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Gettin' a puppy. Need some advice.
Descendant X
Skyrim is my god now.Outpost 31Registered User regular
Skyrim is my god now.Outpost 31Registered User regular
So the Facepunch household is getting a new member on March 8th. We're getting a Lab/Retriever cross puppy who will be two months old when he's brought to us. Neither myself nor Mrs. Facepunch have any experience in owning a dog, much less a new puppy, and while I'm cool as a cucumber about the prospect Mrs. Facepunch is starting to freak out a bit. What advice have you, H&A?
Garry: I know you gentlemen have been through a lot, but when you find the time I'd rather not spend the rest of the winter TIED TO THIS FUCKING COUCH!
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get used to pee on the floor for a little bit.
things will get chewed on.
remember it is basically a baby and knows nothing.
Sign up for a puppy class once you have confirmed you have all the vaccinations up to date and papers for the dog as well
A good puppy class will involve your puppy being introduced to and held/pet/played with by other people, practicing calming and examination exercises, *maybe* a slight bit of obedience, but most dogs aren't ready for real training until they hit 3 months; also have friends and family come over to play with the dog, and try to bring them other places where strangers are once they're vaccinated (parks, patios, malls, etc) to get exposure to people
Get hooked up with a well-reviewed local vet ASAP and get a basic check-up within a few days of adoption to make sure everything looks good and your vaccinations are up to date/scheduled, as well as to get you on file
Prior to full vaccinations, don't take your dog to a dog park or let them smell fecal matter on the street, they can get infections. Consider avoiding dog parks at least until they hit full growth, but even then be cautious about going to them at all - you might know your dog well, but you'd be surprised how many people bring dominant/"reactive" (ugh) dogs to a park and let them off-lead, only to bite another dog's face off
Play with your dog's paws and mouth/teeth regularly so your vet will thank you later. One of our student's vets even recommended putting your hand in their mouth once a day so they don't see your hand as a threat should you ever hit them by accident (e.g. while falling) or if your dog ever needs dental work.
Start off with 3 meals a day for the first two weeks you have them, then wean them off to two once they're older, so they'll wake you up/eliminate in the house less at night
Then sign up for obedience sooner than later, because when they hit the teenage years of anywhere between 6 and 18 months depending on breed, their behaviour is gonna change as they try to use dominant behaviour to re-establish their position in the pack and it's better to have the building blocks of obedience sooner than later. Prioritize a school which uses reward over punishment and eliminates food over time. Find out if they work with the aim of doing off-lead work and if they use appropriate hand signals that your dog can see from across the field (This can be vital! My parents' old school they trained at had a dog pass away because they ran into traffic across a field and the owner hadn't gotten very far into off-lead work. You want to be able to control them from a distance to avoid something similar happening.) Again, you can feel free to PM if you're not sure about the methods a school appears to have
To prevent anxiety, don't pay any attention to your dog for the first five minutes you enter your home or the five minutes before you leave; this'll prevent the mad barking rush/jumping you see in some dogs when their owners get home
To crate train your dog, don't just lock them away. Start off with their food bowl in front of the crate, then edge it farther and farther into the crate every day. Once they eat at the back of the crate they're at the point where they'll consider it a "den". That's when it's finally okay to crate them for any length of time. Never punish them once they enter it, even if they bolt in while in trouble - it becomes their little sanctuary! If it's a wire crate, put blankets over the top. Also, make sure it isn't much bigger than your dog, to ensure they don't relieve themself inside it
Also, dogs either chew out of anxiety or boredom, so if you're finding stuff is torn up at home, you need to address one or both. A morning walk, evening walk, playtime and obedience training (which they love but also get really tired out by) will be really helpful!
And last but not least, if there's one exercise you're ever going to practice, make it the Long Down. Once they've hit three months, start putting your dog into a down for 30 minutes a night. Sit beside them while you read/game/watch TV/etc. They can fall asleep or lie on their side, but they can't get up or roll or crawl away. If they do, bring them back to the same spot silently and put them into a down. This is training them instinctually that you're in charge. If there's a specific family member they seem to disobey more often than not, have them do this process, because usually that's an indication the dog thinks they're higher in the hierarchy than they are. The impact of this can be pretty stark if your dog is exhibiting dominance issues! We've had very dominant dogs turn around fairly quickly with this exercise alone. It can also be helpful if your dog is jumpy with house guests, because you can put them in a down and then make them wait to see the guests until they're steady. As they get more reliable with the exercise, you can put them into a down from the couch, across the room, or even leave the room and come back to release them.
And that's about it, really! If you want to learn more about minute puppy stuff, I'd recommend the book The Art of Raising A Puppy by the Monks of New Skete. I'm working through it right now in advance of getting my own pup and it's great!
