What are important things to train a puppy to do?

morganafay

My dad says I should train my puppy properly (when she's a bit older), because none of my other dogs are trained. I was thinking about it though, and I don't think she needs "training", just that she'd pick things up from living with her.

None of my dogs are trained but they're good dogs, they come when they're called, they don't run away when off the lead, they sit if I tell them to, and don't usually jump up unless I tell them, they usually do what I tell them. I don't really think there's much else to traing them to do! I try to act like the pack leader and if they're bold I'll do something like shut them in their run (where they are at night) or just say no and they stop. But I haven't actually trained them properly.

Though one is pretty hyper and pulls on the lead (though she's not too strong so not really a problem) and sometimes will bark (not too much), but it doesn't bother me! It'd be a problem if she was a hyper dog and big, but she's only small.

I think my parents think they're untrained because they run around and play, but that's what dogs do. I wouldn't want a dog that's so well trained it thinks it can't run around.

She doesn't need housetraining because she'll be outside, and of course she'll be socialised when she's vaccinated and taught to walk on a lead. She's a Cavalier so won't be aggressive or too unruly or boisterous or anything.

But I've never actually trained a dog, and I don't really want her to be completely calm and be too strict with her. Is there anything I really should be teaching her, or should I just let her pick up training by spending time with her?

tk123

Leave it/take it cos pups pick up EVERYTHING in their mouths!

boomerang

Great info and advice here:

http://www.dogstardaily.com/training/raising-puppy

lrushe

I think you're looking at training the wrong way, I think you're looking at it like it will restrict your dogs life instead of enrich it. Imo you'll never bond closer with a dog than one you train, there will be less confusion in your relationships as you will have taught them through a success of commands exactly what you want them to do. Not to mention the sense of achievement both you and your dogs will feel after you complete each command. Its also great for tiring a dog out, a half hour of obedience work can tire a dog out mentally as much as an hour walk can physically. For all of these reason I not only trained my Rottweiler but also my Spitz and Chihuahua.
My dogs are trained to do the following:
Sit
Stay
Leave it
Take it
Lie down (close up or from a distance)
Heel (on and off leash)
Wait (essential if your dog is approaching something dangerous)
They are also housetrained and have a few 'fun' commands like giving the paw or barking on command.
Training should be done from the time you bring your pup home, make it fun and short, you'll be suprised how quickly a young pup can learn and also how addicted you can become when see your achievements.

morganafay

Thanks

She does pick up everything in her mouth! She's biting a lot too, I can't remember the others biting that much. So I'm trying to stop her doing that, it hurts!

doggiewalker00

apart from house trianing.

Sit
Stay
Leave it command

although it is fun to teach them a few tricks

and I suppose manners not to go jumping on people when they come into the house and when they see them on the street.

morganafay

When my other dogs were puppies I did teach them things like sit, lie down, give the paw (just for fun), etc. and I found those things fun to teach them, but kinda pointless in the end. They still know sit and I just make them sit before they get a treat/ball thrown, etc. Besides that I never really decided to teach them anything, they just picked it up over time.

They never mastered stay, but I think this is something I could do with teaching all of them! I'll try that, and a few other things.

I'll definitely teach her not to jump up and what "no" means, as my other dogs know that too.

My oldest dog is doing a good job training the pup today I think she's sick of the puppy chasing her and biting her, so she keeps growling/barking at her, but not actually snapping. I know she's just putting her in her place, and won't really hurt her I'm sure, and the puppy is being submissive, but I still don't like her growling at the pup. I'm just worried she'll accidentally hurt her. Whenever she growls I just keep saying "Donna, no!" and she stops, but she still does it again.

I guess the puppy will learn. She might do a better job teaching the puppy not to bite than I'd do. Along with the two cat scratches she's gotten already!

Don't get me wrong like, they're lovely dogs and have never hurt a puppy or other animal before, so I think she's quite safe with them, but I don't like to hear them growl.

Jinxi

I am so proud of myself...:D
Have my new puppy three weeks and she has
sit
down
rollover(with treat encouragment)
Paw
Stay(had to teach her this after she jumped out of my car when I opened the door to put in the gate pin, so some commands are essential)]
Go hide(when we are walking I say go hide and she crouched down in the long grass beside the path)

I am sooo lucky to have an extemely bright dog(collie 13 weeks old)
I have met people in the park who have uncontrolable dogs...v sad

Mrs Garth Brooks

I am very interested to know how people trained their dogs. Where do you find the info on how to train them for a specific command?

