Your new puppy

 

HELP! We just brought our new puppy home, what do we do now!!!! "Don't let their separation anxiety become your anxiety" Puppies go from sleeping with their litter mates to sleeping alone overnight. It can causes them great anxiety. ......THEY have to come to terms with their anxiety and learn to self soothe, or settle themselves. It may take them 30 minutes to calm down, it may take them 5 nights, but it will happen and you must let them work it out on their own. How you handle this will set the tone for the rest of lifes little demanding issue, cave in now and you will be laying the foundation for a demanding little companion.

Start out by using the same set up they were in while still with us. The x-pen with a bed, some toys, a chew stick and the litter box. You decide on a routine that works for your family and stick with it. When it's time for bed make sure your puppy has been fed, played with, taken out to the "outside potty spot" and relieved themselves. Do the same thing every night even if things don't go right the first week, you must be consistent. An hour or so before your bedtime dim the lights in the house, turn the TV and the video games off. Place the puppy back in the x-pen say your good nights and go to your room. NOW YOU STAY THERE ...I don't care what you hear coming from that x-pen, once your in your room you don't come out until you smell the coffee brewing! If you need to, turn a radio on in your bedroom, cover your ears with a pillow and ignore what's taking place in the other room.

This is where some people fail to follow my instructions and in their moment of weakness a pattern called CONDITION-RESPONSE can or will be set. If you respond in any way to their DEMANDS you'll be held hostage by their anxiety. DON'T reward the negative behavior by responding to them. (Anxiety now=Negative behavior later) You'll only set up the cycle of doing naughty things to get your attention. To your dog attention is attention good or bad, it's all the same and if they learn now that their cries will bring you back YOU will have taught them HOW to train their owner. In other words, they set the CONDITION and you gave the RESPONSE, putting them higher than you on the leader board. They just became the master and your the follower and they are only 8 weeks old!!!!! How smart are they?

During the day respond immediately to the GOOD DOG moments. We tend to let those moments go unnoticed and un rewarded but react very quickly to the negative behavior. At bed time you have to let it all go and don't respond in any way to their demands for more engagement (Attention from you)

Self soothing is lesson 1 and in my opinion is the most important lesson they must learn. My best companion dog (that would be Bandit) took 5 night to learn this lesson. He was very strong willed but because I didn't give in to his demands he learned to self soothe and today I can go anywhere with or without him and he is comfortable in his own skin no matter where he is. It was worth the 5 nights of howling!!!

In the beginning I like to use the x-pen with access to the potty SPOT because I don't want to put pressure on their bladder at this age (8 to 12 weeks) Once they are a bit older I start using my crates for this same lesson. As your puppy gets older they tend to want to play in the potty box. If this happens, limit the time they spend in the x-pen to the sleepy times only.

As house training progressive and bladder strength improves, start putting your puppy in the crate during the day in place of the x-pen. Follow the suggestions in crate training set forth on the training tips page. training tips Remember to take your puppy to their outside potty place immediately after being in their crate. Don't just open the crate door and walk away. Pick your puppy up and carry them to the potty spot. Be patient, don't engage them in play, just keep saying your potty command, YOUR DOGS NAME HERE-Go Potty. Once potty is made, happy voice says, GOOD DOG-GOOD DOG GO POTTY....

House training idea......Ring the Potty Bell?

If everything starts to fall apart around you, if your puppy has learned to run you and your house. START OVER at the beginning. Pretend you just picked your puppy up and they know nothing. Have a schedule planned out in your mind. Make sure everyone in the household understands the plan and is doing the same things with the puppy as you are. Feeding times need to be no more than 3 times a day and no later than 7.00 pm. No FOOD after that time and NEVER get up in the middle of the night to feed a demanding puppy. As soon as you can, enrolled in a puppy training class in your area. I can only do so much from a distance, you need to have someone watching you interacting with your puppy so the instructions and the timing is correctly applied. I recommend the book by Liz Palika called PUPPY LOVE Order Here

It's a great book and even though she doesn't recommend litter box training, I recommend her to all my local owners. You'll find one of my puppies on page 8 and 125 (Ella, a Abbie x Slugger daughter)

NEXT LESSON: HOW TO HANDLE TEETHING

 

Good Luck- Also See

Training Tips

HOW TO HANDLE TEETHING

House training.....Potty Training Tips

House training......Ring the Potty Bell?