Happy Pets

Food will be one of your puppy’s main interests in life. Have you remembered to check with the breeder what your puppy has been fed on? A new house and a different type of food can easily upset a young puppy. A six-week-old puppy should be provided with five meals a day. If your ,puppy has come from a reliable and conscientious breeder you will have been supplied with a diet sheet with the type of food and quantities he will require, although a few useful hints may help you. I have often found diet sheets from breeders contained too milky or sloppy feeds for a puppy. This can often give diarrhoea. If you have this problem, replace milky or sloppy feeds with meat meals. (more…)

With the puppy sitting on your left-hand side, give a quiet, but firm, Wait command. Do not use puppy’s name. Puppy should always associate his name with coming to you and we do not wish him to do that on this occasion. Take one small pace to your right, count one second and return to your dog and praise him. He shouldn’t have had time to move. If he has, just patiently put him back into the Sit position and try again. You are only expecting puppy to wait there for one second. Extend your puppy’s waiting time very gradually. If you rush it, puppy will want to come to you and you have achieved nothing.

Many puppies lose their confidence if they think their owner is leaving them. It’s not a bad thing that your puppy wants to be with you constantly, so you must build his confidence up. (more…)

I am sure that you will find all the exercises extremely useful if only to teach your dog discipline and self-control, but there are other practical reasons for teaching them. I remember once when my daughter Kerensa was a toddler and I was taking Bracken, Mocha and Buttons out for a walk. Unbeknown to me Kerensa had pocketed a tennis ball on the way out and before I realised what was happening she was bouncing the tennis ball on the pavement, and it rolled away into the road. Kerensa ran after it. Instinctively I dropped the dog leads, told them to Sit and Stay and rushed after Kerensa. Needless to say, all was well. I was able to retrieve her without a scratch, secure in the knowledge that the three dogs were still sitting and staying on the pavement.

Since that time I have practised my Sit-Stays while I run after Kerensa, as dogs will often think this is a game and immediately run after their owner. (more…)

Jumping

If you own the energetic type of dog, he will no doubt love to race and jump and a dog that is full of beans and wants to be on the go all day long can often be satisfied by five or ten minutes’ jumping in his own garden. But, as with all things you are training your dog, you should show him how to do it. Whatever you do, don’t put a six-foot jump up in the garden and try and clear it yourself, unless, that is, you’re an Olympic hurdler. To begin with, use a very small jump which can be simply made. I usually put the handle of a yard brush across two buckets, giving me about eighteen inches in height. With your dog on a loose lead, run at the jump with him, showing great enthusiasm. Be ready to let the lead go if your dog pulls back or refuses to go over the jump. (more…)

Teaching the retrieve to a dog who isn’t retrieve-minded can be a long and painful process; painful for the owner, I might add, not for the dog. So I advise you that, unless your dog is a natural retriever or you specifically want him to fetch things for you, forget this exercise and find something else your dog’s good at. Remember, all these extra things you are teaching your pet should be pleasurable both to you and him and if you find that your dog isn’t enjoying the exercises, forget it. If you’ve played with your dog from being a young puppy then the chances are that he will retrieve. Throw him an old sock or a pair of knotted tights and give him a command to fetch. (more…)

Assuming that you have had great success in the training of your puppy, it would be a shame to stop now. You have obviously built up a good relationship with him and, once this is gained between dog and human being, there are no limits to how much you can train him. I believe the more you teach your dog the more intelligent he will become. Teaching a dog tricks is often frowned upon by the more serious dog trainers. I think they hold a picture in their minds of the old circus dog with a frill round his neck, dancing on his hind legs. My interpretation of teaching a dog tricks is a little different from that and I can assure you, from my own past experience, that a dog loves doing new and more interesting things. Take into account the type of dog you have. With my own dogs, for instance, it is Bracken who loves to learn and he gets so excited when he knows it’s trick-teaching time. He rushes around to grab cushions off the settee or towels off the kitchen rail to bring me as an offering in exchange for a trick lesson. (more…)