Puppies are a lot to deal with, especially if you have never had a puppy before. Question after question comes to mind each day, and often times people forget them as soon as the trainer arrives. No problem! It happens to the best of us! To help you out, I decided to create an FAQ post that focuses on raising your puppy. Please keep in mind that not all of the topics covered in these questions can be completely answered in a short FAQ format, but I will do my best to get you started. This week I will answer five of the top ten questions I get asked by puppy parents. Stay tuned for Part 2 next week!
Question 1: When can I start training my puppy?
Answer: Age wise, your puppy is ready to start as soon as you get it home (assuming it is 8 weeks old). But there are a few things you want to keep in mind:
Make sure your puppy experiences its new home in the most enjoyable way possible.
Some puppies do better if training starts a couple days after they get home as their new environment comes with a lot of learning in and of itself and they may need time to adjust to their new home.
Good news for you and your puppy, your puppy experiencing their new home is socialization! Get some treats out and give your puppy treats for investigating its new environment. If it refuses the treats, that is okay. Some puppies prefer to simply investigate (this is common in sheep herding and livestock guarding breeds). If your puppy refuses treats, try just hanging out and being there for your puppy when it comes to get some love and affection. spend the time to observing your puppy and learning about how it handles different obstacles it runs into during its exploration.
Question 2: How often does my puppy need to go to the bathroom?
Answer: This depends on the age and size of your puppy. But generally, I tell people to take their 8-week puppy outside to pee every two hours for the first couple weeks. Most puppies will also poop around four times a day, depending on various factors.
As your puppy gets older its bladder will get bigger and stronger. However, keep the following things in mind:
How big they are – small breed dogs will need to go to the bathroom more often.
Their health – for example, if you have a rescue puppy that deals with health problems or stress, it may pee more often.
What is normal – there is no exact number of times puppies will need to pee and poop, so find your puppies “normal” range and double check with your vet if they think that is normal based on your puppy's size, age, and health.
Question 3: How do I get my puppy to stop going the bathroom inside?
Answer: The key to house training your puppy is consistency. Be consistent with everything you do and give them, especially at the beginning. Once your puppy is reliably house trained, you can relax on rules a little bit, but to help your puppy know what is going on, you need to be consistent from the get-go. These are some of the things you need to be consistent with in reference to house training:
When they eat.
What they eat.
When they drink (for example, no water after 6pm or within two hours of bedtime).
Going outside (make sure you take them outside regularly and when you are inside, keep an eye out for indications that they need to go to the bathroom, such as sniffing in a rushed manner and beginning to squat. Most puppies do not lift their leg when they go to the bathroom, so keep a close eye on them for more subtle signs).
Take them out within 30 minutes of every meal.
Take them out after play.
Take them out immediately after they wake up (even from a nap).
Do not use pee pads for house training. There are some acceptations to this, but in general, pee pads interrupt the consistency of going outside and can set house training back really fast.
Question 4: Should I let my puppy on the furniture?
Answer: This is entirely up to you. The only behavioral reason for not allowing your puppy on the furniture is if it displays possessive behavior around said furniture. However, if your puppy is displaying any kind of aggression, you need to immediately contact a professional positive reinforcement trainer who specializes in aggressive puppies and dogs. For normal everyday life, whatever you decide there are three things you need to do:
Be consistent (if your puppy will never be allowed on the furniture, do not let it on the furniture at all).
Use positive reinforcement. Using punishment will create tension around the furniture and can result in unwanted side effects including your dog getting onto, and chewing on, the furniture when you are gone.
Train “on” and/or “off”. If your dog is not allowed on the furniture, you do not have to train “on”. But either way, you need to train your dog to voluntarily get off the furniture (if they are not allowed on, you can use something other than the furniture, such as a platform, to teach this behavior). Removing a dog from a comfortable location whether it is comfortable with people or not, is not a good habit to get into and puts you at risk of a bite (dogs may bite if they are in pain or scared).
Question 5: Does my puppy need to meet a ton of people to be well socialized?
Answer: Put simply, no. What matters most is quality. Puppies who meet three really nice people and have a really good time doing it are going to be much better off than puppies who met ten people all at once and were stressed and overwhelmed the whole time. When doing any kind of socialization remember this: quality over quantity. Here are three tips for socializing your puppy to humans:
Make sure interactions are closely monitored and that your puppy enjoys the process (remove your puppy from interactions it finds stressful and use treats and reinforcement to help it learn that new people come with good things)
Make sure to socialize to different phenotypes, age, and people with different outfits. In other words, introduce your puppy to people with high voices and people with low voices, people with beards, people who are tall and people who are short, etc. Introduce them to both adults and children, even if you don't foresee them interacting with children in the future. Also, it is important to introduce them to people who are wearing different items such as sunglasses and hats.
Allow your puppy to observe. People do not always have to make contact with your puppy for it to learn something from the interaction. Puppies can learn both that people are not a threat, and other concepts such as self-control, from simply sitting and watch people rather than greeting everyone they meet.
These are only some of the questions and answers I will post this month, so stay tuned for next week’s post with the next five questions and their answers! If you found these posts to be helpful, I can do more Q&A style blog posts! If you found this post helpful or have questions that you would like me to include in a post like this, please leave a comment or contact me via email at happyats@outlook.com. I would love to hear from you!
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