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Positive Pet and Service Dog Group Classes come to Orange

May 18, 2016 by sharon Leave a Comment

UPDATE: Family Dog Manners & Obedience will begin Sunday, June 26 at 1 PM. See our Group Classes page for details.

We’re excited to announce that positive reinforcement dog training classes have come to the North Quabbin! We have secured space for our first set of classes in Orange:

Photo of an orange

No, we mean Orange, Mass., of course! Classes will be held in June, at the Orange Innovation Center, 131 West Main St., Orange, MA 01364.

We’ll be running the following classes:

  • Family Dog Manners & Obedience
  • Service Dog Foundations I
  • Puppy Kindergarten
  • Service Dog Foundations II

Find out more about each class below.

Instructor

portrait_house_smClasses are taught with enthusiasm and humor by Certified Professional Dog Trainer and Karen Pryor Academy Certified Training Partner, Sharon Wachsler. Sharon is experienced with pet, puppy, and service dog training, uses positive methods (with dogs and people!), and has taught classes for Dakin Humane Society. All classes are kept small for lots of individual attention for you and your dog. Dogs, like people, have good days and bad days. Sharon will help your dog get to the next level, no matter which kind of day you’re having. After all, every dog has its day!

LocationOrange Innovation Center sign with orange, blue, green sign in front of large industrial cement building

Classes are indoors at OIC, held rain or shine. OIC is conveniently located right off of Route 2 and accessible by Orange-Athol community transit and FRTA. The location is wheelchair accessible.

Family Dog Manners & Obedience

Want a mannerly mutt? A polite Papillon? An obedient Old English Sheepdog?

Do you want a dog who pays attention, does what you ask, greets politely, and comes when called? This is the class for you!

This beginner family dog training class teaches your dog basic skills to make your dog a pleasure to live with. It is appropriate for dogs of any age, from elderly to adolescent. Your dog will learn…

  • SitBrown and white short-haired dog lying on a welcome mat holding a leather leash in his mouth.
  • Down
  • Attention
  • Leave it
  • Polite greetings
  • Coming when called
  • Polite leash walking
  • Wait

Family Dog Manners & Obedience is perfect for…

  • Newly adopted dogs who need some help understanding the new rules
  • Young and adolescent dogs that have hit that “difficult” phase
  • Older dogs who could use some reminders about good manners
  • Any age dog or owner who enjoys training and wants to take their teamwork to the next level

Requirements, Fees, and Schedule:

  • Health: Dog must be vaccinated and generally healthy
  • Behavior: Dog must be able to work around other dogs and people
  • Prerequisites: None
  • Course length: 6 weeks
  • Fee: $128
  • Starting date: Sunday, June 12 at 1 PM. (Can’t make this time? Contact us to request days and times that work for you. We’ll do our best to accommodate you in future class cycles.)
  • Register: HERE

Service Dog Foundations I

Are you taking your dog to the next level and beyond? Service Dog Foundations is for dogs that have graduated from basic manners and are ready to focus on the foundation behaviors needed for an assistance dog career. Service Dog Foundations is built around handler focus — your service-dog-in-training (SDiT) focusing on you and offering eye contact, relaxed behavior, and eager working attention.

Are you training your dog as a mobility, psychiatric, medical alert, or other assistance dog? This is the class for you!

This class is designed with the needs of the owner-training service dog handler in mind. Your service-dog-in-training (SDiT) will learn to alternate between active working and active relaxation. As the course progresses, dogs will learn to maintain focus, working around increasing distractions. During “settle” periods, students will participate in discussions about common SDiT handler issues, such as how to handler questions from strangers, gear and equipment questions, and more. This class is appropriate for dogs of any age, from elderly to adolescent. Your dog will learn…

  • Eye contact and handler focusBlack Bouvier wearing black service dog harness with white and red patches
  • Conditioned relaxation (chill out in any environment)
  • Working Dog Walk (advanced/focused leash walking)
  • Leave it
  • Touch (nose targeting)
  • Stay
  • Around (avoiding obstacles and increasing team communication)
  • Public access training foundations
  • BONUS: Q&A on service dog joys and challenges

Service Dog Foundations I is perfect for…

  • SDiTs that can perform cued behaviors reliably at home but not as well in other spaces
  • SDiTs that have some, but not all, the foundation behaviors they need
  • SDiT teams that want to build their confidence and teamwork together
  • SDiT handlers that want the information and support of a service dog group class

