Question about a Puppy Mill Dog
Comments (0)The following is a recent question from a reader of my site:
Question: I recently adopted a puppy mill rescue dog. She is a Yorkie-mixed breed. All I know about her is she is that she is two years old and was kept in a barn with other breeding females. She was not even given a name and is quite shy and timid, but has a sweet disposition.
The problem I am having is house training her from peeing and pooing in the house. No matter how many times I take her out and no matter how long a time she is out, as soon as she comes in, she pees or poos. We have bonded and I love her, but I’m afraid my husband may want to get rid of her as she is destroying the hard wood floors. Please help if you can, I want to keep her.
Answer: The key lies in convincing her that it is okay to go to the bathroom outside. With puppy mill dogs this is often difficult but here are a few tips:
1- Load her up on water and then take her outside. Wait as long as it takes for her to pee outside. When she does give her a great deal of praise and treats.
2- Supervise, supervise, supervise. Dogs can only go to the bathroom in the house if they are allowed to. If you see her do it you must quickly correct her. Keep her on a leash in the house so that she can’t sneak off and go to the bathroom. If she tries to do it in front of you quickly give her a few firm tugs on the leash as you quickly rush her outside.
3- Try my matchstick trick for house training a dog.
Good luck.
No need to accept bad behavior
Comments (1)In dealing with dogs and dog owners every day it is inevitable that a bulk of my conversations revolve around dogs. There are several phrases and philosophies that I hear from time to time. One of those phrases is, “Oh, he does that because he is a puppy.”
One thing I really help my clients to understand is that, yes, your young dog is jumping, chewing, nipping, peeing on the floor, pooping on your rug, etc. because he is a puppy. I then go on to explain that although these are very natural puppy behaviors they are not acceptable puppy behaviors.
A lot of people reading this may say, “Well, of course they aren’t acceptable. I know that.” The reason I write this, though, is that many people have consigned themselves to the fact that they are going to have to put up with a year of hair pulling, teeth clenching moments before they can actually enjoy their puppy. I think that many believe that part of raising a puppy is just putting up with these horrible behaviors as training and age begin to take effect.
I am here to say that it is important to recognize the limitations of a puppy mind when you begin training. There is no need, however, to allow yourself to fall into the mindset that you just need to accept certain bad behaviors. There are solutions to every negative puppy behavior. Some take longer to implement but none of these behaviors need to be accepted.
I encourage you to seek out the best methods. If you have been working on a specific puppy behavior without success for a time realize that you must seek out a different method, not throw in the towel and hope the puppy ‘grows out’ of the bad behavior.
Good luck with your puppy training!
Shameless Brag
Comments (0)Okay, this post is what it is. It is a shameless brag. I recently won Best of State for Utah in the category of Animal Training. Saturday evening my wife and I attended a black tie gala celebrating the winners in all the categories. The food was pretty lousy and it was rather boring but, hey, how often do you win a Best of State award? Here’s hoping it can be ever year.
I’ll give you a bit of a warning. This particular video is like watching paint dry, not too exciting. About a minute and a half in my name and company went up on the big screen and then afterwards I was presented with a medal for my award. Like I say, not too exciting but it is the kind of video you have to shoot otherwise your mom will get ticked off for not having seen the presentation.
Here it is mom, my Best of State award!
When to stop using the dog crate
Comments (1)A big part of my business is training puppies. I recommend crate training for every puppy. Dog owners always want to know when they can stop using the crate in their training efforts. There is a two part answer to this question:
Weaning your dog off the crate at night time: The first time period where you can wean your dog off the crate is at night when you are sleeping. Normally I like to see that the dog has been sleeping through the night without any problems (whining, going to the bathroom, etc.) for several months. If the dog has been doing this well for several months then at the age of eight or nine months I will allow the dog to sleep outside the crate for one night. At this stage it is just an experiment and I like to stack the deck in my favor. I will provide a little bed for the dog to sleep on, I will ‘puppy proof’ the room, and I will close the bedroom door so the dog can’t wander the house.
If the dog lasts the night without any wrongdoings, excellent! He now earned a second night. If he continues to progress I will continue allowing him to sleep outside the crate.
If he does something wrong, however, I will go back to the crate the following night. Depending on the dog I will then wait a month or more before experimenting again with the dog sleeping outside of the crate.
Weaning your dog off the crate while you are gone: The second area where you need to wean the dog off the crate is during the day while you are at work or out of the house.
I usually wait until at least a year of age before moving on to this step. Of course I am assuming that the dog has been problem free in the house (no housebreaking accidents, chewing, destruction, etc.) for at least six months or more while I am at home. If that is the case it is time to move on to this step.
It is imperative that you don’t give too much freedom too quickly. What you want to do is leave for two or three minutes. Don’t say anything when you leave, don’t say anything when you come back. Simply go, stay outside for a couple minutes, then return. If the dog does well next time you can stay out a bit longer. Gradually increase the time you leave until you can do an hour or two. When you get to that point it can be a few hours. Once that happens you can typically leave for an eight hour work day and rely on your dog to be trustworthy.
If the dog, at any time, backslides and does something wrong you need to take a step back in the training. If all goes well you can usually go from five minutes alone in the house to eight hours alone in the house in two to six months of training. If everything goes well that means that at about 14-18 months of age you can leave the dog alone without worrying that the dog will poop all over and eat your sofa.
Many people are able to accelerate this program rapidly and have a dog home alone for hours well before these times. Many people can’t, however, so I always teach people to be conservative. It doesn’t hurt to put in extra training for long term benefit.
Good luck with your crate training efforts.
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