SUPER PUPPY

SUPER PUPPY – FACT OR FICTION ? (Part one of three)

McKaynine Dog Training
Accredited animal Behaviour Consultant™ : Accredited Canine (ABC™ of SA)
CCAB (University of Pretoria Veterinary Faculty)
Associate Member - SAADOI
Tel no: 0825656160
Email: smbull@iafrica.com

There is a reason that puppies are cute – it’s so that we can put up with their incessant demands and constant need for attention and supervision without wanting to wring their necks! I am sure that that’s why babies are so cute too! Seriously though, a new puppy needs constant attention in order to teach the young pup what is required of him when he is at such a impressionable age.

The key to teaching a puppy the rules and regulations are :

Reduce the possibility of unwanted behaviour by not leaving temptations around
Reward and positively reinforce the wanted behaviour – every time it occurs
Make the wanted behaviour more exciting and rewarding than the unwanted behaviour
Ignore the unwanted behaviour or distract the puppy with something else.

By sticking to these rules one effectively conditions the puppy to perform the wanted behaviour. It sounds very simple and it is, but it does require round the clock supervision. I’ll go through a couple of common puppy problems and how to address them using the above guidelines.

Toilet Training

A puppy will need to go to the toilet after eating, sleeping, playing and periods of inactivity. By making sure that the puppy is on grass (or where ever you choose) at these times and by rewarding when the puppy does toilet, you’ll effectively condition the puppy to only "go" on these areas. Now of course, if you don’t supervise the puppy at these times and it happens to be inside it will "go" on the carpet and you’ve created a "bad" impression in the puppy’s mind i.e. "Oh, so this funny grass is also good for weeing on." It is amazing the effect that this conditioning has – I myself have a dog that, before coming to me was kept for the first five months of her life in a concrete run. She would not even walk on grass, let alone wee on it! She would go out of her way to find a surface similar to concrete to eliminate on as she had been conditioned to this. Ironically the only surface in my home which is similar to concrete is the tiling in my husband’s pub. She would literally hold everything in and at the first chance make a dash to this room. As you can imagine, this created quite a dispute in the household! The key to overcoming this was to block her access to the "chosen" area and to plot schemes to get her on the grass when she was about to do her thing. It did take a couple of days, but it worked.

Chewing

Puppies should be given free access to numerous allowable chew toys. I have found the best option to be hooves as they are cheap and long lasting (just make sure to throw them away when they get too small as dogs have been known to swallow them). Buy a good number of hooves – twenty or so – and scatter them around the garden, house etc. This way the puppy will have the option to chew the hoof where ever they may be. By the hoof (or whatever you choose) also being the common chew toy it conditions this behaviour. Obviously the puppy will also chew any soft toys or clothing left lying around, so these should be out of reach initially. Should the puppy get hold of an illegal object the best way to handle this is to get the puppy to come over to you (preferably with the item still in its mouth), praise the puppy and then swap the item for a proper chew toy. This may sound nuts – why on earth should the puppy be praised?!? It’s quite simple – by conditioning the puppy to bring the item to you, you get the puppy to think : "If I find something unusual and bring it to my owner then I get rewarded." By getting the puppy to bring you the item straight away, you condition a "return and reward" instead of a "run away, hide and chew!". The added benefit is that your dog may find items that you though you’d lost or toys that the children may have left in the garden – now that’s handy isn’t it!

Tip of the week :

If your dog is a veteran wall jumper, construct a meter high wire line about 75cm away from the wall. This stops the dog’s run-up and he will not be able to clear the wall from either side of the wire line.

SUPER PUPPY – FACT OR FICTION ? (Part two of three)

SHANNON McKAY © 1999

In this article we’ll concentrate on another two areas which new puppy owners often have problems with – biting and feeding.

Biting

Puppies have needle sharp teeth and while this may seem useless there are two very good reasons for this. Firstly the sharp teeth aid in the weaning of the puppies from their mother. By the mother experiencing painful nips from her growing puppies she becomes more and more reluctant to feed the puppies – this is nature’s way of ensuring that the puppies go onto solid food. The second reason is so that puppies can learn to have "soft mouths". This may seem like a contradiction, but when the puppies play with one another and a nip becomes a little strong the other puppy will yelp and the nipping pup will stop. This extremely valuable lesson lets puppies know how hard to "bite" when playing.

As humans we have really pathetically soft skin which can’t stand the same nips that puppies give one another, but by applying the same rules that puppies apply to one another we can let the pup know when a nip is too hard. If your puppy nips you, say "Ouch" in quite a high pitched voice. The puppy should withdraw immediately and look at you with a strange expression. Don’t praise the puppy as we do not want him learning that if he bites you and then stops, he gets praised (what a fun game). What we do want him to learn is that even a mild bite is painful and by doing this consistently the puppy becomes discouraged with mouthing games on humans as there is no fun to it!