Requirements, Fees, and Schedule:

  • Health: Dog must be vaccinated and generally healthy
  • Behavior: Dog must be able to work around other dogs and people
  • Prerequisites: Family Dog Manners & Obedience or equivalent*.
  • Course length: 6 weeks
  • Fee: $128**
  • Starting date: Date and time to be determined. Contact us to request days and times that work for you. We’ll do our best to accommodate those we hear from first.
  • Register: HERE

*Equivalent means that your dog can reliably perform most of the behaviors taught in Family Dog Manners & Obedience in a group class environment. If your dog has had previous private or group lessons, please contact us to discuss which class is most appropriate for your dog. We may ask to speak with your previous trainer, send us video, or do a consultation.

**We offer discounts to service-dog handlers who are low income and disabled. Please contact us for information.

Stay Tuned….

We will eventually also be offering

  • Puppy Kindergarten (for pups 8-16 weeks old)
  • Service Dog Foundations II
  • Canine Good Citizen class

Interested in one of these courses, or another course you don’t see listed? Contact us!

Filed Under: Choosing a Dog Trainer, Events, Group dog training classes, Loose Leash Walking (Heel), Pet dog training, Puppy Socialization, Puppy training, Recall (Train Your Dog to Come when Called), Service Dog Training

Does Your Dog Need a “PET Plan”?

May 2, 2016 by sharon Leave a Comment

Is your puppy out of control? Are you having trouble getting your dog to listen? Here are some common dog behavior problems for my clients. See if any sound familiar.Black and white puppy baring teeth at person's hand on its butt.

Example #1: Your six-month-old pup is mouthing and nipping your clothes and skin, jumping up on your kids, and stealing the family’s stuff whenever she sees her opportunity. You have tried every way you can think to tell her no: Yelling “No” or “ouch,” shaking her collar, and rolling her onto her back, but none of it helps.

Example #2: Your newly adopted dog is pulling on leash, especially when you walk on the street. He is okay on the quiet woods path, but as soon as you get near people, dogs, or cars, he stops listening. You are walking on a retractable lead so he has as much room as he needs to explore, but he’s still not satisfied. You tell him no, you jerk the leash, but it makes no difference.

Example #3: Your dog goes wild whenever someone comes to the door. He barks and jumps. You keep telling him to be good, but he doesn’t listen.

The problem behavior is different in each situation, but a similar approach will work for each dog. In every case, the dog needs a PET plan!

What is P.E.T.?

  • Prevention
  • Enrichment & 
  • Training

For fast, effective training, set up a plan that combines P.E.T. — Prevention, Enrichment, and Training.

Prevention (Management)

Like people, dogs have habits. The more a dog practices doing something, the better she gets at it. This is just as true for bad behavior as for good behavior. Practicing bad behavior makes it an entrenched habit. The first step in behavior modification is to PREVENT the bad behavior.

Snow-covered hill with several deep paths worn into snow and people climbing up them.Think of your dog’s mind as a hill covered with snow. Each time the dog does something, the neural pathways in the dog’s brain fire along a certain path for that behavior. That is like sledding down a hill in the snow. The more you sled down the same trail, the smoother, faster, and deeper the snow becomes on that path. It gets easier and easier to slide down the same trail and harder to forge a new trail where the snow is fresh and deep.

Stopping the dog from using that mental pathway is the first step. When that trail is not being used over and over, the path gets slower, bumpier, and harder to use. Now your dog has the mental space to learn a good behavior — creating a fast new mental path — instead.

Examples of Prevention (Management solutions)

  • Put your dog behind a gate or another room
  • Crate your dog
  • Tether your dog to a heavy piece of furniture
  • Tether your dog to your belt
  • Attach a “house line” (aka “drag leash”) you can step on
  • Cover the windows with wax paper
  • Put a fence around the flower garden
  • Bring the dog indoors

Enrichment (Keeping your dog positively & constructively engaged)

Dog contentedly licking inside of a black Kong, holding rubber Kong in place with one foot.Bad behavior often arises from too much “free time.” Dogs, like kids, have a lot of energy. If we don’t direct it towards constructive outlets, it will find destructive outlets. A tired dog is a good dog! Exercise is an important form of enrichment, but mental exercise is as tiring for some dogs as a run.

