First few days with your puppy

There are a couple of principles that we use when teaching a puppy anything. Here they are:-

1. We teach everything by conditioning a puppy to act in a certain way. We show him to do something and then reward him when he does it.


2. We use a puppys name before every command except "stay!" and "toilet". It makes him excited and alert and ready to jump into action to do whatever it is that we want him to do!


3. We repeat a game several times to form a pattern for the puppy to learn from.


4. We reward the puppy the second he does the right thing.


5. We use the same command for the same exercise every time. We also try to use the same tone of voice and body gestures that go with that command.


6. We NEVER punish a puppy when teaching him something. The puppy only gets a reward when it does the right thing and we make sure that it does the right thing!


7. We use a high-pitched voice when talking to a puppy (rather like humans use cootshy-coo language on their babies!). This tone excites them so that theyre keener to work. This goes for adult dogs too!! Barking out commands to them army-fashion has the opposite effect.

Next time we will be looking at toilet training for the new member of the family. Come with me as we watch our puppy grow and develop to protect and give us unconditional love.

Bye for now: Maqhawe the Mamba

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Toilet training

Because dogs are pack animals it is important to let your puppy come into your house every day to spend quality time with the family. If you are only going to let him in a short period at a time then you can easily prevent him from going to the toilet inside by watching him and taking him out if he needs to go. If hes going to be allowed in permanently then you are going to have to take him out regularly to the toilet (the younger he is the more often he will need to go) and know the most likely times that he will need to go (usually after waking up, eating, drinking, and long periods of play).

Here is the toilet routine:

You pick the puppy up as soon as he needs to go to the toilet (he will start circling to find a place) and take him to the place outside where we want him to do it. Once there you must put him down and start walking in a small circle, looking at the ground and say,Toilet! Toilet!. He will start circling and then go to the toilet. As soon as he does, you must praise him "Good boy!" and when he is finished you must stroke him and continue to praise him and then walk with him back into the house.

The reason why we pick the puppy up in the first place is to prevent him from going to the toilet before we reach our destination. We walk in a circle because if you stand still the puppy will sit and watch you to see what you are going to do next, and if you walk in a straight line he will not stop to go to the toilet because he will think that you are on your way somewhere and that theres not time to stop! Stroke him only when he has finished to avoid distracting him.. Taking him straight back into the house shows him that he is not being exiled from the house when he goes to the toilet outside.

By now we have a puppy we are proud of, that does not mess in the house and the next up date would more about fun as we teach our friend to FETCH .

Speak to you next time!

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