I have a 5 year old dog and the only thing i have trained her to do is sit, down, give the paw and give the other paw but i didn't need any book to tell me how its done.

Is there a book i can get? I think training them to bark on command would be cool.

Graces7

The one word "NO" covers many things... "Even" the collie is learning to respect that at last.

For their safety always. For me, that is the crux often.

Our wee dog was raised by our visiting dog trainer family... So she has a wider repertoire than the collie.

"See them off" has her barking and bouncing and racing around.. ( JRT/Basset cross)

My main achievement is training them BOTH to come when I use a whistle, to save voice.

They did this beautifully last week when the Gardai were at the gate; I was so proud of them. One quick blast and they ran to me.:)

I would never teach them tricks; it is for me simply to keep them safe and under control.

Whispered

HardLuckWoman wrote: »

I am very interested to know how people trained their dogs. Where do you find the info on how to train them for a specific command?.

Follow your instinct. Really, you'll be amazed at what you "know" without realising it. My OH and I have suprised ourselves with how we seem to understand how to deal with most things without thinking about it. There are a few things we needed help with. Like his fear of the car etc.

To teach him to bark on command, you can get him excited with a game and when he barks xcitedly, say "speak" (or whatever command word you want to use) and give him a treat, do this a few times, trying to anticipate a bark with the command. The dog should get it quickly.

Sigma Force

Previous dogs I've had I've never trained except for the usual stuff like their name, recall and 'sit' and they were perfectly behaved dogs.

Saying that each dog is different, my two adult dogs know the basics.

But our pup eventhough he's been to classes is a little monkey, he knows sit and to be honest we've been to soft on him and he's the kind of chap that we do need to go our of our way to teach him stuff like recall.
He's ell behaved in general but it's easy just to let things slide sometimes.

With puppies having them comfortable with being picked up at any stage is important for example if you were out and about with him and he was heading in to danger scooping him up quickly and him being happy about it is important.

Recall is a must as well and 'leave it'.

Your Dad might mean that the new pup might need extra manners no harm, spending time with a pup is obviously the best way to bond and for the dog to listen to you. Training your dog doesn't mean that you have to be strict, puppies are bouncy anyway but in some social situations there's a time for bouncy and there's a time for calm esp. if the dog comes across small children which will happen when your out and about.

Training a pup is no different than teaching them manners and there's no need to feel mean or strict about it you can make it fun and dogs love it.
Training is a great way for dog and owner to create a good relationship and things like clicker training is something that dogs love and can't get enough of esp. if they are food motivated.

Puppy classes might be an idea even just for the fun of it, as long as training methods used by the trainer are humane of course. Some trainers are too rough but there are a good few classes nationwide now that use only humane methods of training and dogs love it.

Says I who's dogs can be right brats.

jap gt

whats the best way to train the down and leave commands

tk123

jap gt wrote: »

whats the best way to train the down and leave commands

For down I just held a treat in my fist on the floor and he eventually lay down trying to get it..so repeat a few times and then add the prompt

For leave you have treats in both hands so say with the left you show them the treat and say leave it just as you open your right and say take it...and repeat until you can drop the treat on the floor and tell them to leave it.

I'm proud of our little guy - he cut his paw on thursday and got staples and a bandage - we haven't had to use the collar on him - telling him to leave it when he was at it the first day did the trick and he hasn't gone near it since!

Whispered

Thats great TK123. I think that recall, drop and leave are the 3 most important commands. Perfectly demonstrated by your little man.

Do you mean down as in lie down, or down as in drop? For lie down as mentioned, wait until he does it an use the command, but if you're gentle there is no harm in helping him into the down position too. Just be sure he doesn't feel "bullied" if you know what I mean.

Jap gt - We thought drop using a toy. We'd play pulling games. Then tell him to drop and hold onto the toy but just not engage anymore. When he'd drop, he'd get a treat. It only took a few goes for him to realise what drop meant and it transfered easily to food, bones etc. It's important though that you always replace the "dropped item" with something good, whether thats a treat or a big cuddle is up to you. But make sure that dropping things = getting something good most of the time.

