The business of "business" (Dog Training Techniques)

Member Name: bollinger28

Product:	Dog Training Techniques
Date:	08/04/06 (3573 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Rewarding experience

Disadvantages: Stained carpets

Nearly everyone loves a puppy. They're cute, cuddly bundles of fun. However, they are also extremely hard work. Despite Bolly (my eight year golden retriever bitch) being one of the most gorgeous puppies in the world (not that I'm biased at all…), I would not swap the grown up well-behaved dog that she is now for the puppy she was eight years ago. Getting her toilet trained was one of the toughest and hard won campaigns I have ever fought. It took us nearly a year to get her totally "accident free", so I thought I would detail just how much work and effort is entailed in puppy toilet training.

~ ROUTINE ROUTINE AND ROUTINE ~
Upon the arrival of your new pupster, it is absolutely VITAL that you establish a routine from the off. Puppies only have tiny bowels and bladders and they need to go every few hours. Make sure you have plenty (and I mean plenty) of newspapers to hand. Newspapers are cheap, readily available and extremely absorbent. Place the newspapers on the kitchen (or whichever room the puppy will spend most of its first few weeks in) floor near to the door, and encourage the puppy to use it - ideally for emergencies or night time use only.

~ LET'S TAKE IT OUTSIDE ~
That's all very well, but you don't really want your dog using newspaper or the kitchen floor as a toilet for the rest of it's life, so you need to encourage it to "go" in the garden from the off. Take your puppy to a designated and specific spot in your garden or yard and encourage them to go. Dog urine is extremely acidic and burns grass leaving brown patches, so unless you want your garden to look like a dessert oasis, it's best to try and contain the dog to a specific area in the garden to minimise the damage. Quite simply, containing your pup to one designated area makes your job easier when you clear up after them as well. Believe you me, you do not want to trawl around your whole garden looking for packages - it's much easier to "poo pick" in a small area.

~ LEARNING THE LANGUAGE ~
It's a good idea to use a simple word or sound that the puppy will learn to identify as the command for it to go about its business. Some owners find "Right Now" helpful, but I prefer "Whizz". We started off by wandering around our garden chanting "Wees and Poos" . It may have earnt us some funny looks from the neighbours, but Bolly began to get the message.

~ FAIR WIND OR FOUL ~
You MUST accompany your puppy at all times - whatever the weather - rain, wind or shine. Firstly, so that you know when it has completed the job in hand. If you don't ascertain whether or not the dog has produced anything in the garden, then they are likely to come back in and "produce" something on your carpet or floor later on. The second, and more important, reason why you need to accompany your pup, is so that you praise it to hilt when it does go. Pups need to learn that what they are doing in the garden is a good thing and a fantastic achievement, so an over the top and enthusiastic compliment will soon start to get the message across. Obviously a full blown firework display and cartwheel session are a bit over the top, and will only scare the poor little mite, but a rapturous "Goooooood boy or girl" does wonders. You will need to spend a huge amount of time in the garden in those crucial early weeks and it really does pay absolute dividends in the years to come. Buying a pup in the bleak mid-winter (as we did), is perhaps not a good idea. We let Bolly out into the garden on her own far too often and it's hard to keep a keen eye on a pup when it's dark and raining and she's disappeared into the shrubbery at the bottom of the garden (or fallen into the pond….but that's another story).

Persistence and praise do work and Bolly eventually learnt to "defecate on demand" as my partner oft charmingly puts it.

~ THE TELL TALE SIGNS ~
Puppies need to go rather frequently. They are most likely to need a trip into the garden just after they've been fed and immediately after they wake up from one of their numerous naps. They are also likely to need a routine visit if they get excited or after a playtime session. A new visitor to the household can often result in a small puddle of puppy wee as they widdle themselves in excitement.

Other signs that they need to go are excessive sniffing of the floor or walking around in a small tight circle. Some puppies both sniff and race around frantically at the same time. You will only have seconds in which to intervene and prevent an accident. Or you can be too stupid to pick up the warning signs and get caught out like I did. On Bolly's first night in her new home with us, she came bounding up to me in the lounge, promptly dropped her bottom and produced a small brown package. And I thought she only wanted to say hullo - how wrong was I……we rued the day we ever choose a pale pink carpet.

