but you won't stand a chance when he is full grown and super fast.
Part of your daily routine should include handling your puppy at every opportunity. Put your hand in his collar, count his toes, check his ears, inspect his teeth, rub his tummy, and kiss his nose. Handling a puppy teaches him to accept being handled as an adult dog, which makes life easier when he needs to be groomed or visit the veterinarian. Plenty of fun handling games help a puppy learn in a fun, positive, and humane manner to enjoy being picked up and/or held. Some dogs never learn to enjoy it, but they must learn to tolerate it without a lot of squabbling.
Hungry Students
Many puppies are pretty hungry first thing in the morning, and their growling tummies may dictate their feeding times and playtimes. You may find it easier to feed him first and then play. If you choose this route, be sure to wait at least thirty to forty-five minutes after feeding time. You don’t want him running and playing on a full tummy.
Make your puppy follow you! Never chase any puppy, especially one that will soon be able to outrun you.
Teach a Communication System
Developing a good communication system from day one is essential—and logical. Without one, how will your puppy grow into an adult dog who understands what you want? How will he know that “Come” means “run to me as fast as you can right now (without stopping to sniff or pee on every bush along the way)”? Likewise, using “Down” when what you really mean is “get off the couch” is likely to confuse your puppy.
Life is less stressful for puppies and adult dogs if we show them what we want and reward them for it, rather than trying to make them guess what we want. “Down” should mean “lie down,” and it should mean the same thing today as it does next week and next month. Of course, the words you choose are secondary. What’s important is consistency. If you choose to use “Here” instead of “Come,” that’s OK, but be sure to use the same word every time. Using “Here” on Monday, “Come” on Tuesday, and Get over here!” on Wednesday and Friday is likely to have your puppy floundering in confusion for weeks to come.
You begin developing a communication system and building a puppy’s vocabulary by associating a command (i.e., Sit) with the behavior. Remember, puppies do not come preprogrammed. Repeatedly saying, “Sit. Sit. Sit! I said SIT!” does nothing to enhance your puppy’s vocabulary. Until you show him what behavior goes with “Sit,” and you reward him for the behavior over and over and over again, he does not know understand that “Sit” means “put your rear end on the ground.”
Teach your puppy a vocabulary and communication system by showing him what you want. Remember that puppies and adult dogs are not intentionally belligerent or naughty. If you are having a communication problem, you need to go back to square one. You need to look at where your training went awry. What do you need to do to better explain what you want? How can you better show your puppy what you expect from him? Clear, consistent communication helps your puppy grow into a stress-free adult dog.
Communicating with your puppy is hands-on business.
Part II: Training Your Puppy
Chapter 4: House-Training Primer
Despite the horror stories you might have heard, house-training your puppy is a relatively simple and painless process. It is the one area of puppy rearing that causes owners a great deal of angst, but honestly, it is very simple. Of course, few owners get through the house-training phase without an accident or five, but that is to be expected. More often than not, problems arise when owners complicate the matter by expecting too much from their puppy. An eight-week-old puppy is equivalent to a four- to six-month-old human baby. Would you expect a young baby to control his or her bladder? I think not. It is equally unfair to ask your baby puppy to exercise the control of an adult dog.
Good planning and preparation and your unwavering commitment to the process are the keys to success. Dogs are creatures of habit, and the house-training process will be more successful if you invest the time into teaching the appropriate behavior, which is pottying outside—not peeing from one end of your house to the other.
Crate or Paper?
First, you will need to decide which method—crate-training or paper-training—you will teach your puppy. Crate-training is by far the most efficient method of house-training. Years ago, owners did not capitalize on the fact that dogs are den animals that love having a place of their own to sleep and eat. Consider this: if your puppy were born in the wild, he would live in a cave or den, and most den animals have an instinctive desire to keep their dens clean. The fact that your puppy is now domesticated does not change one iota of his natural instinct to keep his sleeping area (i.e., his crate) clean.
Dogs will do just about anything to avoid eliminating where they sleep. A crate mimics a dog’s den. By capitalizing on your puppy’s deep-seated cleanliness instinct, you can teach him to control his bladder and bowels and to eliminate outdoors. Crate-training helps facilitate house-training and minimize accidents.
Paper-training (along with puppy pads and litterboxes), on the other hand, is an older yet still utilized method of house-training. It works well for people with tiny dogs or people who live in high-rise apartments and can’t go down thirty floors every hour or whenever their puppy looks like he needs to do his business.
The concept of paper-training is that you teach your puppy to relieve himself on newspaper or absorbent pads that you have spread out on the floor. You place the paper in a convenient location, where the puppy can see it, but not too close to his crate. (Remember, he won’t want to potty where he sleeps.) Over time, you gradually reduce the area of floor covered by newspaper until your puppy is pottying on just a small section of paper. Simultaneously, you begin moving the paper closer to the door. When you are home and able to supervise your puppy, you take him outdoors to potty—the theory being that by moving the paper closer to the door, and as the puppy develops more bladder control, he will eventually associate pottying with going outside rather than with the paper.
The downside to paper-training is that once you allow your puppy to potty indoors—even on paper—it creates the behavior of pottying in the house. Once this behavior becomes learned or ingrained, it is hard to untrain. Having a dog do his business indoors might not be a problem for Chihuahua owners, but it is not a pretty sight when an adult German Shepherd or Boxer relieves himself in the middle of your kitchen. Eventually, at some point, you’ll need to backtrack and train your puppy to relieve himself outdoors. For small dogs, litterbox-training is a viable option if you do not mind having to clean litterboxes daily.
Your puppy must always have access to the “out” door. This smart Parson Russell Terrier is patiently waiting for his owner to take him for a walk.
Set a Schedule
Despite what your friend tells you or what you read on the Internet, puppies have little or no bladder control until they are about five or six months old. Accepting this fact of puppyhood is the first step in any successful house-training program. Puppies mature at different rates, so your puppy’s control may develop earlier or later. As he matures, he will gradually learn to hold his bladder for longer periods of time.
Until your puppy begins developing some reliable bladder control, you must take him outdoors frequently. Yes, it is nearly a part-time job, but your
