Training Puppies the Easy Way

Training puppies is not hard. As with everything else, there is an easy way and a hard way to train a puppy. The easy way involves thinking through the training process prior to bringing your new puppy home, and already having a plan in place to deal with common occurrences.

Primary considerations in training a new puppy are the things you DO and DON'T want the puppy to do. Having a clear mental image of the behaviors you desire, and an idea of how to create them, predisposes you to success with your puppy. You will be successful with your new puppy so long as you are able to set him up for success while simultaneously preventing mistakes. Fortunately, the road to successful puppy rearing is well paved, and easy to learn!

The common tasks a new puppy owner faces are:

• Crate training
• House breaking
• Leash breaking
• Bite inhibition
• Jumping Up

These milestones are interrelated and easy to teach. Puppies will quickly build habits that will last them a lifetime. It is your job to make sure they build the habits you desire. Plan to spend time in the initial days after bringing your puppy home setting him up to succeed.

Crate Training

A crate is as essential to proper puppy training as a leash and collar. Choose a crate that fits the puppy. It should be large enough for the puppy to stand up, turn around, and lie down comfortably, but not so large that he can make a bed at one end and go potty at the other. Puppies are reluctant to soil their sleeping quarters, so the proper sized crate is helpful in teaching the pup to hold his urine until given a chance to eliminate in an appropriate location. For those who would rather not purchase several different sized crates as the puppy grows, there are crates available with dividers that can be moved as the puppy grows. Failing that, consider placing towel wrapped cinder blocks in the back of an overly large crate, that can be removed when the puppy is larger.

To teach the puppy to enjoy the crate, keep the door open and drop tasty treats in it occasionally throughout the day for him to "discover". Feed him in the crate. As he gets used to this, begin to shut the door while he eats. Always open the door before he asks for you to do so, or at least, when he is quiet. Never open the door when he is crying, for doing so plays into the cardinal rule of dog training: you get more of what you reward! So even if you have to tap the side of the crate with your hand and say, "Hush!" ... make sure the puppy is quiet before you open the door. When the puppy is pleasantly relaxed, put him in the crate to nap and shut the door, being careful to pay attention and open the door when he awakes. When he is comfortable being closed into the crate for five to ten minutes at the time with you in the room, begin leaving the room for a few minutes at the time, until he is so relaxed that you can go to the grocery store if need be. Have the puppy sleep in the crate at night, taking him potty last thing before going in and carrying him outside first thing in the morning. The puppy will come to love his crate, as it is his own space within your home, where he can go to rest when tired and be assured of not being bothered.

Tips when crate training:

Don't leave water in the crate ... it generally isn't necessary and sabotages your efforts at housebreaking.

Do put the puppy into the crate with a treat. When leaving him for an extended period of time, give him a chew toy or treat filled Kong so he will have something with which to occupy himself while he is there alone.

Do teach children not to bother the puppy when he seeks out his crate "haven". It should be a place he can go to seek refuge when household life becomes overwhelming, or when he is tired and needs to sleep.

Never use the crate as punishment

Don't ask him to hold his urine in the crate longer than he is able. Except for at night, a puppy is generally thought to be able to hold his urine an hour for every month of age he has attained.

Housebreaking

Housebreaking a puppy is easy, easy, easy. You simply need to know a few tricks and be willing to set aside the time to attend to the puppy when he is first establishing his potty habits. It is MUCH easier to housebreak a puppy correctly from the beginning than it is to "fix" a housebreaking problem in an older dog. Set your pup up to succeed. Here's how:

Know when your puppy needs to go potty. Generally speaking, puppies need to go potty almost immediately upon waking, after eating, and after playing hard or drinking a lot of water. Puppies "tell you" they're about to go potty by the way they start sniffing around for an appropriate spot. Sometimes, when about to go number two, they will also walk in circles.

Keeping the puppy on a regular eating schedule helps regulate his elimination schedule, so you will know what to expect.

Pick a place where you want your puppy to go potty. Pick a word that you wish him to associate with going potty, such as "Go potty," or "Get busy."

Have special "high value" treats that you keep available throughout the housebreaking period that you give to the dog after going potty in the desired location. These should be really special treats that the puppy does not get at any other time, such as diced chicken breast ... he will quickly learn what behavior elicits the treats and will learn to hold his urine in order to get this very special treat! It is important to have instant access to these treats, so keep some near the door or with the puppy's leash so that you will have them available when needed.

Use a crate. The crate is the puppy owner's best friend when housebreaking his puppy. First thing upon waking in the morning, or from a nap in the crate, CARRY the puppy outside to the desired potty location. (If you allow a young puppy to walk, he'll potty on his way to the door; his need will be that urgent.)

Only allow the puppy free access to your house for the first twenty or thirty minutes after he has pottied outside, and then only with supervision. After that place him on an easy clean surface such as tile or linoleum until he's had another successful potty outside again.

Ignore accidents. Verbally scold ONLY if you catch the puppy in the act. Keep the puppy on tile or linoleum until housebroken, if possible, so avoid accidents on carpet. Tile and linoleum clean up completely with disinfectant and leave no trace of scent that might encourage the puppy to return to that spot to potty. If you do happen to have an accident on the carpet, blot up as much of the urine as possible, then soak with an enzymatic cleanser such as Simple Solution, which will destroy the protein and take away the scent, so that the dog will not be tempted to return to that spot. After five or ten minutes, blot up the Simple Solution, and if necessary, repeat.

