After the family has recovered from the excitement of settling your puppy into his new home, you will need to start thinking about ways to educate him. Naturally, you want him to be able to understand and respond to all of the commands that are necessary to create a well mannered and sociable member of our society.
Puppies are nothing short of adorable and regardless of breed or type, you will be hard pushed to find one that is unattractive. However, there is one thing that you must understand about canine behaviour and that is without the proper leadership and guidance, your little ball of fluff will revert to its primitive instincts and will end up being a liability to everything he comes in contact with.
Controlling your puppies initial social experiences will have a significant effect on his future development. By positively manipulating your puppies learning process, you should end up with a dog that displays manageable and desirable behaviours while in the presence of other dogs and people.
So what ingredients do you need to tap into your little friend’s brain and influence his learning potential? Well probably the first ingredient is desire. You, the owner, needs to provide a vehicle for the puppy to have the desire to carry out a training task. Initially this will probably take the form of food or an interesting toy.
Another main ingredient in puppy training is your ability to influence the consequences of his successes and his failures. Probably the most important thing to remember is that you have a very short latency period where you can associate a reward or a punishment with an action. There are various theories but it is probably safe to say that you only have a few seconds in which to associate a reward to a success or a punishment to a crime.
Understanding reward mechanisms.
By gaining an understanding of your puppy’s likes and dislikes, you will place yourself in a strong position when it comes to influencing his chances of repeating favourable behaviours or stopping unwanted behaviours.
Experiment with your puppy to gain an understanding of his preferences.
Food : What are your puppies food preferences. Does he prefer liver to chicken or does he have a liking for garlic sausage? High value treats are easy to establish but you also have to understand which low value treats are acceptable.
Toys : What toys or objects would your puppy choose to play with? Sometimes a pair of socks or a rolled up glove will be more appealing that the expensive toy you purchased from the pet store.
Physical attention : What areas does your puppy like being touched or tickled in?
Play or rest areas : Where does your puppy prefer to curl up and sleep? Where does your puppy go when he finds a desirable piece of food or toy?
Vocal praise : Which words make your puppy’s tail wag?
Now answer the following questions
Can you provide your puppy with a food treat he loves or toy he enjoys playing with?
Can you make your puppy’s tail wag when you stroke or touch him in a certain place?
Does your puppy wag his tail as he follows you around the house?
Can you get your puppy excited by speaking in an excitable voice?
If you can answer yes to all these questions, then you are likely to have a significant influence on his future learning potential and pattern of behaviour.
The ability to get your dog to return to you when called is of ultimate importance and will have a profound affect on his future free running exercise and general freedom.
Recall training cannot be started too soon and I would urge owners to engrain this exercise from a very early age.
Indoor recall
Begin in a room with few distractions. Scratch the carpet or gently tap the floor. Call his name along with the word “come” (e.g. “Oscar come”), As he gets close to you, offer him a very small, tasty food reward and be as inviting as possible with open arms and a big smile. There is no need to yell or bawl at him. An inviting body language backed up with a simple vocal cue is all that is required to communicate your request to him.
After a few repetitions, start some intermittent reinforcement by smiling and stroking him until his tails wags while telling him how clever he is prior to offering him a small treat. It’s best if the stroking and vocal praise outweigh the food rewards as this provides us with a vehicle to phase out the food rewards later on. We want to end up with a dog that is willing to work in return for a kind word and a gentle pat.
Food rewards should be kept as low value as possible. Remember I asked if you understood what your puppy’s food preferences were? The question was put to you so that you have an understanding of how your puppy values particular foods. You want to reward your puppy with a low value food reward for this exercise. We want to reserve high value rewards for situations that require much more concentration or restraint. Don’t limit yourself by shelling out your high value rewards for low value tasks.
Try to maintain the sequence of vocal praise, touching then food rewards. You want to end up with a dog that views food as a high value reward not a pre-requisite for doing the most menial of tasks. By rewarding your puppy in this sequence, you will end up with a dog who appreciates a kind word and an affectionate stroke. A well educated dog will be keen to please you and will happily work for vocal and touch rewards. Obviously, high level disciplines deserve high value rewards and you should not under value your dog’s efforts.
Outdoor Recall
A secluded, fully enclosed garden with few distractions is best suited for this exercise.
Repeat the indoor recall exercise but this time you want to intermittently increase and decrease the period of time between the strokes and the food reward, the number of food items he receives and the type of food rewards that he is presented with. The key phrase is surprise. Keep him guessing and keep him interested. Make sure you can get your puppy to return to you 3 or 4 times in a row before you move on the next stage.
We are now in a position to influence your puppy’s behaviour by teaching the positive and negative consequences of coming when called.
You will need an assistant to help you with this exercise.
Place a fine cord around your puppy’s neck or attach it to his collar. The cord should be around 5 metres in length. The cord, also known as a puppy line, will enable us to control the puppy’s movements. The puppy should be permitted to roam around the garden with the cord trailing behind him.
Issue your recall command while your puppy is pre-occupied and sniffing around.
If he comes to you immediately, shower him with vocal praise, touches and 4 or 5 high value treats delivered in quick succession (this is known as jackpot rewarding). Offer the treat one after the other, not all at once.
