One pitfall new puppy owners can't seem to understand is that the more unsupervised free time in your home the puppy is allowed to have, you are setting the puppy up to have failure after failure in learning to be potty trained.

Until puppies get to be closer to 5-6 months of age, there is not a strong connection between the brain and the bowels and bladder. They feel the urge to go, they squat and go. To achieve successful puppy potty training you must be proactive instead of reactive with their training.

Another pitfall is that puppy owners expect more from their puppy than is age appropriate for the puppy. What you can expect from an 8 week old puppy is very different than what you can expect from a 16 week old puppy. Again, don't set your puppy up to fail by having expectations the puppy can't possibly meet.

Yet another pitfall in puppy potty training is the impact of WHAT and HOW you feed your puppy. Not only does this affect potty training, BUT it has a big impact on puppy behavior also. Unless you are feeding your puppy a high quality dog/puppy food, you are loading your puppy up with low quality protein such as "animal by-product" and tons of cheap carbohydrates. You CAN NOT find high quality dog food in a supermarket or even those big box stores (except for a very few brands)

What happens with an overload of cheap carbohydrates? An overabundance of serotonin occurs in the brain and causes more energy than the puppy knows what to do with so you get wild behavior. You must understand what to look for in the ingredients in your puppy's food and in what order those ingredients need to be.

How you feed your puppy can impact puppy potty training. It is important to understand that feeding only dry food to your puppy makes it difficult or impossible to gauge when the puppy will need to potty because dry food breaks down very very slowly in their intestines. It is important for optimal nutrition and more "regularity" in potty training to feed your puppy in a way that allows the food to digest evenly.

Avoiding these pitfalls is not difficult. It's just information that most new puppy owners don't know. I have a great free article on 5 Critical Steps in Potty Training Your Puppy at:

http://www.puppytrainingsecretsrevealed.com/tips.html

I think you'll find it very useful.

Be as comfortable with the trainer of your dog, as you are the teacher of your children. And remember: "Opportunity Barks!"

Jim Burwell

The example given was based on a daughter who decided to share some fat scraps from her dinner plate with the puppy and the puppy bit her. Behavioral science teaches us positive methods to train, correct and redirect our puppies allowing us to leave behind forever the old “school of hard knocks”.

Nothing was mentioned about setting the puppy up to succeed - not fail by simply crating the puppy during mealtimes so that you can work with the puppy in a positive way during a controlled training session, thereby avoiding physical punishment.

While Williams did mention that kids, like dogs need behavioral counseling as well, there was no mention made of teaching the children in the household how best to interact with the puppy, i.e. “no table scraps are to be hand fed to the puppy thus avoiding the need to physically punish altogether.” There is also the added concern that if this physical punishment happens during a puppy’s critical fear imprint period, the owner could seriously compound problems that could have long term negative affects on the puppy.

Normal puppies should play-bite as they interact socially with their litter mates. But since we remove them from their litter mates too early, and bring them home, they become isolated from opportunities to continue to fine-tune their bite inhibition. We, as dog owners can allow our puppies to continue to work on bite inhibition during their very very early age (7-12 weeks) by allowing puppies to bite us ADULTS under controlled circumstances as they interact with us. Allowing puppies to bite gives them some idea of their bite strength. You use positive methods to redirect the biting. This critical information gives them a point of reference from which to work to soften their bite and then finally only lick human skin.

There is a process to go through with your puppy to accomplish this. Most trainers familiar with positive reinforcement training can take you through this process so that the learning is positive for both the owners and the puppy. Puppies should always be supervised on leash around children.

Here’s another interesting thing I’ve learned over the years from dog behaviorists. I don’t know if I can quote verbatim so I’ll try and paraphrase as best I can. It goes something like this.

“Kids get along well with dogs when parents provide gentle and enlightened guidance to both. When emotional and/or physical parental excesses take place, children and dogs both tend to react according to the Be-Like Act-Like (allelomimetic) principle. If a dog owner gets angry and punishes a child quite often, the dog may start getting edgy when the youngster is around him. If an owner does the same to the dog, the child may take on the role of punisher and get into trouble when the dog defends himself.”

Based on this theory, if the daughter in the example, sees the parent physically punish the puppy, then she, at some point takes on the role of punisher, there is a high likelihood that the dog (being forced into defense drive)may bite the child. There are simply better positive ways to approach correcting a puppy.

Until next time, be as comfortable with the trainer of your puppy, as you are the teacher of your children. And remember, Opportunity Barks!

