Training For 8 Week Old Pup

[Smithson]

I'd really appreciate some info for what type of training is suitable for our pup, who we guess is around 8 weeks old. She knows her name and runs to us when we call her.

She loves to bite, especially our feet or any clothes with our smell, but when i give her substitutes she's not interested.

What about toilet training? Any good suggestions.

This may be difficult, but I'd be really interested in any info in Thai so I could print for ppl to read, because they don't really listen to me when I explain the importance and methods of training. Our other dog is large but she likes to jump up on ppl, when she was a pup ppl encouraged her to jump, I'd tell them not to but they basically ignored me. So I'd like to prevent this sort of thing.

Thanks!

[londonthai]

discourage her to bite - never mind your feet, but all your shoes left overnight on the floor will de decimated.

after every meal get her outside and encourage to pee - before she does it inside. If she does pee on the floor put her nose inside of the weewee and shout.

as to jumping on you - allow her to jump on you with her front legs and step on the feet of the back ones.

If you feed her and take care of her she considers you as a boss and will learn more from you than from the others - but of course the other can't teach her thing opposite to yours. Just tell them don't touch your dog.

at some stage you can start teaching her to walk by your right leg - first in the straight line and later in the circles. Let her be present when you teach the other, older dogs. She will pick up faster when watching other well behave dogs.

use your tone of voice to encourage/discourage, but occasional slap on the head or the bum if demaging something/biting hard on your leg is allowed.

Edited August 1, 2007 by londonthai

[Mai Krap]

At this point spending time with the dog is all the training it needs, A good healthy environment to make it comfortable with life. The biting is just normal teething, try and get some largish bones the dog can chew on, just not cooked ones. Try and teech the dog "No" if you dont want it to do something at this point. If you need some kind of physical reinforcement throw wadded up paper or shoot them with a water pistol, dogs think your magic when you throw stuff at them, its beyond their comprehension as to how you do it. Hitting with a loose and light weight newspaper on the nose is old school but I caution against it, you can ruin a dog by doing this to hard or often.

Any real training is not suitable before 9 months, playful learning to be a good pet though is going on everytime you are with the dog. Try to keep it happy and start it on a leash for a few minutes here and there so it knows what is going on. If you want the dog, call it and make it come to you, never chase it or even follow after it nor get into tug of wars with a leash. If it leans into the leash or pulls just snap the leash to you a little and get it going then let off and use the leash as a guide and for security, not control.

Other than that have fun with your new pet.

[Nienke]

I would certainly not wait with training until 6 or even 9 months old, but start right now. Although, I prefer to call it educating rather than training. All service dogs have received education before the 'real' training started. And it is this education that most pet dog owners want, not the (specialist) training, unless they want to do special things with the dog.

An 8 weeks old pup may be little and small but it is learning very fast. And if not given proper guidelines it is often learning those things an owner doesn't prefer to see in the pup.

When educating a pup or dog, first of all make up your mind of what you want from your dog and all family members need to be on the same line and be consitent in this for the dog's entire life. If you prefer the dog doesn't learn to jump up, but can't trust the other household members to be consistent in this as well, then it's better to keep total control over the pup at all times or give up on this desire. Dogs aren't stupid, though, they can learn that with certain persons they can jump up and with others they can't. The secret is to never reinforce the jumping up, but to reward when all fours are on the ground.

That brings me to the next point: try to focus on behavior you want instead on the behaviors you do not want. For us it's much more clear when somebody tells " Yes, that is it! Here's your reward", then telling 'No-wrong, no-wrong, no-wrong'. Some of us will explode after a while and scream back: ' But what the heck, DO you want!", others will get extremely insecure and stop taking initiative afraid for being punished again. With dogs this is not much different. Plus, that punishing isn't as easy as it seems. Most often punishment comes too late, too soft, too hard, and hardly ever at the exact moment and in the right proportions. This can result in that the dog isn't impressed by the punishment and keeps on performing the same undesired behavior, the dog gets scared of its owner, the dog becomes very insecure and doesn't dare to show any initiative anymore and will show avoidance behavior, the dog might stop the undesired behavior in the owner's presence but continues when there is nobody around, or the dog receives the punishment as kind of attention resulting in an increase of the undesired behavior instead of a decrease.

For example, an owner tries to stop jumping up by planting a knee in the ribs of the dog or by stepping on the toes. The dog has no idea why his owner suddenly becomes so violent (don't think that the animal is stupid enough to not understand it's coming from you). What the dog might learn is to avoid this unpleasant feeling by jumping up from the side or from the back. Some dogs might stop the jumping altogether, but become hesitant to come too close.