Assuming that he ignores you, approach your puppy and offer him a really high value food treat like a piece of smelly smoked sausage or some roast chicken. Tease him with it but don’t let him eat it.
When you have got his attention, start to walk away. The chances are that he will attempt to follow you.
Ask your assistant to stand on the cord to control his movements. Walk a few steps then ask the assistant to release him.
He will probably come bounding towards you. At this point, you want to turn your back on him and reject him, Don’t say any harsh words or stamp your feet, just be as rejecting a possible by avoiding eye contact and turning away.
After a few seconds, your puppy will probably turn away and start sniffing again. At this point you want to face him, open your arms, call his name then show him the high value treat.
When he returns to you, you want to reward him in sequence ( vocal , touch, food), but offer him 6 or 7 small pieces of the high value treat in quick succession. Remember you only have around 2 seconds to associate success or failure with a command so you need to prompt in your actions.
You want to repeat this exercise for 4 or 5 repetitions during each session. I would perform this exercise at least 3 times daily.
This exercise will teach your puppy the positive and negative consequences of recalling on command.
Getting your puppy to walk on a lead is surprisingly easy to achieve. The best way to go about this is to get your puppy accustomed to being restrained on a lead. Simply clip the lead to your puppy’s collar and attach the looped end to a fixed object like a post or the leg of an armchair.
Initially, the puppy will pull and bite at the lead. He will quickly learn that it is more comfortable when he stops pulling and moves closer to the post to relieve the tension of the lead.
I would also encourage the owners to groom the puppy while he is being restrained. Ignore any wriggling and biting. Control his movements while he is being groomed and handled. Each time he relaxes, you should tell him what a good boy he is. This exercise will prove invaluable in later life if your puppy needs to be examined by a vet or a show judge.
I also employ the see but can’t touch method by restraining the puppy to a chair while I sit in the same room but just out of reach. This helps to relinquish the puppy’s need to be touching you constantly and he learns to be calm and patient at the same time.
If these exercises are carried out 3 times daily between the age of 6 weeks to 14 weeks, your puppy will accept being restrained and will be sensitive to lead tension. By controlling the puppy’s environment before he has the chance to form his own opinions, we influence his future behaviour (pre conceptional learning).
Your puppy will understand from an early age that struggling and pulling has no effect on the restraint and providing that you don’t allow him to get a result out of pulling, he should resist pulling for the rest of his life.
House-training is one of the simpler tasks to teach a puppy because most arrive completely housetrained, courtesy of their mother!
Your puppies mother will have taught him that he has to move away from his sleeping area and seek out an alternative surface to eliminate on.
To continue this training you must provide contrasting surfaces in your puppies living quarters; one surface will be utilised for resting while the other will be used to eliminate on.
Moving forward, puppies are predictable creatures and by keeping a diary of your puppies eating, sleeping and elimination times, you will quickly see a pattern emerging. Armed with this information, all you need to do is to give him access to your preferred eliminating surface (i.e. the back garden) at the designated time.
Sometimes it is better to transfer the smell of his urine and faeces to this surface (via rubber gloves) prior to presenting him to the area. Another tip is to scatter some small food treats in a circle so that he turns around. This will help nature take its course and he will soon get accustomed to eliminating in your desired area.
Avoid using ammonia based cleaning agents to clean up afterwards as the smell often encourages the dog to use these areas again.
Don't scold your dog physically or try and rub its nose in the mess. This is a stupid, futile, old fashioned method that does more harm than good. This approach will have the effect of making your dog hide from you when he wants to go to the toilet. This will make the job of house-training much more difficult for you to accomplish.
Remember changes in your dog’s toileting behaviour could be an early indication that something is wrong so always consult your vet if you notice any sudden changes in your dog’s toilet habits.
Try to avoid letting your dog see you clearing up his mess. This may have the effect of your dog learning to mess on the floor to gain attention.
It is a sad fact that some breeders make the job of house-training much more difficult by keeping their puppies on just one type of surface. The mother will have an almost impossible task of teaching her puppies to be clean if there are not at least two surfaces available. The mother will naturally encourage her puppies to eliminate on an alternative surface to their bedding if one is available.
Please ensure that when you go to get your puppy, that you ask to see where the litter is being kept and then ask to see where they go to the toilet! If the breeder is not employing the 2 surfaces method, walk away and look elsewhere.
Car travel usually presents few problems if the puppy associates travelling in the car with pleasant experiences.
For many puppies, the first car journey is a very traumatic experience as this normally follows the initial separation from his mother, brothers and sisters. The fact that the car takes them to a strange place won’t help matters either.
Often the second car journey occurs when the puppy is transported to the vets to receive his inoculations and that again, is not a particularly pleasant experience. Some puppies vomit during their first journey in the car. This can also create a negative association that can be difficult to reverse. Hence, you can understand why some puppies view the car as “the work of the devil” and avoid entering it at all costs.
The best, and safest, place for your puppy to be in your car is behind a sturdy dog guard or, better still, safely tucked up in a purpose-made dog cage that can be removed from the car and taken into the house.