Do not use ammonia based products for cleaning as these smell like urine and may encourage accidents.

Realize that dogs who are housebroken during the day may still have accidents if not crated at night. It is a good idea to keep dogs crated at night until over a year of age.

Leash Breaking

First, acclimate your puppy to wearing a collar. Once he is past the stage of scratching it and being bothered by it, attach a lightweight leash to it and allow him to drag it around the house or yard for a couple of hours, with supervision, making certain he does not entangle himself. Once he's used to both the collar and the leash, pick up the leash and start following him wherever he wishes to go. Then, begin encouraging him to come your way, with "puppy talk" and by patting your leg or the ground, and rewarding him with treats when he comes your way. When you reach this stage, you're half way there. Inevitably, the moment will come when the puppy doesn't want to go your way, and will back up against the leash and collar and pull backward. Simply stand still, holding the leash stationary, and wait this out. If you wish, you may kneel down and talk to the puppy, but eventually he WILL take a step towards you, and when he does this, it's important you reward his decision by "having a party". Feed him treats and praise him profusely. You just won the most important battle of all, and while there may be small repetitions, it will not take your puppy long to realize that all the fun happens when he follows you wherever you are going, on the leash.

Warning! Do not allow the puppy to get away with pulling on the leash. This habit only gets worse. All you have to do, if you start walking and the puppy pulls on the leash, is to stop walking. Anchor your hand that holds the leash against your body so that there is no "play" in it. Remain standing until the puppy steps in towards you. The moment the puppy loosens the lead himself ... praise and party! Give treats and go again. The puppy will learn that it is futile to tighten the leash, and will take measures to keep it loose in order to keep walking.

Bite Inhibition

You have until about fourteen weeks of age to teach the puppy bite inhibition, or to have a "soft" mouth.

Puppies are not aware of how sharp their little needle like teeth are, or what the pressure of their jaws means to the recipient. There are several ways to teach bite inhibition, and a combination of methods is usually the best approach.

First and foremost, one option is to not let the puppy chew on your fingers. Instead, insist he play via toys, instead. A "tug" toy is ideal. Tteach the puppy, while you're at it, to drop the tug toy on command, "trading" him the toy for a treat. Once he has this idea firmly in mind, associate a command with the behavior, such as "drop it," "give," or "trade." However mistakes do happen, so be alert for the time when the puppy DOES bite down on your fingers. When this occurs, you have a couple of choices. One that works extremely well, if you're quick enough, is not to withdraw your fingers, but instead, to run them over the puppy's muzzle, pressing his upper lip over and beneath his canine "fang" tooth, and pressing upwards into the tooth. This maneuver can be accomplished in less than a fraction of the time it takes to read, and it makes the puppy think he bit himself. This is an extremely effective method of teaching bite inhibition, as it functions as a natural "consequence" of the biting behavior, and the puppy learns naturally to have a soft mouth. Other options for dealing with this behavior are to, when bitten, stop all play instantly, saying "OUCH!!!" in a loud and wounded voice. Don't move for thirty seconds. The puppy, who was happily in the middle of playing, will realize that something happened, and that he was the cause. Say, "Easy!" and then begin playing again, starting out with gentle stroking that winds the puppy down instead of up. This approach, combined with the "biting himself" approach generally works very well to teach the puppy to moderate his jaw pressure.

Jumping Up

The secret to preventing this behavior is to teach the one you desire, instead, which is to "Sit for Polite Petting." Plan it out ahead of time, before it ever becomes a problem. First teach the pup to sit. Then have him sit for petting from all family members. (Be a good dog advocate, and teach EVERYONE to pet your dog on his "favorite spot" aka his chest as opposed to reaching over the top of his head to pet him, which in dog language, establishes dominance and raises all kids of issues with an unsocialized dog.) You set your dog up for success by asking your friends to kneel down, feed him a treat, and to pet him on his chest, all while you hold his collar and reinforce the sit command. Once the family has successfully done this for a day or two, start having them ring the doorbell as if they were guests. Hold the dog by the collar, tell him to sit, invite the "guest" inside, and have them kneel down, offer a treat, and pet him on the chest, again, while you reinforce the sit command. From there, go to friends of friends ringing the doorbell and going through the same routine until the dog is reliable for anyone who comes to the door. Ideally you want the dog to thing that everyone who comes to visit will give him a treat if he just sits politely for petting.

IF you dog DOES happen to jump on someone, anyone, teach them to ignore him completely, folding their arms across their chest and turning their backs to him until he sits politely. Your attention is what he wants. Help him learn that this is only available when all four of his feet and his bottom as well, are on the floor.

This behavior is surprisingly EASYZ to teach, particularly if you plan it out ahead of time, and do not wait until you have an established problem.

In conclusion, training puppies is easy ... IF you plan ahead of time to take the time to do it correctly, and think through the above scenarios in such a way that your dog is set up to succeed. It is far better to prevent bad behaviors than to have to correct them after the fact. Manipulate your dog's existence in such a way that the only behaviors he offers are the ones that you want, and you will have the pet of a lifetime that will be the envy of all of your friends and family!

Happy training!