I have been fortunate to have two (soon to be three) very rewarding careers. In my first career I trained animals, all kinds of animals: sea lions, wolves, birds of prey, cats big and not so big, even a porcupine. I also taught dog obedience classes. It was a great career when I was younger, and didn’t have a mortgage and retirement to think about. The twenties and early thirties are great for that, but eventually the realities closed in, and I had to leave a career I loved for one that was a little more lucrative. I also hated where I was living, but that is a whole ‘nother story. However, for close to ten years I was up to my elbows in animal hair, dead fish, dirt, dust, water and…animal doo-doo, lots of it. I loved every second of it, and I was pretty good at it too.
People often to ask me, ‘can you train my dog?’ To which I answer, ‘yes, but that’s not what’s important.’ What is important is this: Can YOU train your dog? It takes more time, and more patience than you would think.
House training a dog is often a make it or breaks it for a pet owner. No one wants a dog that constantly makes a mess in the house. Poor house training is a top reason for relinquishing a dog to a shelter.
If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard a dog owner say things like: “He’s doing it on purpose.” “She’s knows she’s not supposed to make a mess in the house, but she does it anyway.” “I found a spot of pee on the carpet and he looked so guilty, he knew he’d done wrong.” All those nickels added up, would mean I could quit my day job, I’d be rich already.
Your dog does not know he’s not supposed to urinate or defecate in your house, he just knows that the pee and the poop in the house is bad. Read that one more time. Now, let me try it another way. She doesn’t connect the action (urination, defecation) to the product (pee,poop) once the action is done and over with. This is why it is so essential to catch your dog in the act, because once the physical, bodily action is over and done with, the dog doesn’t understand why you’re yelling at him and holding him over the results. All she knows is you are very angry about that mess on the carpet.
Let me give you two scenarios.
You come home and smell it. There’s the evidence in a cold little puddle. Fifi is in the other room and you find her, drag her over to the wet spot and tell her “BAD DOG!” several times, very loudly. Your neighbors wonder who you’re screaming at, again. You pick her up and throw Fifi out into the back yard, telling her “Do it out there, not in here!” Griping angrily you clean it up and eventually let Fifi back in after being outside for several hours.
Yes, Fifi ‘knows’ it’s her pee, she can smell that it’s hers. What she doesn’t ‘know’ is where she’s supposed to pee, that part hasn’t been made clear to her or she wouldn’t be having accidents. What she does know is that when Mom or Dad comes home, she is going to be in big trouble. So when you walk through the door, and Fifi is hiding, or cowering and ‘looks guilty’ yes, she ‘knows’ she’s going to get in trouble, and that you’re going to hold her over her cold, stinky pee, scream and yell and throw her out. You haven’t paired the action with the proper location, you’ve paired the results with being punished. Fifi doesn’t know urination is bad, but she does know the puddle of pee will cause her big problems. This is often why owners say their dog will ‘hide’ where they urinate.
Scenario Two. Your puppy, Rex, has been doing well with house training, but he still has accidents when no one’s watching him closely. So you keep Rex close, and watch him like a hawk. Soon enough he squats and starts to ‘go.’ You growl “NO!” loudly and scoop Rex up and carry him outside. Placing him on the grass, you begin to speak soothingly and tell Rex “Here’s where you go potty, here’s a good boy.” Soon enough, Rex resumes his interrupted action and you praise him wildly. “What a good dog you are! What a smart boy!” Rex wiggles with giddy puppy enthusiasm and you leave him outside with a toy to distract him while you go inside to clean up his accident.
It is appropriate to scold a dog when you catch her in the act; you are telling the dog the action is incorrect in that particular place. The next step then, is that you have to follow it up with praising the dog for eliminating where you want her to; generally this is outside. Many owners skip this step, and this just leads to further confusion on the part of the dog.
