Housetrainnig: 4 Common Housetraining Mistakes New Puppy Owners Can Avoid

Let’s face it, as a new dog owner you probably have not taken a canine training class or have studied up on the latest puppy training techniques that are available.

That’s okay! New puppy owners should not have to go to such lengths just to teach their pups the basics. But like all territories unknown, it is quite easy for novice puppy owners to find lots of ways to mess up simple puppy training, especially when it comes to the process of housetraining.

But you do not have to be one of these novices. To help guide your way towards proper housetraining with your new puppy, below are a few common mistakes that many people make, those of which you should aim to prevent:

1. Irregular schedule: Dogs thrive on repetitiveness and a routine schedule. If you fail to follow a schedule when it comes to taking your puppy to go to the bathroom, feeding times, and even bedtime, this can cause a disruption in the learning process.

Dogs are wonderful, loyal companions and an integral part of our families. Time flies, though, and in a few short years we start seeing changes in our faithful friends. There may be white hair around their muzzle, they may be less active and energetic, and they may be a little slow getting up.

As a dog ages, his metabolism also slows, just like ours, and his health care and nutritional needs may change. Here is a look at how we can make life a little easier for our aging pets.

Exercise

Exercise is important even for older dogs. They need to keep their muscle tone and weight in control as they age, just like we do. Mature dogs may not have the stamina they once had and do better with frequent, brief walks or short swims. If your dog still likes being active, don’t forget to play his favorite games, like fetch or tug-o-war. Further, older dogs tend to urinate more often so they may need more frequent walks.

Get an Elevated Feeder

Make you puppy training easier and more fun by understanding that your puppy is trying to communicate with you in other ways than barking or wagging his tail. Remember, your puppy also communicates with his ears, tail, paws, mouth and more and your puppy training and everyday life with your dog will be much more fun.

Here is a short guide to some basic dog body language and what it means:

Dominant – You’ll find that a dominant dog has its ears straight up or forward, its mouth slightly opened or closed, its eyes open wide or staring, its body standing stiff and tall with hackles possibly raised, and its tail out from the body stiffened or fluffed. A low and assertive bark can often be expected.

Friendly – A friendly dog has perked up ears, open and alert eyes, a relaxed mouth, a tail or whole rear end wagging, and possibly whimpering, yapping or giving short barks.

Playful – A bow position with wagging tail means “let’s play.”

Submissive – A dog with its ears tightly back, eyes closed and paw raised is showing extreme submission. The dog isn’t happy but shows it will not attack.

How does a dog owner determine if his dog is getting old? How can he know that the accident that just happened is the result of the aging process that the dog is going through?

These are difficult questions, since a dog five years of age can be considered old, while a six-year old dog may still be, to a certain extent, a puppy. No two dogs are exactly alike. One dogs metabolism may be old at four years while another may not show signs of the aging process until eight or ten years old.

The first solution is to go to your vet. The reason is simple the aging process is not the only medical reason why a perfectly well-housetrained dog may suddenly backslide and forget his toilet training. The reason for the unwanted activity must be discovered and properly dealt with though. Unwanted activity, when not properly corrected, can soon become a learned reaction.

Your dogs vet can examine your pet and rule out such possibilities as nephritis, diabetes, or both. These two diseases can cause a dog the inability to hold urine. A urinary tract infection may be the cause, whether your dog is considered old or simply middle-aged. Your vet can check to make sure parasites or infections are not causing the incontinence.

The first positive command that your puppy should learn is the command to sit. By making it the first command, it therefore becomes the first positive word which we will write on the puppy’s chalkboard mind. In other words, at this age his mind is like a chalkboard and not too much has been written on it yet.

The things that get written on it at this age should be constructive. Later, we will write the negative word no on the puppy’s mind. The word no is the only negative command you should ever utter. Words which you will use when it becomes necessary to scold your puppy are not considered commands but are merely words, the tone of which leave no doubt in the puppy’s mind that you are doing some disciplining. The negative command no will come to mean something to the puppy, no matter what tone of voice you use.

Loose The Distractions

It is recommended that the area you use for your puppy’s preschool training in fetch and sit be as distraction-free as possible. Although we will approach this preschool training seriously, your puppy should view it as game time. The game should not exceed ten minutes in length. If it does, the puppy will become bored with it all.

