pimmo2000

iTrader: (6)

When I was growing up the way my parents did it was with the rubbed nose in the **** method. This seemed to do the trick. That and a strict hand...

How easy is it to punish a Puppy ??

My g/f has never had a dog of her own so I'm gonna be playing the mean role in our new dogs life...

I've spoken with one of the lads from a training school which is great but how do you recommend training at home before the dog gets all its injections and such ??

OllyK

Don't punish a puppy for making a mess, if it makes a mess it's your fault for not taking it out often enough!

Get "The Perfect Puppy" by Gwen Bailey - it's an excellent book and covers how to train a dog by positive re-enforcement rather than punishment

KiwiGTI

Rubbish, give it that nonsense and it'll grow up to be a chav dog. They need discipline and need to know who is dominant - they are pack animals.

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

electric dog shock collars are good.










<--------gets coat and heads for the door!



seriously though for messing you cant punish them as Olly says thats your fault, and that book is a very popular and good book

The Fenian

From what I have read on here, you's best train it not to get a poorly nose.

Someone should point out that a shotgun cartridge is one heck a of a lot cheaper than a vet.

[added by webmaster. That's not the kind of comment we want at scoobynet thank you.]

David Lock

Bribery. Reward for good behaviour. Large fish food pellets are excellent.

Dan W

Look up operant and classical conditioning.

Classical and Operant Conditioning

if you get your head around the theory you can use these techniques on people aswell.

adverts, media, derrin brown etc all do it. works well with animals though

amahrap

DON’T smack the puppy or rub its nose in the mess

They need to associate your pleasure/displeasure with the act that they are committing at the time they commit it. Even a few seconds after the act of making a mess they won’t make the association and just wonder why they are getting punished. Just clean it up and don’t make a big deal of it as it is very counter productive – dogs ONLY respond to positive reinforcement. Punishment just makes them fear you which ultimately is not the same thing and may cause dangerous reactions in later life as they get bigger.

If you watch your puppy carefully you can spot the signs that they need to go to the toilet. To give you a clue they always want go after the following 3:

Waking up after any sleep
After eating
After playing/when excited

Watch them carefully after these occasions, when they look like they are about to go pick them up and quickly take them outside, at the same time using the words that you want them to associate with going to the toilet, after they have finished make a big fuss of them. These words of command will stay with them and are handy when they are older too.

I normally find that with most puppies I can house train them in this way in about 7-10 days. After that they will be asking to go out to the toilet. Remember that there will still be accidents so you will have to keep your eyes on them for a few months.

Now would also be a good time to start them off on anti-biting training as well. (My method is a but embarrassing but works well, even on adult dogs within 5 minutes or so)

It is not the fault of the puppy, they know no better so don’t punish them but get used to watching them. It is hard work for a few weeks but worth it in the end.

carnivorous

rubbing it's nose in it won't work and will take ages. just keep paper down and always clean up and move the paper outside straight away. let the dog out every half hour and give praise when it wees outside.

and yes, dogs are pack animals and need dominance. punishment is NOT dominance. if you watch a pack of dogs, there is ZERO aggression or punishment. dogs pick up on your state of mind and body language. dominance is achieved by calm, assertive actions and attitude. getting annoyed, shouting and punishment (especailly human psychology - it's not a child it's a dog!) are all counter-productive.

read "the dog listener" - best book on the subject, or watch a couple of episodes of the dog whisperer on Sky to get the general idea. it takes practice and doesn't seem logical at first but blimey does it work. dogs have their own language, learn it and you're laughing. a dog never misbehaves, they either don't see you as pack leader or they plain and simple don't know what you actually want from them. rubbing their nose in **** is NOT going to teach them what you want them to learn. neither is shouting or smacking them.

if anyone disagrees, you're welcome to come over and meet my 3 year old dobermann - she has never been punished or shouted at and i guarantee you won't find a better trained and more obedient dog - in all aspects.

The Fenian

Yeah, but it's fun watching them lick it off !!

stilover

From an early age, make sure the dog knows you are the Alpha male.

This is very important if you want your dog to do what it's told. A dog that thinks it can do what it wants will be a nightmare.

Training to sit, lie down etc should be done as fun and with rewards.
As it grows, the first time it runs off, or doesn't wait when you tell it to, should be dealt with a firm slap. Let the dog know that disobedience hurts.

That is why I own a so called `hard dog` (Staffie) that is better behaved than every dog I come across. It does **** without me telling it to.