A puppy is like a baby, very cute and precious little sense. Because they grow so quickly, many dog owners make the mistake of trusting the dog too soon. It takes a minimum of one year for a puppy to be considered reliably house trained. I don’t care how good she is, I don’t care how well she’s done and how few accidents, you cannot give a puppy under one year of age freedom of the house without supervision. You are setting yourselves up to fail.
What can you do? Be prepared to watch your puppy like a hawk for that first year. Plan to take your puppy out every 15 to 30 minutes to give them the opportunity to ‘go’ if they are in the house and romping around. Plan ahead and have a crate ready for when you cannot be paying attention every second. The good news is, puppies need lots of play and lots of sleep. You can safely crate your puppy for a few hours and not have to worry about finding little surprises later on. This gives you and your puppy a break, and you a chance to get things done without a little ball of fur scampering around your feet.
Doesn’t that sound like a lot of work? It is! But it is also a ton of fun. After all, who doesn’t love spending time playing with puppies? It pays off in the long run too.
My husband and I got a yellow Lab puppy four years ago. She is a darling dog, and very much Daddy’s girl. My husband and I do not have fights, but we came closer that first year of our Lab’s life than at any other time in our marriage. He had never raised a puppy in his adult life, and I was atypically inflexible in considering his suggestions; we were going to do it my way! Who’s the animal trainer? Naturally, that did not go over well with him. Fortunately for our continued happiness, the Lab is now 100% reliable in the house and he has quite generously admitted, “You were right to be so strict with raising her.” Music to my ears!
What are your puppy raising adventures? What dogs do you share your life with? I can’t imagine not having at least one in my life.
Serena, the pictures are so adorable, I stopped reading to gaze at them and lost the thread of your post. That meant I had to reread the post and gaze at the pictures some more. Loved what you had to say, but the puppy photos made my day.
Thank Pat! Glad the pics made your day. 🙂
I love that last video (really enjoyed the first one, too)! Those puppies remind me of 97 pound Jack (part just about everything under the sun, but mostly Pit Bull and Boxer-I think). Jack scares the pants off anyone who knows him, but he’s scared of 20+ pound Sam (one of our cats). He only outweighs Sam by more than SEVENTY pounds….it’s just too cute.
Jack and Sam reside with Shadow (11 year old Black Lab) and fellow felines: Sophie, Jasper, Oreo and Lil Dude (or Dude for short). No, I never planned to live in a zoo, but except for Sam and Sophie, all the others were strays, or rescue animals, that I couldn’t bear to say no to. But I have drawn the line at seven. I pay more medical costs for animals than I do for people! And I’m not kidding even a little bit.
LOVE your blog, and look forward to more training articles. Jack is just a little enthusiastic, so I can use all the advice I can get!
Kristy, I currently have 2 dogs, 3 cats and chickens. I read your adventures with cats and charcoal. I’m sure it wasn’t at the time, but your retelling…hilarious! Thanks for reading.
You’re welcome…and hopefully I did things right so I’ll get notices when you post new content. I’m ready for some more training advice. Glad you enjoyed the story. And you’re right…it wasn’t funny at the time. More along the lines of disgusting! 🙂
loved your post. I’ve always had great success training my pooches for potty outside. this little one of mine is a jumper. i am having the darndest time training her not to jump on people when they come in. she goes vertical. since she’s only 6 lbs, she doesn’t hurt them, but it’s rude. sighhhhh I keep working on it.
I might have to do a post on jumping…thanks for the idea! 🙂
So cute! I have two poodles who I took to obedience school. They were angels and did everything they were supposed to do then they would come home and do whatever they wanted. Ahahaha but we finally worked through that now they are much better behaved. I love dogs.
Poodles are great dogs! Nice to hear you’ve got them behaving, dogs will test you just like kids.
Ah…Such an informative, adorable post! I like what Caesar Milan says about training dog’s owners. 😉 You’ve done this well, here! Training my dog boosts her happiness and mine…nothing like “mean” discipline training might seem like. They need to know their roles, right?
Thanks for this post. Eager for more of your wisdom!