There’s nothing like coming home to a happy dog. Your good friend has been patiently waiting all day to see you and when you come through the door, he barks his hello and jumps up to say hi. But a jumping dog is usually not a pleasant thing for most people. It can cause embarrassment around guests, annoy those folks who don’t like dogs as much as you, or even hurt someone with a little bite, scratch or knocking them over.

Since you want to control this jumping behavior, the most effective tool is the good, old-fashioned “Sit”. A dog that is firmly sitting on the ground can’t be also jumping up on you.

To practice this method, have a partner ring the doorbell, and as you are about to open the door, give your dog the “Sit” command. Have your friend come in and if your dog begins to get up or jump, repeat the “Sit” command until the dog quietly sits for you. Remember to praise him for his good work. You can practice this same thing yourself every time you come home.

At this point during the beginning of preschool puppy training you should now have your puppy slowly conditioned to expect his daily 10 minute walk, while learning that praise and tasty treats go hand-in-hand.

As you continue each walk with your puppy, take notice to see if he is preoccupied with the sights or sounds around him. When this happens, repeat the following maneuver: kneel down, say your puppy’s name, followed by the command come. Gently pull him to you, give him the tidbit and pour on the praise. You have 10 minutes, and four tidbits, to get four come maneuvers in during each daily walk for days 4, 5, 6, and 7 of the pup’s ninth week of age.

Why So Many Treats?

You may be wondering why it’s necessary to give your puppy a treat in each instance that the come maneuver is executed. We don’t want the tidbit reward to become the prime motivating factor in later training, as would happen if we were to give the tidbit all of the time and for all responses.

Keep this very important thought in mind: we are teaching the puppy how to learn, knowing that praise alone just isn’t that big of a payoff at his young age.

Because all of your puppy’s formal obedience training will be accomplished with the assistance of a leash and a training collar, his pre-school training should include familiarization with similar paraphernalia. Initially, the puppy should be fitted with a comfortable leather or nylon collar.

Care must be taken that the collar is not affixed either too tightly or too loosely. The puppy will immediately make attempts to shed himself of this new thing. A loose-fitting collar would allow the puppy to slip his lower jaw underneath the collar. In this predicament, he could easily panic; or, even if he remained calm, he could chew the collar in two.

By the end of his first day of wearing the collar, he will have adjusted to the device and it will no longer attract his attention. You can then attach a light leash to the collar and allow him to drag the leash periodically during the day indoors and under your supervision. By exposing the puppy to a leash and collar in this systematic way, no traumatic experiences will be allowed to develop.

The personality of the canine develops most radically between the ages of 8 and 16 weeks. What the average family dog will eventually turn out to be is determined by the environment in which the puppy lives during that critical emotional time period.

When an eight-week-old puppy comes into his new home, he arrives with a mind that can be likened to a blank chalkboard. Whatever is written on that chalkboard will determine the personality and character of the puppy. Unfortunately, it is purely a lack of knowledge on the part of the dog owner that is responsible for what later turns out to be a problem dog.

Dogs are not born problem dogs. They are either allowed to become that way, or are made that way as a result of the puppy’s environment. The responsibility rests solely and squarely upon the shoulders of the person who owns the dog.

Most obedience classes will not accept a puppy for training unless it is six months or older. This is quite understandable since most trainers know that the average dog owner just doesn’t have the necessary patience to cope with puppy training. It is unfortunate, however, that by the time a dog reaches six months of age, he has already become a problem dog.

Preschool Puppy Training (Part 5): The Stay Command At 10 Weeks

The next step in preschool puppy training begins at around 10 weeks of age. We are now going to introduce your pup to the stay command.

But first, a quick word of caution from the last training article. It involves the rewards given to the puppy when playing the fetch-sit game. As you near the end of each 10 minute game time, you may notice your puppy tiring. If he poops out and refuses to retrieve, do not give the tidbit reward and end the game. To do otherwise would be to reward the puppy for giving up and quitting. Always end each game session by commanding sit and placing the puppy in that position, followed by praise in the tidbit reward.

Now on to this week’s training session; keeping firmly in mind that kindergarten training is primarily for teaching a puppy how to learn, we can introduce the command to stay when the puppy is but ten weeks of age. Thus far, we’ve written the words sit and come on the chalkboard of the puppy’s mind.