Examples of Enrichment (Canine occupational therapy)

  • Foraging for food or toys (“Find it!”) uses scenting, seeking, eating, moving
  • Meals from feeder toys (problem solving, licking, nosing, pawing, eating, moving, chewing)
  • Chew toys (lying down and licking is relaxing, exercises jaw muscles, problem solving)
  • Tug of War or Fetch with training/rules (running, problem solving, thinking, cooperating, chewing, seeking, communicating and building your bond)

TIP: Combine Enrichment with Management

If your dog jumps on visitors, give her a bully stick or peanut-butter stuffed Kong in her crate right before guests arrive. If she’s too hyper to train polite leash walking, play a tiring game of tug before you take a walk. Want her to ignore the kids in the kitchen? Scatter her dinner all over the back yard so she has to hunt for every kibble. Give her something positive to do while you prevent naughtiness.

Training (Teaching your dog the right things to do)

Training is making predictable changes in a dog’s behavior over time. It is TEACHING. Use management for behavior you need today. Use training for behavior you need tomorrow. Training requires time and repetition. Training may not affect current behavior, but done properly, it will affect future behavior. After a few days of training, your dog should offer desirable behaviors more often and undesirable behaviors less often. If that’s not happening, get in touch. You need a better plan. We can help.

Putting PET Plans into Practice

Let’s look at the three scenarios we started with. How can we apply the PET plan to each?

1. The mouthing, nipping, jumping, toy-stealing puppy: This puppy needs more supervision and confinement.

Prevention and management will make this situation much easier and safer for everyone.

Large brown dog stands behind white metal pet gate while butterscotch colored tabby cat walks through a cat door in the bottom of the gate.This puppy is like a kindergartener in people terms who cannot be expected to know the rules yet. Just as you would child proof your home with a child who is too young to know what is safe and what is dangerous, with a puppy you can use crates, exercise pens (“x-pens”), or baby gates that prevent her from getting to the kids or door to jump, mouth, or run out.

If your home set-up makes this difficult, you can use tethers and “house lines.” Tethering is when you leash your dog and attach the other end to the wall, a heavy piece of furniture, or yourself! Tethering your puppy to you is a great help for puppy training and service dog training, especially. A “house line” (or “drag line”) is leaving a leash on your dog all the time that just drags behind her. It is MUCH easier to step on a leash — to prevent bolting out the door or to stop her from leaping on the kids as they walk in — than to try to catch a fast little puppy by hand!

Combine management with enrichment by having the puppy chew on a bully stick or lick food out of a Kong when you need to keep her occupied during high-excitement times, such as when the kids come home from school or first thing in the morning when everyone is busy and rushing around getting ready for their days.

Train the puppy how to behave by teaching her to sit for greetings, teaching a “drop it” for things she has in her mouth, and by offering her toys and chews to occupy her mouth instead of mouthing or nipping.

2. The newly adopted leash puller: This situation primarily requires training, but management and enrichment can help a lot.

Prevention: Until this dog has the training to learn how to behave around distractions such as cars, people, and dogs, you can prevent him practicing this behavior by walking him in quieter areas. You can also get more control by using a fixed-length leash — retractable leashes strongly encourage pulling — and the proper body harness or head halter that discourage pulling.

Enrichment: Pulling is often a result of a dog who is too wound up and excited by a walk. If your dog works off some extra energy with mental or physical exercise before his walk, he may be less likely to lunge and pull when you go out. Having him work for all his food with food-dispensing toys or clicker training are cheap, easy, and enriching methods for most dog. Playing tug of war (with rules), hide-and-seek, fetch, or scenting games (inside the house or outside) are also very enriching and can take the edge off a hyper dog.

Training: Start training the dog to walk calmly on a loose leash INSIDE your home first! Give treats for walking nicely by your side and paying attention to you. This will take time for your dog to learn and for you to transfer to outdoors, with all its distractions. While your dog is learning good leash manners, when you go on a real walk, use a no-pull harness or a head halter to prevent pulling in the meanwhile. (See our post on harnesses and halters for the pros and cons of each.)