Thanks August! Training shouldn’t be mean, then you’re not getting your point across, only your anger. And yes, you are absolutely right, dogs do need to know their roles. It makes them much happier.
Add me to the dog lover list. Thanks for a great post. Hopefully, those thinking about gifting a puppy this holiday season will print your post and roll it up and put it under the puppy’s collar for her gleeful recipient!
Thanks Diane! I’ve got a dog training book in me too, along with the paranormal stuff.
Awesome post! I’m always been really successful at training our dogs to do their business outside and I used the technique your described. Ok, one of our dogs is a 2 year old mini-schnauzer. I know schnauzers are ‘vocal’ and I’m lucky that she’s not an incessant barker but she will bark when people knock on the door or come in. I don’t mind this in and of itself because I know it’s a natural thing for her but how can I train her to stop barking if I say the person is ok?
For some people who come over all the time, like my son’s best friend, Gia will hardly bark. But for other people, she’ll go nuts for minutes before she settles down. Any way to have her ‘hush’ on command? Wishful thinking on my part? 🙂
Thanks, Ginger! Barking can be a tough one. Sure, it can be done, but it takes being consistent about controlling her barking every time.
Wow, I couldn’t have said it better myself. Awesome set of instructions, that is exactly how it is done. How would I know? I have four dogs and dang near brought home a puppy the other day. Life without dogs is unthinkable.
Kudos to you.
Four! Wow, a pack! They are so much fun! Thanks Prudence. 🙂
We adopted a dog at one year who’d spent most of his first year in shelters (read: cages). He threw every training challenge in the book at us. He’s still a very headstrong (and physically strong) dog, but we’ve finally reached a place where he obeys 90% of the time. The other 10% we’ll keep working on. We even had to put him in a month-long board and train – TWICE! It’s paid off now though. It really is up to the human to set the rules and the boundaries and enforce them. It’s strikingly similar to parenting a child. 🙂
Good for you for sticking with him! Many people give up and return the dog. I don’t have kids, but I always thought raising a puppy had to be close.
Those are some of the most adorable pictures Serena. Thanks for sharing them.
Loved this post. I love dogs, although I haven’t had a dog for years. 🙂
Thanks, Karen!
Great advice! Dogs want to please us, we just have to learn how to communicate what we want to them. We potty trained our golden by giving her a treat every time she pottied outside. But she ended up overweight so with our second dog, we just used verbal praise and that worked, too.
We don’t have pets but I’ve always wanted a puppy. So all I can say is that I love the pictures and wish I had a few of those puppies here to cuddle in my arms. 🙂
Lots of shelters will let you come in and help socialize the animals there, if you need a puppy fix. 🙂
Yes, this! Most shelters gladly welcome people to come in and help socialize, especially since in a lot of shelters they don’t get a lot of one on one time.
What ever works, food, praise, play, toys, it’s all about finding what’s reinforcing to the dog. Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment.
No dogs here. If only I could use these methods to train the husband and kids. *sigh*
LOL…yeah, be nice wouldn’t it?
Having two dogs of my own,and having worked with a golden rescue for the last five years…. it amazes me how often I hear, “He knows better,” or “He knows what he did wrong.” I think so many people expect dogs to come knowing English. It always astounds me too, how in dog training, so many people jump first to what the dog *shouldn’t* be doing. One of the biggest things I’m always reminding people – and what I love so much about your post – is to look for the things you want the dog to do (potty outside) and reinforce that.
Brilliant post. And heck, those potty breaks outside can make for some great training times too. After the puppy goes, spend some quality time with name recognition or giving you bits of attention in the outdoor world. Little things add up as the pup grows.
Spoken like someone who really understands dogs and training. Thanks for taking the time to read and comment. 🙂
I have a mini-schnauzer, a supposed mini-schnauzer/bichon frise mix (way to big to have been only those two!), and a yorkie. I raised all three from pups. Love, love, love puppies. The yorkie is the least well trained (he gets away with murder because he makes mom or dad laugh and forget to be consistent!).