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

Dude, go lick your own p1ss and see how long it takes for you to no longer find it amusing (muppet). From what I can remember my folks used to use that approach yonks ago but have been using positive reenforcement for as long as I can remember and it can take a while but it works and the temperament of our dogs over the years has directly improved because of this in my opinion. When you have 10-12 stone rotties rolling about the place you notice differences in personality pretty easily . Compare puppies to babies, they shat themselves uncontrollably for years and need intervention, at least a puppy can learn not to do it in considerably less time all it takes is a bit of patience, a cool head and a bit of time.

I am not a softy though as at least for humans, I still believe in 'spare the rod, spoil the child', all this PC don't touch your kids for being bad makes my blood boil. I was so bad as a child that if my parents/schools hadn't beaten me in all sorts of different ways I honestly think I would be in prison now and now a fairly respectable member of society.

Anyway, I digress.......

P.S. Just to add, yes you do need to let them know who is the alpha(s) in the family and remind them, but this can be done positively the vast majority of the time, once big enough a very firm tap on the nose or a hard slap on the back quarters work other times .

The Fenian

I've licked my honey's a few times.

Not that bad at all.

Better than Harp Lager.

carnivorous

rather than a slap or a firm tap on the nose, you can make a sort of claw shape with your hand and give them a soft (NOT PAINFUL) "bite" on the side of the neck. that's what other dogs do and it works great. the best sound to get them to stop what they are doing and pay attention is "KSSSSTTT" as loud as you can. if you are teaching them to heel / walk on the lead, a little tap on the hindquarters with your foot when they get ahead and a positive attitude works wonders.
there are loads of different opinions, but the one thing that seems to overlap whith anyone competent is positive reinforcement and calm assertiveness. punishment and aggression simply provoke the wrong kind of behaviour and temperament in animals. your dog should want to do what you tell it, not feel like it has to or it will get punished.
we always made training fun for our dobe - dogs do enjoy working their minds. now she makes people's heads spin; sit, come, down, roll-over, chill, **** off, get inside, go outside, go to mum, go to dad, bring (fetch), go play, shake hands, heel, spin round, speak, go upstairs, go downstairs, go to bed, left, right, wait, watch him (guarding)........and many more. it's ridiculous.
you tell her to lie down and you can let a rabbit run loose in front of her or stick a sausage on her actual foot, she won't move an inch, 15 minutes is as long as i have been bothered to test her so far. it's gotten to the point where her heel is so good i can walk her on a main road without a lead...but i don't do it as there's always a risk. it's still only an animal no matter how well trained....

good luck with the training, this has turned into a dog owner's forum now.....

on a more topical note....my dog loves the scooby......gets all excited when she hears the burble comin up the drive and starts bouncing around the living room.

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

Same here, Max always, always knew when I was coming home. the burble combined with a 3" decat and Nur Spec R on the old scoob was surprisingly easy to tell from other cars . I just hope that our current rottie, Titan learns to differentiate my quieter scoob from the other ones .

We have very rarely had to resort to firm slapping etc with our rotties but you have to take in to account the fact that big ones are built like 1:2 scale lions and are tough as hell, they barely notice it even when you do resort to it !

carnivorous

i'm not surprised dude. i have only got a spindly 30 kilo dobermann female and some of the wipeouts she has had into trees etc. at full chat really make me wince. but never even a squeak and just gets up and keeps going. they have a very high pain threshold as do rotties. not so good when they're injured and you can't tell. took mine on a 45km mountain bike ride in austria last summer. didn't realise until we got home that two of her feet were worn through the pads to bare pink meat. she was walking normally but started licking her feet and eating bits of pad when we got in. tea tree cream, some sports bandage and 3 days later all was fine. ouch though. that had to bloody hurt running home for mile upon mile over gravel fire roads. she never even noticed, bless her.

Spoon

Pimmo,

If you do get one of the littermates we discussed then it's temperament will be good. It's a showline puppy so won't have the added drive that a working line puppy will have. This is no great shakes unless you require the dog to be a sport dog (Schutzund etc) or a fully trained personal protection dog. Starting with a working bloodline can make this far easier to achieve but also be incredibly demanding and sometimes quite painful!!

However, a show line puppy will be less like a wound up spring than a working line puppy and will suit family life much better. I have 2 working line dogs here and the puppy (13 months) just would not have been suitable for a pet, believe me, he's barmy. A well trained barmy now but a full-time job achieving that!

In the past my dogs have had the run of the grounds and a heated kennel block should they need it. This time we chose to have the puppy indoors. He was house trained fully within a couple of weeks and hardly had any accidents with him before that.

Don't scold him/her, class it as your failing by allowing it to happen on the floor. The puppy needs to learn from your lead so pick the puppy up if you see it happening and go outside with it. If the puppy does more outside with you then praise him/her and say something like 'good wee'. Likewise, anything you train your puppy to do, always attach the 'act' to the word 'good' and the puppy will soon attach the word to the act, i.e. Good sit, good speak etc. Just saying 'good boy' to everything doesn't help.