3. The badly behaved greeter: As with the puppy in #1, your first step here must be management/prevention.

Prevention: Dogs must be prevented from rushing guests at the door. Whether they’re motivated by joy, fear, or anger, it’s unpleasant for everyone and not something you want the dog to practice. If his behavior is fearful or aggressive, putting him in a crate far away from the doorway or a bedroom with the door closed will help your guests enter with a lot less chaos and distress for dog and humans. If he’s overexcited and loves people, tethering or using a baby gate to keep him away until both dog and guests have settled will help prevent the free-for-all.

Enrichment is a key part of this plan. Most dogs, if they are just prevented from seeing or approaching people with nothing else to do, will bark, whine, or work themselves up. However, most dogs, if given a very high-value chew to work on (cheese-stuffed Kong, bully stick, dried trachea stuffed with broth-soaked kibble and frozen) would rather work on their delicious occupational therapy than fling themselves at the end of their tether or the gate or door. A lot of exercise or intensive play or training before guests arrive can also help take the edge off a frenzied dog.

Training is important here, too. What you choose to train the dog to do will depend in part on whether your dog’s behavior arises from attraction or aversion to guests. One skill that works well for both types of dogs is to train the dog to relax on a mat when people arrive.

What about you?

Do you have a favorite PET plan for your dog? Share it in the comments!

Filed Under: Barking, Car reactivity, Jumping, Loose Leash Walking (Heel), Management (Prevention), Nipping, Pet dog training, Puppy training, Training Tagged With: dog training, positive reinforcement, positive training

Health and Behavior Considerations of Spay/Neuter Surgery

March 21, 2016 by sharon 2 Comments

Early Spay/Neuter Considerations

Your primary source of guidance and consideration on desexing (spaying or neutering) your dog should be your dog’s veterinarian. This is a complex issue that requires more study. We make the best decisions we can based on current evidence. Our goal is to provide useful information to support you and your vet in coming to the best decision for your dog and your family. If you think your dog may have a behavior issue that would be positively or negatively influenced by desexing, I encourage you to discuss this with your vet.

Desexing involves removing some of your dog’s sex organs, which affects hormone levels that impact health and behavior. In males, the primary hormone affected is testosterone. In females, the primary hormones affected are estrogen and progesterone. Here are some of the pros and cons of early spay/neuter.

Health Benefits of Early Spay/Neuter

  • The surgery is easier for the vet and faster and easier to recover from for the puppy. Simply put, there is less tissue involved when a puppy is small, especially for male puppies, and this can make the surgery less complicated and potentially painful.
  • For shelter dogs or other homeless/unowned dogs, desexing at a young age guarantees the dog will not produce unwanted puppies.
  • In situations where owners may be unlikely or unable to spay/neuter later on (where finances are unreliable or when regular/ongoing vet care is unreliable), vets may prefer to schedule the surgery early on just to make sure it happens.

Health Risks of Early Spay/Neuter

  • Cancer. Evidence of higher rates of several types cancers among dogs that were desexed at a young age is mounting. These cancers include hemangiosarcoma, lymphoma, osteosarcoma (bone cancer), and mast cell tumors. Cancer is a serious health issue for all dogs. In certain breeds, these cancers are even more likely.
  • Musculoskeletal issues, including abnormal bone growth and development. Canine cruciate ligament ruptures are more likely in dogs desexed at a young age, and hip dysplasia may be more likely or more severe in dogs neutered early. Dr. Karen Becker writes, “Studies … concluded dogs spayed or neutered under one year of age grew significantly taller than non-sterilized dogs or those dogs spayed or neutered after puberty. The earlier the spay or neuter procedure, the taller the dog. … [I]t appears that the removal of estrogen-producing organs in immature dogs – both females and males – can cause growth plates to remain open. These animals continue to grow and wind up with abnormal growth patterns and bone structure. This results in irregular body proportions, possible cartilage issues, and joint conformation issues.”
  • Hypothyroidism or other endocrine issues. A dog’s hormones affect each other. When some of the hormones are removed at an early age, this may affect the other hormones on an ongoing basis. Some vets believe that endocrine diseases such as hypothyroidism and atypical Cushing’s syndrome may be more likely in dogs that are desexed early.
  • Additional health risks are explained in the links provided at the end of this handout, including some breed-specific risks (e.g., Golden retrievers, Labrador retrievers, etc.)