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Yeah, my sister-in-law has a dog that is quite nippy. I think at this point the little guy (he's over a year old now) may be too far gone to teach this lesson, and whenever I go over there I turn into a chew toy. He wrecked one of my favourite hoodies.
I won't be making the same mistakes (read: all of them) with my pup that my sister-in-law made with theirs.
Oh, at a year he's definitely not too far gone! The owners, though... Well, they have to make the decision to commit to correcting it.
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I just want to highlight this part, because Parvo is usually a death sentence for puppies who haven't been vaccinated or fully vaccinated. Try to avoid association with unknown dogs and especially fecal matter until the full round of vaccinations are completed.
I'd suggest reading up a bit on both Lab and Retrievers to get an idea of their breed quirks, because crossbreeds of purebreds tend to adopt tendencies from both breeds. Labs/Retrievers are pretty jovial breeds so it shouldn't be overly difficult to socialize/train, but it helps to recognize that even with training some baseline behaviors and traits are inherent to the breeds themselves.
Take them to crowded places, take them in the car/on the bus/on the metro, have people pet them, have them meet people of different skin tones, play thunder and fireworks noises on youtube etc
I’m currently waking up earlier so I’ll be able to walk the dog first thing in the morning and we’ll be walking him in the evening as well. I imagine Mrs. Facepunch will also walk him during the afternoon before she goes to work.
To add to this, we currently have three cats in the house. What kind of challenges might that bring?
How are you doing that if you don't have a gate? Its terrible to leave a dog tethered outside unsupervised.
for cats its depends on personality.
it is going to be harder if the hats spook and run. if they swat the dog, he should learn. you just need to not let them interact unsupervised so you can train the proper treatment.
keep him on leash and give a correction if he tries to go after/jump etc. i mean its a puppy so he is going to try to play with your cats, but he needs to learn to treat them well.
best case, your cat hisses/swats him and your dog learns real fast not to mess with them.
that said. cat dog interactions are hard. we tried two different dogs this summer and they all kept going after the cats so they couldn't stay. our cats have lived with dogs and were not afraid to show the dog who the boss was, but the dogs didn't learn
In regards to the yard, I was just wondering if the dog would absolutely need to be outdoors for long periods of time unsupervised. We’ll be keeping watch over him while he’s outside until we get the gate fixed.
there's no reason for lengthy unsupervised outdoors time, no. Often it's unavoidable (work hours, etc), but as long as he's getting enough regular exercise then he should spend most of the day snoozing.
Unsupervised young dogs can also get into all sorts of trouble - from digging up the garden, to escaping - just because they're bored. So generally I would err on the side of less time left to their own devices, rather than more, at least until they're old enough to be vaguely responsible (generally 2-ish).
The first night will be the worst. Get some headphones ready. After that it gets better. Pending the dog of course sometimes day 1 will be fine, other times it may take 2-3 nights. After that the pupper knows you will be there in the morning and everything is A-OK.
But if you give in at the start then all you have done was teach the dog that when it wants to come in your bedroom it just needs to whimper.
Luckily for us our schedules work very well together and except for Monday the pup won’t be spending any more than an hour or so absolutely alone in a day in general. We’ll be crate training him and I’ll be taking the first Monday off after we get him to start things off.
This period can last weeks. You cannot cave
https://www.amazon.com/SmartPetLove-Snuggle-Puppy-Behavioral-Brown/dp/B000C9YHFS
Also 'spending the most time with him in general' means doing a lot of training! Anything you want to teach your puppy, you should be trying to train consistently. Yes, you will have dedicated time for intensive training for specific commands, but nearly all time will be training time at those ages. Where to go to the bathroom. How to nap. How to go on a walk. How to not drive your wife crazy. Even if the puppy is playing you are going to be stopping them from trying to chew on things like furniture or socks or your hands etc. That needs to be training time as well. Puppies are babies. Its a lot of work!
One thing to watch out for is that puppies are baby dogs, not baby humans. Baby humans are basically just lumps of inert mass that shit themselves for their first year of existence. Puppies are equivalent to toddlers right out the gate, which means they are able to mimic and learn complex behaviors from the get go. And they grow up fast.
Treating everything that a puppy does as something innocuous and cute can often lead to poor conditioning. Imagine your puppy were a big dog from the start, and if it is doing something that you wouldn't want it to do as a big dog then don't let it do it as a small one (see: biting). Coincidentally, this is why toy dogs are often so misbehaved - people treat them like harmless puppies their entire lives and they become demon spawn because they're so physically unimposing. But if they behaved similarly as a larger breed they would probably be put down.
Otherwise, yeah, either one of you should be good to go, and it's good for both of you to at least do some portion of it so you understand the technique. Dogs actually work more off body language than verbal commands, so a lot of dog training is less training the dog than training the owner.