I've got my puppy to bark the alphabet now, (which is an extension of 'speak') from the same method. He now recognises the word 'alphabet' with single barks if I say, A, B, C, etc. This is also a good way of getting your dog to bark on command should you want him/her to for maybe a security warning.

Get a crate and your stress levels will be reduced 80%. Puppies are a nightmare without one. 48x48 is best to allow for growth. They soon get used to them and should actually like it's 'little' home, often going in it for some peace from everyone else.

There's loads more but you know where I am.

stilover

Yeah, I rarely slap my dog. Only when he's done something that he really shouldn't do ie. starting to run across the main road when he saw my mother. A firm slap hurts less than being knocked over by a car. It's also a reminder to him that "wait" means just that.

carnivorous

always a bad one. scarily enough, a friend's dog was hit and killed last night because he had it off the lead and his partner was on the other side of the road. dog ran across the road to see his partner and was hit by a car that just kept going. mine doesn't go near the road, but i refuse to risk it and ALWAYS have her on the lead.

Spoon

You simply do not need to lay a finger on your dog to train it or get across a point. Even when trying to get it to sit, if you slap it's bum down he/she is less likely to want to sit if it's attached to a slap.

A few months of repetition and constant reinforcement will pay dividends, not a bit here and there.

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

Yeah I can't remember the last time we ever had to do it with the other rotties and Titan is simply a joy, no fuss, very relaxed and composed, bags of fun but is no real trouble.

Speaking of road and cars, a true story. Our last rottie, Max, was never bothered in the slightest by passing cars etc. However, one day he was walking with my dad and as they passed a T junction someone pulled up by them abruptly, squeeling wheels to a halt like abs etc as if they were about to overshoot their turning. I think he must have taken this as a danger to him and dad and rammed the passenger door of the Mondeo that was right by them. The door was so heavily dented that it wasn't fit to repair apparantly and the guy had to get a new door. Never claimed on our insurance either . I think he realised the freak event was down to his driving scaring the dog/getting his back up. Personally I thought this was absolutely hilarious and wish I could have seen it myself.

pimmo2000

iTrader: (6)

what an amazing response. This will be MY first dog, not the first dog I've had but the first I will own.

Thanks a lot.

davegtt

I trained mine by telling him to be clean whilst outside and praising him once he has done his business. Now I can just say to him wherever I am be clean and he'll run to the back door where I'll let him out, he'll go out do his thing and come straight back in. Handy for when it rains just before bed time and I dont want to go out

gooner 1

iTrader: (11)

Good hints there guys - seeing as I have a 10wk old pup at the moment and she's prooving rather difficult to train. Can't let her out yet as she's not had her jabs and I have other dogs with access to the garden - so don't want to risk it.

I did take another my dogs to a reputable dog training school - but I'll be honest, I think the teachers kinda gave up on us - she was a real handful on the lead and seeing all those other dogs just used to make her so excited. Never did conquer the training for walking properly on a lead - however, she was fantastic in every other way.

Praise and reward seems to work with the others though - but i do beleive in discipline as well. Had anotehr pup who everytime we went out used to jump the gates to get in and mess on the kid's bed - VERY ANNOYING - but its seen to be an act of dominance/anxiety - so we had to be quite strict with her - not in a physical way - but we don't stroke her unless WE want to and make her work for everything! She's getting there!

Anyway - good luck with the training!

2000 sport

iTrader: (1)

same here ! we were really lucky, after 2 days of having him.. no problems at all..

wrx-kris

can someone ban this ***** please?

Holy Ghost

**

with the exception of kiwi's "rub its face in its mess" post [barbara woodhouse he ain't ] i can't fault the advice. positive reinforcement and action/word association like outside after sleep & food etc will work a treat - though you'll have a couple of months of manky newspapers to clear up every morning.

we got our lab at 9 weeks and it was house-trained by 18. pi55es to order when needed, obeys about 15 commands, can identify a V8 and will reliably vomit in the boot.

RedFive

Given the earlier infraction, this comment is allowed by webmaster ?

You can not "sometimes" intervene. Even the law is clear on this

RedFive

I sincerely hope you read up on dog ownership first. Sans Scoobynet.

Just don't rub it's nose. Just don't. It"s a baby at that age. Clueless. Treat it nice.

You'll have eons to become the alpha male later on. They even want you to, you know.

Leading by example, not fear.

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

I don't think folks were going on about the alpha male bit heavily from early puppyhood, I certainly wasn't if that was how it came across. I was referring to old old puppy/adolescence and fully grown. Once fully grown I find they have a pretty good idea who is boss .