Jim Buwell, founder Jim Burwell’s Petiquette
www.petiquettedog.com

This is one of the more interesting stories I’ve heard about dog aggression. A couple of years ago she was preparing to take her two dogs for a walk. She got them on their leashes, and headed out the door for a typical daily walk, not knowing disaster awaited. A neighbor had left a bag of dog treats on the front porch. The dogs were no sooner out the door when they both discovered the dog treats at the same time. Well, you guessed it. A major dog fight ensued and, as she so aptly explained, it was a war zone right there on my front porch.

She immediately called a trainer and began extensive dog training that lasted for a year. This was followed by calling in a dog behaviorist, but all to no avail. She has them to the point now, where they tolerate each other, but things are still tense and very very stressful at home.

Suggestions had been made to “re-home” one of the dogs. The husband refuses. If you’ve had the dogs for as long as they have, I would be hard pressed to “find another home” for one of my dogs! I would exhaust every single avenue to fix the problem.

So, what’s this dog aggression in California got to do with me, I’m sure you’re asking. That’s where the email comes in. She has set up a consultation with me, as it turns out she will be in Houston next month visiting friends.

There are still many unanswered questions, such as “why is it the wife’s responsibility to deal with the dogs 24/7? Hmmm, something’s up there. No husband participation? Fights amongst dog house mates usually always occur around one or both owners and generally between (not always), dogs of the same gender.

Could it be squabbles over pack status? Resources like food or owner affection? More will be revealed when I receive the completed “canine questionaire”.

Stay tuned as this saga unfolds and we find more pieces completing the puzzle, once again restoring a peaceful and rewarding relationship between these two dogs and their owners.

“Be as concerned about the trainer of your dog, as you are the teacher of your children.” And remember,

“Opportunity Barks!”

Jim Burwell, Jim Burwell's Petiquette
http://www.petiquettedog.com

I have a client with a 7 month old Rottie who was doing some serious resource guarding of food bowls, couches, dog toys etc. The owners, who got him at 8 weeks felt that apparently since birth this dog had been very assertive.

The dog had had no structure in this home for 7 months straight, so, unfortunately both dog and family were on a one way journey down the wrong path of life with the potential for some serous harm.

It all came to a head when the wife tried to remove a bone from his space, the dog bit her. So, how did we fix it?

I explained to them how important structure and routine are to dogs, much the same way those two things are important to children. So we started the behavior modification.

Structure: We put the dog on what I call the “learn-to-earn” program. The dog was required to do the obedience commands of sit and down for everything he got and most importantly, things of high value to him such as food, articles of play, space and most importantly, love and affection.

Dog behavior modification for guarding: We began a gradual desensitization of the dog to allow family members and other people to come around his food bowl, his chew bones and his space. He was rewarded for acting appropriately.

Dog behavior modification at the front door: We taught him the obedience command “go to your place”. We then expanded this obedience command to become “go to your place” when he heard the doorbell ring. This fixed the charging of the front door.

The key to our success? The owner’s 110% commitment to working their dog on the behavior modification program and dog obedience commands. I am always so proud of my clients who recognize that only a serious commitment to working the dog behavior plan will turn their dog around - and it has!

Trust me on this. Consistency and repetition will begin to breed habit in your dog, so keeping structure in his life and your expectations of his behavior high, will be the key.

Tell me what you think!

Either one is acceptable because if done correctly, compulsion training is not done harshly. Which method you choose pretty much depends on the dog and if your dog will not work for food then use positive based compulsion training or clicker training. I say, if the end result is the same, who cares?

Without getting into extended sits, downs, stays or “proofing” your dog around distractions, here’s how I help people start with treat training then, most importantly, progress to not using treats, just using hand signals and voice commands.

Many trainers say that using food treats (inducement) is not good because you always have to carry around food treats to get your dog to perform. What they don’t tell you is what they don’t know! That is simply, treat training is a process of teaching with food at first, then weaning the dog off food treats so that he is performing for you without the treats!

The trick which most people are not taught is the “weaning off” part of treat training. They get stuck with a dog that will only work for food.

Once your dog is successfully performing a sit, start treating every other time, then every third time and begin to get 4 and 5 sits in a row and only treat after the second, third, fourth of fifth time - then off food treats. This is called variable treating.

The other key is to progress to not having food treats in your hand. Dogs burn an image or picture in their mind that the activity of “sits or downs” is something they do with you when you have a food treat in your hand. Dogs can also learn the same concept with you without a food treat in your hand.

Help them with this concept by leaving the treats in your treat bag, zip lock bag or on the counter.

In summary: 1. REWARD with treats each time you shape a new behavior. 2. ONCE you can anticipate the behavior, introduce a verbal command and hand signal and 3. THIS IS THE KEY: start variable treating with no food treats in your hand.
Simple really.