It's much better and rewarding to not wait until the dog does something you don't want it to do, but distract it before it does or call it to you before it wanders of, and then reward for desired behavior. Very young puppies will by nature follow, therefore it's very important to reinforce and reward this behavior.

Wanting a well-behaved and adjusted dog means a lot of investment in time and effort in the pup while it is still young. It doesn't know any of our rules yet and need to learn it all.

Toilet training:

this needs quite some time investment initially. Normally they don't potty there where they eat and sleep, but will go a little further to do so. If kept in the house, this little further may be very well a nice carpet in the same room. It's inhumane to punish a pup for doing something that is so natural to do.

Therefore, when the pup is loose you need or watch it all the time. When it shows it needs to potty or is doing it right at that moment, you gently lift it up and bring it outside to a certain spot that you have designed as dog toilet. If it has done its business already inside you are too late to say anything about it, and the only thing left is to clean it up while the pup is out of sight. When the pup does potty in its dog toilet, then praise it into heaven at the moment it does so followed by a deleicious treat. During the night the pup sleeps in a crate next to your bed, so you can wake up when the pup needs to go potty.

If you invest sufficient time in the pup's potty training now, you can get a dog that will only do his business in his own toilet area.

Biting in trousers etc:

pups/dogs like to go after moving things. So when you exchange your trouser for a doggy toy and then let it loose, the toy won't move but your trouser will .... Easy choice for the pup ...

Wish you lots of fun with your new comer

Nienke

[Mai Krap]

Education and training are two seperate things with dogs. Education is a posative everyday experiance of learning how to be a good pet and for me starts the moment a puppy is born by imprinting them and continues throughout their life. Training is for older dogs, The military will not start a dog in training until its nine months to one year old. Either way its all posative and negative reinforcment no matter what vocabulary one chooses with the terminology be it fancy or just simple.

Good luck with the puppy and keep everything fun.

[Smithson]

Thanks for all the advice, things are going very well.

At first we had to separate the pup from our other dog because she was sick. She was undercover but had easy access to a small outside area with a bit of dirt. This seems to have helped with her toilet training. Now we have both dogs together and the pup has only made a mess inside once, we spend alot of time sitting outside with both dogs. The pup is now going to the toilet in the garden, avoiding the concrete.

She seems to be following our other dog who is very well behaved (except likes to jump up when she hasn't seen us for a while). The pup is jumping up and biting less, she follows our older dog and seems to copy. She will come when called and sometimes even sits, then we give her lots of pats and praise. When she does bite we gently roll her on to her stomach and she stops.

At night she is not sleeping with us, our other dog is very sensitive, so we don't want her to feel the the new pup is taking over her space. Both dogs get along very well, the older one is close to 7 but still very playful.

Despite what we were told the pup seems to be 100% Thai dog, which is fine.

[Smithson]

Things are still going well, our pup still wees in the house sometimes, but usually remembers to go outside.

She seems to be quite dominant with out other dog, who is a bit to nice (or submissive). When they are eating from seperate bowls, the pup will go to our older dog's bowl, eat from the bowl and growl. The larger dog barks back but stops eating. Is there anything I should do or do you think she will grow out of it?

[Nienke]

She seems to be quite dominant with out other dog, who is a bit to nice (or submissive). When they are eating from seperate bowls, the pup will go to our older dog's bowl, eat from the bowl and growl. The larger dog barks back but stops eating. Is there anything I should do or do you think she will grow out of it?

I usually teach the dogs that I'm the boss and that one dog is not allowed to go to the other dog's bowl or I growl. But then, I stay with them until the food is finished or their feeding time is over. If one dog is a bit slow, then I put it in the cage with food bowl till it's finished. I never leave food for them to pick during the day, only give during feeding times.

It might be a good idea to teach the pup that a hand close to the bowl is good news.

I'm not sure if you are of the opinion that on the middle pic where the older dog is laying on the ground with all fours up, is submission. Because that is not the case. It's a gentle way of laying by a bigger dog with a smaller dog or, like on the pic, with a puppy. Most probably, when the pup becomes too wild or tries to dominate, the older dog will stand up, walks away, starts to play a bit rougher, or does something else to show the pup that it went too far.

Nienke

[Smithson]

Thanks again for the advice, we have been stopping the pup from going to the dog's bowl.

Regarding the middle pic, I thought this was the case. The two almost always play like this, the large dog seems to be aware of her size, as she has accidentally hurt the pup a couple of times. So now she always rolls over. She is extremely patient and tolerate and the pup provides a good work out, as we'd hoped.