Articles and Links on Health Considerations of Spay/Neuter

  • Study on long-term health effects of neutering Golden and Labrador retrievers 
  • Dr. Karen Becker on why she’s had a “change of heart” on spaying/neutering
  • JAVMA (Journal of American Veterinary Medical Association) on pros and cons of spay/neuter

Behavioral Effects of Early Spay/Neuter

There is even less reliable evidence on the behavioral effects of desexing dogs. You may notice that some of the assertions in the links for behavioral considerations below contradict each other. Some long-standing assertions about the behavioral benefits of desexing are now up in the air. Still, here is my best effort at presenting what we believe, currently, about the behavioral effects of spay/neuter:

  • A recent study has found that excitability, aggression, and anxiety were higher among spayed/neutered dogs of both sexes
  • In males, sex-specific behaviors (marking, roaming, mounting) are likely to be reduced by neutering
  • In both sexes, food drive, overeating, and obesity are more likely after desexing
  • In the past, it was believed that neutering males made some types of aggression less likely. More recent studies indicate that aggression in neutered males is more likely, regardless of when they are neutered
  • In females, studies indicate that spaying makes aggression more likely. Spaying before the age of 12 months markedly increases likelihood of aggression.
  • In male dogs, fear- and anxiety-related behavior problems (such as canine compulsive disorder) are higher in neutered dogs than intact dogs. I have not found data on female dogs and anxiety/fear. Since aggression in both male and female dogs typically has a large fear component, this is also an important consideration with regard to aggression.

What Does This All Mean for My Dog?

Every situation is unique. It is important to discuss your concerns with your veterinarian. With my clients, I am happy to discuss the pros and cons of their particular dog.

Generally speaking (there are many variables), I recommend spay/neuter in these cases:

  • Male dogs with sex-linked behavior problems (mounting/humping, roaming, or marking)
  • Female dogs whose heat cycles are causing a significant management or training challenge to the owners
  • Male dogs with conflict-control aggression (“dominance aggression”). This is rare. The overwhelming majority of aggressive dogs have fear-based aggression.
  • Male dogs that are highly distracted, have low interest in food, and training around distraction using food is a high priority for the owner (such as a future service dog)

Generally speaking (there are many variables), I discourage spay/neuter in these cases:

  • A male dog with a tendency toward anxiety, fear, skittishness, or compulsivity
  • Any dog under 18 months of age – especially large-breed dogs, dogs prone to certain cancers affected by early desexing, or dogs prone to musculoskeletal issues. I encourage waiting to neuter until the growth plates close.
  • Dogs under 24 months of age if they are giant or large-breed dogs, have an intended sports career or intended as mobility service dogs. I encourage waiting to neuter until the growth plates close.

Articles and Links on Behavior Considerations of Spay/Neuter

  • 2010 study (PDF) by Farhoody and Zink on Behavioral and Physical Effects of Spaying and Neutering Domestic Dogs
  • Behavioral Effects of Spaying and Neutering in Domestic Dogs
  • The Effects of Spaying and Neutering on Canine Behavior
  • Chirag Patel on Neutering: What’s behavior got to do with it?
  • Dr. Sophia Yin: Can spaying make dog behavior worse?

Owner-friendly overviews of pros and cons of spay/neuter

  • Spaying Your Female Dog
  • Neutering Your Male Dog

Filed Under: Dog Behavior, Dog Health, Puppy training

“But He Does It at Home!” How to Train Your Dog…in 3-D!

March 1, 2016 by sharon Leave a Comment

Training my first service dog, Jersey, to retrieve was a challenge. (This was in 1998, before I knew about clicker training, too!) She had no natural interest in toys or fetch. It took a long time, lots of praise and repetition, and lots and lots of food rewards to get her retrieving. But once she had it, she seemed unstoppable. She would eagerly pick up all sorts of things around the house — items I dropped, laundry from the basket, the slippers I pointed to.

Then we went to the grocery store, and though she would sit, down, and stay, she would not retrieve anything. Not for love nor money. What happened?

It’s the lament of the dog owner and dog trainer.

It happens to everyone: The puppy owner who brings her puppy to its first class. The service dog owner trainer who takes her dog out for a public access training session. Even professional trainers who take their dog out for a demonstration (like I’ll be doing this weekend*).

The behavior that seemed so fluent at home falls apart completely in new surroundings. We all say the same thing: “What happened? She does it perfectly at home!”