It is imperative that all family members do this. Dogs are not good generalisers and what may apply to one person does not necessarily apply to another person in a dog’s mind.

Should your puppy ignore your "Ouch" and carry on or get worse, then discipline should be carried out in the canine format. The puppy should be taken firmly by the skin on the scruff of the neck and given a quick and sharp shake. The puppy should yelp and this signifies that the puppy is submitting and is giving up. As soon as the puppy yelps, stop shaking! This doesn’t however mean that you carry on shaking until the puppy yelps, as some puppies will stop nipping but may not yelp. By using this technique your puppy will learn to have a soft mouth with humans. Smacking and shouting at a nipping puppy will produce exactly the opposite result as this can be interpreted as a game (particularly in bull breeds) and will encourage this behaviour instead of stopping it.

Feeding

This is another common problem particularly when resident dogs are involved. It is very bad canine manners for a puppy to push a higher ranking dog away from its food. Unfortunately a lot of dog owners will scold the high ranking dog when it growls or snaps at the puppy attempting to steal its food. This gives the puppy the message that it doesn’t have to respect the canine law of possession and it also fosters status aggression from the higher ranking dog.

Most adult dogs are fairly good at telling puppies off when they try steal their food. It may look vicious, but with all the growling and snapping no real harm is done and the puppy learns a valuable lesson – let eating dogs be! If your adult dog is a real pushover, then physically restrain the puppy from taking the adult’s food. After a while the puppy will be conditioned to leaving the other dogs alone when they are still eating.

Puppies between the ages of two and four months should be fed four times a day and puppies from four to six months should be fed three times a day. Once the puppy is older than six months they should then be fed twice daily. This regime should be carried on through out the dog’s life to reduce the risk of canine bloat and the charged battery syndrome.

Tip of the week :

An effective additive to your dog’s food to reduce bad breath is grated carrot. This can be mixed with a bit of chopped mint and added to the dog’s food. An average sized dog could have half a cup daily.

In this article we’ll cover another two potential problems with puppies, which are barking and sleeping.

Barking

The function of the bark is primarily to alert the rest of the pack. So when your puppy barks, investigate. If the reason for barking is insignificant – a bird for example – then simply go back inside and ignore the puppy. If the reason for barking is of significance – the arrival of people for example – then praise the puppy verbally in a calm manner. With constant attention from you during the first couple of months, the puppy soon learns to discriminate with its barking. By always ignoring the puppy’s barking and never investigating, the puppy will probably grow up into a dog that barks with the same excitement and vigor at a burglar or a Hadeda!

Puppies also bark at other dogs to solicit play. This type of barking is very distinct, with the puppy also adopting a play bow, perhaps even jumping and then bowing and it is a short bark often preceded with a soft growl or whimper. When your puppy barks like this is it not to be investigated as it is not an alarm bark.

Sleeping

Your puppy’s sleeping arrangements on the first night are critical. The puppy must spend the first night in the spot where it will sleep as an adult. By letting the puppy sleep inside for a couple of nights and then putting him outside in the kennel is confusing and unfair. Most people do this as the puppy might cry on the first night and our hearts take over from our heads.

By giving in and letting the puppy sleep inside after he has been crying at the back door, the puppy learns that if he cries loud enough he gets what he wants! If the dog will sleep inside then this is obviously not a problem, but the key here is consistent management. If your other dogs sleep outside and the puppy gets to sleep inside it will also foster status aggression toward the puppy. Some resident dogs react to this breach of canine etiquette very severely indeed.

Let your puppy sleep with your other dogs on his first night. The puppy will enjoy the company and it will make him feel more secure. If your puppy stills whines and cries to be let inside ignore the behaviour totally.

If your puppy is an only dog and therefore can not get reassurance from other dogs, there are a couple of things you can do to make him feel more secure. A warm, clean and dry kennel is a must and some puppies benefit from a hot water bottle (securely wrapped in a towel) and the old wife’s tale of the ticking clock underneath the bedding which supposedly simulates a heart beat (in my opinion I don’t think the puppy is fooled by the ticking, but I think that it works because it distracts the puppy and provides a constant recurring sound which enhances security). In America a product called MotherLove is used for this purpose. It is a bean bag encased in a furry cover. The bean bag is put into the microwave oven and heated up. The beans apparently retain heat for quite a while and the furry cover is a wonderful snuggle for the puppy.

If you have decided that your puppy will be a house dog then of course it is fine for the dog to sleep inside from day one. However, don’t make the mistake of letting your cute puppy sleep in the bed with you. Not only does this prevent possible rank problems but when your puppy grows it will expect to still sleep in the bed, even though it may be a 50kg Rottweiler!