Start in the house by getting your puppy used to spending short periods of time in the travelling cage. Reinforce the experience by feeding small portions of his food inside. Never use the cage as a “grounding” area or a place where the puppies gets banished to.
Allowing your puppy to rest inside the cage when he becomes tired will make it so much easier.
The next step is to put the cage in the car and allow the pup to spend some time in it with you sat in the driver’s seat. A few food treats will help the puppy to settle.
There is no need to go anywhere or even to start the engine, just sit and let the puppy realise that nothing unpleasant is going to happen.
When your puppy is relaxed and confident, then you can get him out and either take him for a walk or play with him so that he comes to associate going in the car with a very pleasant experience.
After the walk or the play exercise, I groom or rub my dogs down in the hatched area of my vehicle. This is another method of creating a positive association with you vehicle.
When he eagerly tries to jump in by himself then you should take him on as many short journeys as possible, making sure that he has something in the cage to keep him occupied.
Find something that your puppy is interested in, perhaps a sock or a glove or, alternatively a toy that you have bought for him.
Ensure that your puppy is wide awake and looking for mischief.
Hold the toy in your hand and tease him with it.
Throw the toy a short distance and allow him to run and pick it up - DO NOT CHASE AFTER HIM – Chasing will make him think that you are competing for the toy and could encourage him into taking avoiding action.
Observe how he lifts the toy. After a few seconds, you will see that he takes his toy to a particular spot in the room and lays down with it.
SLOWLY get up and move towards him without making eye contact.
Sit close to him then slowly extend your arm and stroke him and gently reassure him with your voice. Do not attempt to take the toy from him at this stage.
When he finally releases the toy, quickly tease him with it and return to the spot that you originally through it from and allow him to pick it up and take it to his ‘safe’ spot.
Once again go quietly over and sit with him and stroke him as before, then repeat the whole process once again for as long as he retains an interest in playing the game.
Play in this manner for a couple of sessions and then change the game slightly.
Now you are going to throw the toy and when he runs out to pick it up, you will go and sit in the spot that he usually takes it to. The chances are that he will bring it right to you and lay alongside or behind you to be stroked.
Repeat this several times and then move your position a distance of 5 or 6 feet in any direction.
It is quite possible that your puppy will still take the toy to the old location and lie down with it. If this happens, just ignore him for a few seconds, then use your voice to encourage him to come closer to you. Scratching your nails on the carpet will usually do the trick.
When he comes to you, remember to praise well with your voice and hands before you even think about taking the toy away to throw it for him once again.
A few more sessions and your puppy should bring the toy to you wherever you are sitting.
All that remains is for you to use several toys. Hide one toy behind you and show him the toy so that he releases the one that he has in order to chase and retrieve the one that you have.
Teaching a dog to retrieve has many advantages and it is much more positive and productive to ask your dog to bring you a stolen article in exchange for a reward that to chase and scold him for stealing it.
Retrieving is a very social skill and you can use it to your advantage when you are introducing him to your friends that visit the house.
Start by throwing his toy for him to retrieve then give the toy to your visitors to throw while you exit the room for a short while. Of course if you were to stay in the room, the puppy would ignore your friends and would want to play with you but for the few minutes that you are absent, they will become a welcome playmate.
This is a great mechanism for introducing your dog to being worked by various handlers. It also teaches your dog to be friendly and welcoming to people entering your house.
Taking your puppy to places where there are lots of people and other dogs will not be enough to socialise him.
Puppy socialisation classes that encourage puppies to romp around with each other, without any structure or guidance, can lead to puppies being influenced by other dogs. The end result is normally a dog that has very little interest in human company. This inevitably results in your dog growing up to be unruly and disobedient.
Socialisation means learning how to behave in a socially acceptable manner in the company of people and other animals within the community.
Strange as it may seem, the puppy’s mother begins the socialisation process by becoming more and more rejecting of her puppies as they grow older. This encourages them to seek social relationships elsewhere.
The best way of achieving good social contact with people is to teach your puppy to interact with toys. The objective is to create an activity that the puppy looks forward to.
Encouraging your puppy to play is great fun but you must ensure that he understands the rules of the game. If he is permitted to win too often, your puppy, just like children, could turn into an aggressive bully who gets bad tempered when he loses.
Likewise if he loses every game that he plays, he will quickly loose interest and will not want to play with you at all.
Retrieving is one of the best games to play with a puppy and it is incredibly easy to teach.
Tug and leave games are also great interaction exercises.
Socialisation with other dogs
To socialise your puppy other dogs, all you need to do is find a friend who owns a mature, sensible adult dog and allow your puppy contact with it a couple of times each week under close supervision.
Remember that you need to provide guidance for your puppy and you should not allow him to do anything to the adult in play that could get him into trouble. It is your role to teach him what is acceptable and what is not.
Of course, a sensible mature dog will have a great influence on his developing play behaviour around other dogs as well.
Summary
The way I see it is that you get a blank canvas when you take on a puppy. It is the owner’s responsibility to paint a beautiful painting for all to admire. If your puppy grows up to be an unruly hooligan that is shunned by all your friends, don’t blame the paints or the canvas, blame the artist.
