

You should set up the room so that the bed and food are at one end and the pee pads at the other.

Spread the toys in the center of the room.

They need to find something to occupy their mind, so give your dog plenty of toys.

It is said that dogs are den animals and like the crate, but even a den animal would go crazy if it was lock up all day long.

You must be willing to invest time and energy for just a few short weeks in housetraining.

The effort you put in now will last for the rest of your pet's life.

The crate training method is as follows.

Buy a crate and for the first 3 to 4 weeks keep your puppy in it when you are not with him.

Make sure the crate is not too big.

It should be large enough for the puppy's bed, but no larger.

As soon as you see him pacing, sniffing around, and turning in circles, immediately take him outside.

Make sure everyone who is involved in the housebreaking process is using the same spot in the yard and the same word.

Until your puppy is about 5 months old you will need to take him out frequently and keep that eagle eye on him.

Place layered newspaper in the corner away from the feeding and water dishes.

After meals take the puppy to the newspaper.

Puppies like to go where they smell urine and feces and will start to prefer the newspaper over any other spot.

Source: Dogs Online

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Preventing aggression

2005-11-13T13:33:00.000-08:00

The primary goal is simple -- never allow any dog to achieve dominant status over any adult or child. If dogs always know their social ranking and are never allowed to challenge people, they will usually be good family members.

Aggression prevention includes early socialization. Puppies should be handled gently, especially between three and four months of age. They should be hand-fed by children and adults and taught to take food without grabbing or lunging. They should not be allowed to chase children or joggers, jump on people, mount legs, or growl for any reason. They should never receive or be part of rough, aggressive play such as hand-fighting, wrestling, or tug-of-war games. Puppies should never be physically punished for aggressive behavior; instead, they should be denied the rewards of aggression, restrained from repeating the infraction, and taught alternative behavior.

If puppies bite at or jump on children, the children should take charge by screaming "Off!" and crossing their arms (to protect hands and arms from being grabbed) and turning away. Puppies love to play; if fun is denied when they get too rough, they will learn to play more calmly.

Puppy parties, where children of all ages visit and play gentle games and offer food rewards are helpful for the children and the puppy.

The puppy should be part of the family pack and should learn to accept delivery people, repairmen, and other strangers. Once they have been vaccinated against the common canine diseases, puppies should be exposed to non-aggressive dogs so they learn that other dogs as well as other people are friendly.

Source: Dog Owner's Guide

Dog Obedience Basics

2005-11-13T03:59:00.000-08:00

The first lesson – get your dog to pay attention to the commands. Start by calling out his name and later use keywords like ‘watch’ or ‘look’ afterwards. By this way, the dog will relate those words to commands. Start the lesson once you have got his attention.

We want to make the dog to be able to concentrate for a short period of time. Keep his attention by doing attention exercise. For example, hold a toy/dog food near your mouth and give him your command. Every time he follows your command, reward him by giving him the treat or food. Repeat this over and over again, the more you repeat, the dog should pay more attention to you. Then, try changing the exercise a little; command him to do something (eg ‘watch’) for a longer period of time (eg: 1 minute).

Dogs have short attention spans, so they can get distracted very easily. Therefore, you must choose a suitable location (quiet, away from children or other pets, etc) to perform the training. Each training sessions should also last not more than 30 minute, because if you go more than that, the dog will become restless and get distracted easily.

If your dog does not learn very well, keep your cool. Don’t get too frustrated and let it out on your pet. Things to remember before starting your obedience training:
1) Never cause pain to your dog (this will cause him to shy away or become aggressive to you - IMPORTANT.)
2) Change the tone of your voice when your dog is distracted (this doesn’t mean raising your voice)
3) You must be consistent (animals are like children, if you’re not consistent, they will become confused as to what is expected)
Teaching your dog basic obedience commands will make for a more obedient and more pleasant dog to be around.
We shall proceed to some basic obedience commands. Firstly, you can start by ‘sit’ command. Use the word ‘sit’ during the training so that he can relate the word with the appropriate action. Gently push his backside down and say the word ‘sit’ at the same time. He will eventually grasp the concept.

