buying a new puppy, things to be done at home
| how do I introduce new puppy to visitors? Accustom your puppy to lots of visitors of both sexes and all ages. This will develop his/her social experience and help to keep territorial behaviour to manageable levels in later life. Ensure your visitors only say "Hello” and fuss your puppy once it has got over its initial excitement so as to prevent the development of boisterous greeting behaviour. |
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how do I introduce my new puppy to children?
Accustom your puppy to being handled by your and/or visitor's children, but don't let them pester it or treat it as a toy. Remain in a position of supervision. Arrange to meet someone with a baby regularly, especially if you plan to have a family. This will help to overcome the common worries about how the family dog will react to a new baby and young children.
how can I help to prevent food aggression in my puppy?
Accustom your puppy to you and other members of your family adding food to its bowl when it is eating. This will teach it that you are not a threat and prevent the development of aggression over food when it is older. Conversely, teaching your puppy that you can take its food away when it is eating is a bad idea, as this approach can cause the development of defensive behaviour later in life.
when do I groom my new puppy?
Groom your puppy every day. Grooming will accustom your puppy to being thoroughly handled and coincidentally it will help prevent the development of dominant behaviours.
how can I prepare my puppy for a veterinary examination?
Every day examine your puppy's ears, eyes, teeth, lift up its feet and check its paws and check under its tail. When your puppy is happy about this, get other people to do it (it makes a good talking point at dinner parties!) The purpose of the exercise is to accustom your puppy to veterinary examination, very important, especially if first-aid ever has to be administered.
how to prepare my puppy for everyday household noises?
Expose your puppy to domestic stimuli such as the vacuum cleaner, spin drier etc. but don't make an issue of them. The puppy should get used to them gradually without being stressed.
postmen: Carry your puppy and meet these people as often as you can. If your puppy gets to know and like them and more importantly learns that they will not "run away" if it barks, it is far less likely to show territorial aggression towards them when it grows up. (Many householders have to collect their post from the local post office because the postman will not deliver as a result of their dog's behaviour).
preventing play biting
As puppies grow up, adults and litter mates alike become increasingly intolerant of their sharp teeth when they go through the natural process of mouthing and playbiting. On finding this puppies learn that other individuals react negatively and learn to control the strength they use. When a puppy is introduced into the family this learning process is normally incomplete and the family must take over where the puppy's mother and litter mates left off.
The simple way is for the person concerned to respond with a verbal signal then freeze or walk away and ignore the puppy for a few moments. In this way the puppy should learn to limit the strength of its bite in play and to do so results in the withdrawal of interaction. Sometimes, however, preconditioning is required because the puppy continues to bite despite the families’ best efforts, sometimes because it turns the sequence into a game, or does not cope well with the frustration of the person withdrawing. There are several variations on how to do this training and below is just one example.
Hold a food treat between the index finger and thumb of each hand and hold your hands about 45 cm either side of your puppy’s face, slightly in front of his nose. It helps sit on a chair or kneel down so that you are closer to his level. Move one hand a little toward him but when he tries to snatch at the food treat quietly say a word, that is not used for anything else, you want to become your signal. As you finish saying it move your hand upward and out of reach in the curling motion used in weight training. Your puppy may try and jump at your hand a few times but should eventually give up. After some repetitions of the procedure your puppy should learn to respond to the sound of the word by turning his face away from your hand or by stepping back. However, at this point you should just wait. Wait for the moment he looks at your other hand or, if you prefer to train it, he looks you in the eye, at which point give him the food treat that was held in that other hand and praise him. Through repetition your puppy should learn to stop his interest in one hand and to indicate the other, or look at you if that has been your objective, regardless of whether it is left-hand to right-hand or right to left.
The purpose of this training is to teach the puppy that the signal means a) to move its mouth away and b) that it is going to fail to get what it wants. After several training sessions the verbal signal can be used if the puppy is mouthing or play biting. After the signal is given the person can walk away or just freeze. Of course, it would be desirable to reward the puppy for stopping but it could learn to do the behaviour to get the rewards. However, it is important to distract it with something else to do once it has stopped play biting and to reward it with attention when it interacts without play biting.
