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Don't have real advice for not wanting to walk - but if he does start walking and begins pulling. Our trainer recommend working with a long lead, 15-20 feet. This way the dog can sniff and move around without "pulling". With a standard lead of 4-6', the size of the pup and your arm length takes up most of the lead and then they are already pulling when they start moving. She recommended practicing in yard or parking lot before going on "walks". Work on the command "with me" with treats. In house walk with the dog and say with me while holding treat close to pup. Practice changing direction and rewarding when they do. Then outside once they start pulling go other direction and say with me, reward when they do. At the beginning you will be going backwards more than making progress on your walk but should get to the point that you can say with me to keep from pulling. This works pretty good with me. My wife likes the Halti harness/lead, she can walk pup hardly holding lead and he doesn't pull.offdee said:
The only thing I’d add is I’ve seen crate “training” overdone. Friend of mine had the sweetest chocolate lab and she has a permanent limp from being in a crate for too long. Put a limit on it. We had our lab on a crate as well. Necessary in the beginning and they actually feel safer as well. But grow them out of it ASAP
I have a Google doc of everything I researched and did (about 2-3 pgs). I can share it with you if you pm me your gmail address
Dogs can understand English. Explain to Maxwell why you want him on a leash. It is good for you but what will he get out of it?
You gotta set the rules of engagement early on. And you must be consistent, otherwise you throw the rule out of the window.
Agreed 100%. It’s often hard for people to grasp that this isn’t the same type of relationship as human to human, where there’s give-and-take and you are generally speaking in “asking” tones. I tell this to my wife all the time with our very well behaved pup who does not listen to her at all. It’s because my wife asks our dog to do something (in her tone) where as I tell our dog to do something.
Dogs know they are cute and they use this Knowledge to their advantage every chance they get.
This and they’re wired to constantly look for who’s in charge within the pack, if they do not since who that is they assume it’s them.
I agree that dogs will put household members in a pecking order. I have always enjoyed preferential treatment but some people are not so lucky.
Can you expand on this?
I used Crawford Animal Hospital for my English Bulldog back about 15 years ago or so. Had them keep her for a weekend once, and when I went to pick him up, the ugliest, scariest transvestite of a human came walking out from in back. A guy that really just wanted to play dress up.... Scarred me for life.
The woman we are adopting from today told me to get a Nyla bones or real bones made in the USA
Clicker training
And for something like recall (come), click as soon as they turn towards you, don't wait until they get back to you
Super cute and super huge pain in the ###. Honestly the combination of him and our 3 year old has been brutal. We spent the first couple days questioning what we had done. We love him and he’s sweet and all, but lately the thing that’s drives us most nuts is all the biting—people, not so much the furniture—and all the jumping up. He’s just a ball of energy and constantly wants to play aggressively. I just want to chill. Likely sending him to “puppy camp” (obedience school) for two weeks that was recommended by a friend — she said it was life altering and well worth it. Anything to get him to behave a little better would be great. thst said, he’s a good dog and cute, and when he’s not a nut case he’s pretty cool. And he at least hasn’t had an accident indoors for like a week, so we seem to be in a rhythm on that front. I do need to start walking him at the curb in the street soon, after he gets his next round of shots, because he’s absolutely brutalized the lawn in my yard.
Yeah my pup is 8 months now and we have a 5 yr old daughter so much of your post held true for us too. She’s trained well at this point so we’re past the pain point you’re in but my grass is destroyed. The yellow/dead spots are everywhere. I worked my ### off over the past 2 years to get that grass right and now I don’t know what to do. Super frustrating.
They say the first 6 months is when a lot of the "puppy" stuff plays itself out. The nipping is usually due to the puppy teething and the pressure on their gums soothes them a bit. My guy did a lot of that too and at 5 months it's easing up a bit now. I looked at it I'd rather he try to chew on our fingers than on all the nice furniture, so spun it into a positive. Puppies are gonna chew on stuff, that's just how it is. Around 6 months is when their adult teeth come in so hopefully that gets better then.