Pug dressed as Darth Vader
Creative Commons picture courtesey of topito.com

Has some mysterious science-fictionesque force swept in and emptied my dog’s brain of everything I thought she knew?

Nope. It can be explained. The dreaded “D”s have foiled our best efforts: Distraction, duration, and distance.

Dogs are contextual learners.

They pay attention to lots of little details we may not notice. The good news is, there is a way to train that makes your dog’s behavior stronger. I call it “training in 3-D.”

 

Training in 3-D: Distraction, Duration & Distance

Dog and DIFFICULTY are both spelled with “D”…

When you train with your dog, pay attention to the “D”s that might creep into your lessons:

  • Distraction (Difference): What else is competing for your dog’s attention? What’s DIFFERENT? Sounds, movements, sights, smells grab dogs’ attention. Facing a different direction or training in a different room can be distracting. Does “sit” mean the same thing when you face away? When you’re lying down? When you’re in the bathroom? Newness is distracting. Any new space (such as obedience class) is very distracting. This is one reason why service dog partners ask the general public not to pet, talk to, or otherwise distract their service dogs.

    Gray Bouvier carrying white canvas bag across a long metal ramp.
    Carrying a grocery bag from a distance.
  • Duration: How long does the dog have to perform the behavior? Many dogs learn to pop up out of the sit after one second. Teaching them to stay in a sit for three minutes is a separate challenge. Walking at heel for five paces versus 30 feet is much harder.
  • Distance has two components: How far are you from your dog? How far is your dog from the goal? Most dogs will sit if they are right in front of you but won’t know what “sit” means if they’re across the street. Likewise, your dog may run into her crate when you’re right next to it, but look blank at the same cue from the doorway.

May D-Force Be WITH YOU….

Instead of fighting against the immovable force of the 3-Ds, work WITH the force. Great training strategically incorporates elements of difficult.

Follow these rules:

  1. Build on success. Your dog must be successful 80% of the time (4 out of 5 times) before you add difficulty. i.e., your dog must sit every time you say “sit” before starting sit-stay.
  2. Change ONE thing at a time. If you add distraction, keep distance and duration the same. Be clear and consistent. Decide which D you’re rewarding before your session.
  3. Reduce expectations for other areas of performance. If you’re working on “distraction” and your dog sits slowly or sloppily but does it despite the marching band, reward that!
  4. Build slowly: Training duration, increase by seconds, not minutes. With distance, work in inches, not yards. With distraction, start with very tiny movements, soft sounds, etc.
  5. When you increase one area of difficulty, make everything else easier and more rewarding. If your dog is failing, either your reinforcement is not valuable enough, the difficulty is too high, or both. Make the pay-off big and the challenge small.
  6. Focus on distraction first. Distractions are everywhere. When your dog can work around distraction, add duration, then distance. Then you can switch between each one.
  7. Randomly, make things easier. After doing five long downs, do one short one. After adding six feet of distance, throw in a two-inch trial. If everything just gets harder and harder, your dog may get discouraged. Offering occasional “easy wins” keeps your dog engaged.

Don’t let Difficulty — the Darth Vader of dog training  — get you down!

Incorporate the “Ds” into your training. Train diligently. With patience and consistency, you can defeat the Ds, and do anything. Every door will be open. No deed undoable. Vive la Difference!

Have you run into the force-field of the Ds?

What about you? Have you ever experienced the “but he knows it at home” phenomenon? Tel your story in the comments!

*This Saturday, March 5 at 10 AM in South Deerfield, I’ll be demonstrating the effect of unexpected distractions on a working service dog. Click here for more information on this free workshop.

Filed Under: Pet dog training, Puppy training, Service Dog Training, Service Dogs, Training

House Breaking – Train Your Puppy Where to Toilet

January 18, 2016 by sharon Leave a Comment

Overview: Focus on Rewarding the Right Behavior

The two keys to house training a puppy who will be your pet are to

  1. Take your puppy out before he needs to go, and
  2. Reward him well for going in the right place

For future service dog puppies, you also need to

  • Train your puppy to go on cue (when you tell him to)
  • And EVENTUALLY (not yet), he’ll need to learn NOT to potty when you don’t tell him to

How Puppies Think about Pottying

Of course, your puppy needs to eliminate bodily waste (pee and poo) and will do this when the urge is strong no matter what else is happening, so the key to house training is to set up conditions so that the urge hits when and where you want him to go. Punishing for toileting in the wrong spot is counterproductive because it can make your puppy a “privacy pooper” (or “privacy pee-er”) who will go and hide behind furniture or in another room to pee or poop.