Leave it is very very simple to teach. Have the dog calm. Sit on the floor with him, put down a treat he's not too interested in, like a single bikkie from his dry feed. Don't use high value food at the start like chicken or ham. Say clearly "leave" put it on the floor and leave your hand over it. Slowly move your hand and if the dog goes to get the treat move it back, repeating the command. Keep doing it until your hand is not over the treat anymore, only leave him 2 or 3 seconds the first time before you tell him to get it. As you move on with your training, you can leave him longer and begin to not repeat the command, using only the hand movement. I think this is a very important command.

I think though that the most important things to teach your dog is how to live happily and respectfully with people. Things like how to great guests, how to react to unexpected noises, how he can be corrected and not be really upset over it, (how to be corrected and then make you laugh with roguery!!). These are things that they learn with time and interaction. You can teach a dog to do, or not do anything. Just be gentle and consistent.

Bleedin Delish

to sh*t OUTSIDE

morganafay

Sophie has learnt her name I think! When I call her name she is running up to me, but if I call her "puppy" then she isn't running over. I don't want to call her puppy too much because that's what my 6 year old dog gets called and what she responds to.

I'm trying to teach her "no", I also find that the most important command. It works for everything, like to make them drop something, to make them stay, to stop them doing whatever bold things they're doing.

She's a bit hyper and also pretty attention seeking, she keeps crying for attention, or if I put her outside for a while with the other dogs, so I'm just ignoring the crying, hoping not to encourage it. And she's really bad for biting! I'm just taking my hand away from her whenever she bites, or giving her her chew toy. And when she bites the other dogs they're running away or growling at her, so she's stopped doing that and just lies down if they growl now.

The cats are teaching her that they're in charge, and I'm trying to teach her to be nice to the guinea pigs and rabbits, just by praising her when she tries to lick them through the bars of their runs, and by taking her away and saying no if she barks at them.

I was thinking I might try to teach her to poo in one spot in the garden, but the other dogs go everywhere anyway, so it wouldn't be that helpful! I dunno how I'd train the others to go in one place!

The other dogs were just sitting on the bench outside because they were scared of the puppy, but I took away the bench yesterday so they have to spend time with her if she's outside, and it's working, they're now cuddled up with her!

Whispered

Morganafay, sounds like she's doing great!

You could teach her to allow you touch her ears, eyes and teeth. I never realised how important it is until Harley got an eye infection as a pup and hated getting his drops. Same for his ears!

So now I will say "ear" and turn his ear out, sometimes I'll blow gently, or stroke, and sometimes I put his drops in. But he knows that "ear" means I'm going to do something and he just has to allow it.

Same with the eyes, although you can't pull out of their eyes in the same way but If I ask if he has a sore eye he'll squint up and allow me to wipe them. He still dislikes getting the drops and tries to turn away but at least he knows what I'm up to.

I say teeth and open his mouth, lift his lips etc to check his teeth. It might not be necessary for a cav as they have litle mouths but for Harley I thought it might help if he ever had to see the vet about a sore mouth. Because if he didn't want you to open his mouth, well he's not going to open it.

It just makes things easier in the vets to have some commands like that. Play dead is also great for them to know, you can get them to lie quietly while the vet listens to their heartbeat.

morganafay

Good idea Whispered! I definitely need to get her used to playing with her ears and feet, since my dogs hate having their ears cleaned and nails clipped! They get very waxy ears too. (Luckily I only have to clip two nails on one of the dogs, only those two grow long, and not the dew claws! She has hairy feet so that's why!)

I better try to train her to stand while being brushed too, so she'll be a bit better than the other dogs. :rolleyes:

Two of my dogs are good while getting their hearts listened to, but one, the hyper one, just jumps around and snorts (Cavaliers snort!) so the vet can't hear her heart! :rolleyes: And she needs her heart checked regularly cos she's old and a Cav.

belongtojazz

Another good one to teach is the wait command for her dinner. So you can put the bowl down but they will leave it until you say it's ok to eat. You can also teach this one to your older ones. My springer was 6.5 when I got him and he learnt it really quickly. My 2 now won't eat until I say their name and OK. I swap which one is allowed to start first based on their behaviour. The best behaved one starts first, the springer ALWAYS finishes first
It is another way to show them you are boss and you decide when they can eat :P

bunny&spoon

these are some great tips, i'll hav to try them out with Bailey, 3months old and very willing to learn, gonna hav some with these tips!

Whispered

belongtojazz wrote: »

It is another way to show them you are boss and you decide when they can eat :P

But you do decide when they eat anyway. I'm sure they know that. Although I do find "leave" a great command for safety reasons.