~ ACCIDENTS WILL HAPPEN ~
Despite all your best intentions, there will be the occasional mishap. If you do catch them in the act, swiftly and quietly encourage them to follow you outside into the garden to their designated area. If there isn't time to get into the garden, then swiftly place them on a sheet of newspaper and praise them when they go.

~ RUBBING IT IN ~
If there is an indoor accident, it's very important to never tell the puppy off and never to punish it. Rubbing their faces in it is a HUGE mistake and a rather revolting idea. Shouting or hitting the pup is fruitless and will only end up making it scared of you. You have to remember that a puppy has no real control over their bodily functions so it's not their fault but yours for not anticipating their needs.

~ CLEANING IT UP ~
The soiled area is best cleaned with an odour eliminating disinfectant or biological washing powder. Ammonia based cleaning materials may remove the stain but not necessarily the smell. The scent of ammonia in cleaning products may encourage your pup to return to the same area of carpet for another session. This was another mistake of ours, and I don't think there is a room in our house that did not witness some kind or other of an accident in the first few months.

~ THE NIGHT SHIFT ~
Obviously, you don't really want to set your alarm clock to go off every couple of hours so that you can get up and let puppy out into the garden, so you will need to establish a night time routine for the dog as well.

Newspaper on the floor by the door (as near to the garden as you can manage), serves as an ideal blotting up area for any nighttime requirements. It's also easy to scoop up and discard in the morning. However, beware the puppy that decides it's a huge game to shred all the newspaper and spread it all around the kitchen, leaving none spare for any other purpose. Been there, got the mop and 9 million bin bags……

~ DIRTY DEN ~
Some dog owners prefer to put their puppies in a dog crate at night. A dog is a pack animal that is used to den living. Most dogs will see their crate as it's den and because dogs are naturally clean animals they're none too keen on fouling this area. A small amount of newspaper on one side of the crate and the dog will soon get the message and try and contain their mess to just this area.

~ THE WHOLE SCOOP ~
Dog faeces are not the most pleasant things you'll come across. They need to be removed swiftly and safely disposed of. Dog faeces can cause health problems in humans such as Toxocariasis, which can lead to blindness. Similarly the faeces can often contain both roundworms and tape worms.

It's a rather revolting fact but dogs have a rather revolting habit of sniffing out old stools and eating them. Coprophagia, as it is known, is all too common in puppies and is a phase they all seem to go through. It is best to remove all temptation from their path by disposing of any old stools as quickly as possible.

~ IN SUMMARY ~
Writing this has made me realise just how lax we were in toilet training Bolly, and it's really no wonder she took nearly a year to get totally accident free. I don't want to make it sound like she was totally incontinent. She grasped the basics quickly, and all would be fine and dandy for weeks and weeks and then she would regress. This was totally down to her lack of routine and our lack of interest in maintaining it day after day, week after week. In short:-

~ Do establish that routine of garden visits from day one.
~ Think of a word or short phase that your puppy will learn to recognise as their command to go about their business.
~ Remember to praise the pup to the hilt when they produce anything - big or little - in the garden.
~ Above all, you must be patient with your pup, after all everyone needed to be toilet trained once upon a time……..

I have written this from the perspective of training a puppy, but these rules can also be applied to an adult dog. For anyone caring and committed enough, adopting a rescue dog may not be without its problems. Owners of resuce dogs who had a bad start in life, may also find that they need to go back to the basics with toilet training. Thanks for reading and sorry for all the euphemisms……….

~ ONE FINAL PAWS FOR THOUGHT ~
Due to her humiliation at having her trials and tribulations of toilet training broadcast to all and sundry, Bolly would like the final word of the subject:-
"Who's really the boss here? Just remember who shovels whose poo up………"

Summary: Toilet training a puppy can be a long and time-consumming process