Oh, on a note with toys - always check that your chewies and edible stuff come from whatever country you're in and not, say, China. And also, never play tug of war with the dog - they can do it with each other, but if they win against you it's like a little notch in the dominance tracker. Never play with sticks either - it's possible for them to bite through it or for it to break and get lodged in their mouth or throat, which ain't great.
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Belgian Tervurens are supposed to do that!
Ours attached to food.
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ie. your bed, couch, jumping up.
its important to nip things in the bud when they are still malleable.
as far as training goes, you can't just have one 30 minute session and call it a day or week.
first (most) puppies have the attention span of a nothing. They will lose focus after like 10 minutes. its better to just try and catch them doing things throughout the day. This also has the benefit of having them pay attention to you more often rather than during "training"
the other thing is training can happen whenever. So i recomend always having a small bag of training treats or kibble in your pocket. you are sitting on the floor and the dog comes up to you, tell him good come and give him a treat. he sits on his own, good sit, give him a treat. etc.
you really can do a lot with a quick 10-15 minute "session". Bonus is training tires them out so it is a good way to wind down.
also make sure you and wife are on same page with what you are actually calling commands
here vs come etc.
this may seem advanced, but I would also use hand signals when you do voice commands.
like for us, raising a closed fist was sit. palm flat moving down was laydown/down etc. we had a hand signal for most of our commands and it makes it easier to do stuff. by teaching with them from the begining it makes your life easier.
Sit: swoop your hand forward from your side to shoulder level, palm up (usually the right hand)
Stand: Move your hand forward over the dog's head, palm facing them
Heel: Left hand along the outside of their muzzle, moving forward; step forward with your left foot
Down: raise your right hand like you're asking a question in class, palm facing the dog, in line with your shoulder
Come: put your right arm out parallel to the ground, bend at the elbow, bring your palm to your chest
The nice thing about those particular ones for Down and Come are the dog can see them from 50 feet away, which can be vital around traffic
Oh! Puppy pro-tip, while I'm thinking about recall. A way to get an excitable dog to come to you is to be as nonthreatening as possible while being a big target. If you ever see a dog that's gotten away from its lead, oftentimes you can get it to come to you by kneeling down on both knees, throwing your arms out in a T pose, and leaning back. When the dog comes up to you, slowly bring your arms in to catch it. It doesn't work every time, but I've caught a few runaways on the street like that!
I uh......I really like dogs, and training dogs, if this wasn't obvious by now
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Along those lines, what do you think of clicker training?
Honestly, we don't do clicker training because you can use your voice as a reward/praise, and that's really all you need. Plus a couple of treats every now and then, depending on where you're at training the dog.
Some folks say it has worked really well for them! I ah, personally think whoever decided to start selling $1 clickers for $10-20 a pop was a smart businessperson. But you can always try it and see if you find it effective.
The style my parents base our training off of is entirely on the Monks of New Skete methodology, so it's been neat to read it and realize that I'd been following a lot of it with all of our dogs over my life just sort of learning it through osmosis.
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Eight days to go. I'm getting to be a bit nervous, but I'm also really excited about getting the little guy. It's going to be a lot of fun, I think.
EDIT: I suppose I should include a picture. I mean, that's just how these things are done!
TBF you aren't built to grab and shake things to death with your teeth, which is a dog thing too.
Alma will play tug and then as soon as we say 'Give' she instantly goes BLEHP and drops it.
Just wanted to say don't skimp on this. Walks have tremendous benefits for the dog. They reinforce the pack order and are good exercise. They are also very intellectually stimulating for the dog, and help alleviate boredom and restlessness that could otherwise lead to anxious/destructive behavior.
We don't really do tug with our dogs (though they love it), and if they try and start a session we alwaysmake them 'give' the toy before things get too strenuous. But it's interesting watching them play like that amongst themselves. The older dogs could easily take off with both toy and puppy attached, without trying, but they often just kind of pretend to pull and let the puppy win.
There was nothing quite so hilarious as watching my 50lb Shiba mix play tug of war with the 7lb chihuahua. Just sort of half-hearted light tugs until YOINK sorry we're done now.
The other real benefit is when you walk a puppy extensively, you tend to get an adorably sleepy puppy for the next day. (We once took our pet dalmatian for 3 different walks with different family members in one day, whcih he adored. He spent the next day+ asleep as a result)
One thing to be aware of is that stuff that's noisy but not unpleasant to us (Vacum Cleaners, a squeaky ironing board, etc) can be right terrifying to dogs. So training around not freaking out about noises like that might be helpful, though i'd defer to others here.
A good dog brush and regular grooming can really help with avoiding finding hair all over the house. Dogs tend to LOVE being brushed as well. Bath time can be a whole different affair, and i'm really not up on best-practices there.
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