Peeing and pooping are internally reinforcing. That is, the puppy feels relief when he goes. As owners, the trick is to teach him that it PAYS BETTER to go where we want him to go. This means we have to be ready to reward well every time the puppy goes in the right spot.

Fluffy yellow dog lifting leg on a tree outdoors.
If this tree trunk was in your living room, your dog would likely pee on it!

Dogs are very cued in to specific contexts. We think of pottying in terms of “indoors” and “outdoors,” but it takes a while for a puppy to get this concept. The puppy might think the right place to potty is “on the rose bush” and not realize the rest of the lawn is equally good. And if there is something inside your house that seems like the rose bush, he might think that’s another good place to potty.

This is why we often get in trouble when we punish a puppy for pottying in the wrong place. It doesn’t teach him where he should go, and he might not realize we’re yelling because he’s going in the wrong spot. He might think he should not potty in front of us anymore and go behind the couch or when we’re in another room instead. This is why it is so important to take the puppy to the correct toileting spot and reward him for going there.

Use a Crate

House training is a thousand percent easier if you use a crate. Use your puppy’s instinct to keep his living area clean by confining him to a small crate whenever he is not “empty.” Leave a chew or toy in the crate, but no blanket or towel (which will soak up pee if he has an accident, removing motivation to keep it dry next time). Take your puppy out to potty every time as soon as you let him out from his crate.

TIP: You must go out with your puppy!

If you just let him out, you won’t know if he pottied and you won’t be able to reward him properly.

It’s also important that you reward him right there, outside, as soon as he finishes peeing or pooping.

Many owners who struggle with house training don’t realize it’s because they praise the puppy for peeing outside and then call him to the kitchen, ask him to sit, then give him a treat. This puppy has NO idea he’s being rewarded for pottying in the right place. He thinks he’s being rewarded for sitting in the kitchen!

Train Your Puppy to Potty in the Right Time and Place

Every puppy is different in terms of their muscle development and bladder control, but a general guideline is that a puppy can “hold it” for one hour longer than he is months old (i.e., a two-month old puppy can usually hold it for three hours).

Black Bouvier puppy with white stripe on chest lies asleep on his back, legs spread, in metal wire crate.
My puppy is very RELAXED in his crate.

Always take your puppy out to potty right before confining him and half an hour after he eats or drinks. Also always take him out immediately after your pup…

  • Wakes up
  • Eats or drinks
  • Plays or has a training session
  • Exits his crate

Follow these steps every time you take your puppy out:
1.  Be boring until he does his business. Just stand there, no playing, talking, etc., while waiting.
2.  When he starts to go, praise quietly (so you don’t distract or interrupt him).
3.  After he finishes, praise enthusiastically and reward with great treats and play right then and there. Make pottying in the proper location really pay off for him so he’ll want to do it again next time!

TIP: Train Your Puppy to Potty on Cue (When Asked)

Training your pup to go on cue makes house training easier. When your dog is grown, you’ll love the convenience! For service dogs, pottying on cue is essential. (More on this in a future post.)

To train your puppy to toilet on cue, take your puppy to the desired spot.

Watch your puppy closely. When you think she’s just about to go (pee or poo, it doesn’t matter), say “Hurry up!”

When she finishes,  praise, then reward. That’s it!

What If the Puppy Has an Accident?

If your puppy has an accident, don’t punish or scold. Just clean it up thoroughly with an enzymatic cleaner. (Don’t use ammonia. It smells like pee to dogs!) Use this accident as a learning opportunity: What was the puppy doing right before the accident that may have been a clue he had to go? How long had it been since the puppy was out? Did the puppy have too much freedom?

Most of all, have patience and faith. Some puppies have better muscular control than others. Some have easier clues to decipher when they need to go. If you’re having a rough go of it, just hang on. You’ll get there!

Parting Tips

  • No food or water before bed. Pick up your puppy’s water an hour before bedtime.
  • Look for your puppy’s subtle potty signals, such as sniffing, circling, looking at the door
  • Keep a potty journal – what time he went, where, and what happened right before

Filed Under: House breaking/House training/Potty training, Puppy training

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