Like said above the nipping is probably teething pain. Nylabones worked well for us, last forever. Also gave our pup ice cubes, seemed to help with the teething. He loved them, weird thing is now he's about 9 months and it was hot out so I thought, ice cubes you used to like them. Put a couple by them and he just let them melt... Anyhow, just something that worked for us you might want to try.
We were pretty lucky with the potty training, only 2-3 accidents. We always took him out on a regular basis, especially after eating, sleeping or playing in the house. One thing our trainer said was to "not waste an accident". Take the toweling you wipe the pee up with and put it outside where you want them to do their business. Same with poop inside, take it and put where you want them to go. Don't want to leave a punch of poop in the yard but don't pick up right away so they go to that spot. Also make sure you clean the area they had the accident in the house with one of those "miracle clean" to get the smell out of the floor so they don't think that's where they should be going.
Funny you’re doing the obedience school too. I assume everyone would make fun of me for that. Seems so totally worth the money and 2-3 weeks away for a long term well behaved dog
One tip — our guy had a few accidents in the kitchen and seemed to go to the same place. There is a spray you can get that you’re supposed to clean with which removes all scent and prevents them from seeing it as a place that they should go. You have to clean up the accidents with this stuff. We had a few accidents inside the first week, but literally nothing since. And he sleeps through the night 10:30-6:30 without incident. On the whole I suppose he’s doing pretty well.
I’ve noticed that makes it much better. We’ve had two “doggy play dates” and after our dog ran wild and played with another day for an afternoon, he was so much more chill and we’ll behaved that evening and even the whole next day. And less biting and jumping up.
Yep that tracks here too. Have really only done that once with an extended backyard puppy play & beers session on Father’s Day. Need to do more in the neighborhood once more vet/shots stuff.
What is the deal with this? Do they actually leave for 3 weeks? Our lab pup turns 5 months July 4th , sweetheart but the chewing is insane. We keep giving him different chew toys etc when he starts
If you can either walk him or carry if you have to to your back fence line. Get him to do his bussiness there praise and treat when he goes there. Do that for a little while he may start going just there. I did that with my dogs worked great. Don't really have to shovel crap anymore and that's great when your dog is the size of horse.
Thanks. My wife and I have talked about doing a version of that, we have a area in our backyard that is DG and would work. It’s just hard to find the effort after spending so long getting her trained. We’re finally out of that stage where we’re having to constantly watch her like a hawk and she’s learned the rules. To have to put that effort in again feels exhausting, lol.
If your pup is treat oriented it may not take as long as you fear. Thing is though if he is going to be big he may tear up your yard anyway. We have a trail from one fence line to the other. I gave up on my back yard.
Yeah she’s a boxer and is already 55lbs at 9 months. Will likely settle in at 70 or so. I continue to patch repair my grass as the spots come up but I fear that’s a futile effort to try and keep up.
Bought these the other day. She absolutely LOVES these things. one will keep her busy for almost 2 hours. She devours the whole thing.
I know you said you couldn’t watch her 24/7 but I found that’s pretty much the only way to not have it take forever. My first 2 dogs as an adult i had very similar results as you. Both eventually got there but it was painfully slow. With my current pup we never took an eye off her for a sec, she was fully trained within 2 weeks. The diligence pays off I promise.We have the spray, I have taken her potty pads outside, left the poop, take her back where she pooped. She just does what she wants. Like I said we can stay outside with her for an hour and nothing.
In the middle of the night, she will go outside do her duties and back in. I think there's too many distractions during the day.
We have now decided to try using hot dogs as a treat for going outside. Only when she goes outside though.
Yep, he literally goes away to stay with a professional trainer for 3 full weeks. We drop him off and can only say goodbye for 10mins and then on the second last day we have a 90 minute session to show how we command at home. Then on final day another 90 min session to continue showing us the tricks and commands. In between, we just get updates on his Instagram page. Gonna kinda suck for those weeks, but will pay long term dividends just having a stellar pup. I’ll definitely miss him, but after 3 months of grinding with all the puppy stuff having 3 wks to just recharge will be pretty nice at some level. It’s not cheap though.
Do you immediately yell NO!, scoop her up and take her outside to grass? That is what you need to do. Even if they don’t need to go anymore they need to understand where the are supposed to go.She just peed in the kitchen right in front of my wife.