Secondly, we can teach the dog ‘down’ command. Dogs can get very excited at times and will jump onto their owners. This will be big problem if you have big dogs. So when they jump, immediately tell them to ‘down’. Don’t pet them or act excited when they jump on you to discourage them. Tell them ‘down’ continuously and place their legs down if you have to.

Then, we can proceed to teach the command ‘stay’. For example, put a treat or food on the ground and as the dog moves towards it, tell him to ‘stay’. By putting your hand up while saying ‘stay’ is also a good way to train the dog. When he begins to become more obedient with this command, try moving further away from him. This will make him more daring and will probably try to move nearer to the treat. When he does this, continue using your hand gestures and command him to ‘stay’.

After all that, you can move on to the ‘come’ command. Your dog needs a command to know when it’s ok to come and approach you. They might be confused initially, so try changing your tone of voice and he’ll understand eventually. Put a little excitement in your tone when saying the word ‘come’. It might be helpful to pat your leg when you say that.

The command ‘stand’ is the last one to achieve. This is the command to allow your dog to get a bit excited but not too much. When teaching your dog to ‘stand’, pat your hands on your chest and put a little excitement in your tone of voice, so that he knows he’s allowed to do something. In this way, he can know the difference.

Training your dog should be taught as soon as you and your dog are ready. Do remember to be consistent with the commands (especially if your whole family will be training with you). And most importantly, have fun!

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Law to Protect the Animals in Malaysia

2005-11-12T17:07:00.000-08:00

SPCA lauched this campaign to appeal for the ammendment of law to protect animals in Malaysia.

Petition to Prime Minister ~ Phase II

Dear Animal Lovers and Advocates,

As you may be aware, the SPCA started a petition to the prime minster to raise the cruelty fine from RM200 to a significantly higher fine of around RM10,000.00. The petition, which included the signatures of supporters, was supposed to be handed to the prime minister in October 2004. However, this has not happened, as we only managed to raise 20,000 signatures. Due to the insufficient number of signatures collected during the first phase of this petition, the SPCA is entering a second phase in hope to collect at least 100,000 signatures locally and internationally.

Therefore, we are now entering a phase II stage of the petition whereby we would like you to join our effort for this cause. Please download the petition forms. Kindly photocopy it and distribute it for signatures to be collected. The more names we have, the better.

Please ensure that those who have already signed the form during the first phase of the petition do not sign the petition again.

All forms should be signed, signatures counted and returned to the SPCA by September 2006.

We need your every support as we try our best to stop these cruel acts and t punish those who do injustice to these helpless animals. Let us work together to bring justice to these voiceless animals.

On behalf of the animals, thank you very much for your support.

Please do your part! Sign the petition, ok? (almost 10,ooo signatures at the time of this post. They need 100,000 signatures!)

Critical periods of socialisation

2005-11-12T16:54:00.000-08:00

Knowledge of the early growth periods of dogs helps to understand canine aggression. Puppies have a critical need for socialization from three weeks of age, when they can see and hear, until 14 weeks of age. Puppies should best be purchased between seven and eight weeks of age for proper socialization in the new home. Eight to 10 weeks is a fearful period, during which the puppy must not be harshly disciplined and must be handled gently by adults and children.

Fourteen weeks starts the juvenile period -- the dreaded adolescence -- that ends when the pup achieves sexual maturity, usually at about 14-15 months of age. If a puppy has not been socialised by the time he is 14 weeks old, he may never be trustworthy around people or other dogs.

Puppies raised in kennels where they receive very little human handling will often remain shy of people, particularly if they are not sold prior to 14 weeks of age. They may always be fearful, especially under stressful conditions.

Dogs reach sexual maturity at six to 14 months of age. During this period, they usually begin to bark at strangers and become more protective, and males begin lifting a leg to urinate. Introduction to strangers (adults, children, and other dogs) on the home property during this period is important as well, especially if the pup has missed out on early socialization.

Source: Dog Owner's Guide

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