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Doggy Door Training From A-Zuccess!

Doggy Door Training From A-Zuccess!

Training your dog to use its new doggy door can be very fast, but you will need a good strategy. If you give a young puppy a fright, they will refuse to use the door in the future. Here is how to get it right…

Before you start…

Chances are, you are eager to teach your dog how to get out of the house to do it’s business. Therefore teach your puppy how to get out of the doggy door first. You will find that your dog is self-motivated enough to figure out, how to get back in. Timid dogs may need a little extra help.

Doggy Door Set Up

You’ll need a bit of string and a large elastic band. First wrap the elastic around the doggy door flap. Now tie the string to the elastic band and open up the doggy door flap so that it is wide open. You can usually secure the string to the door handle. Now put a rolled up old towel over the lower opening to soften all hard plastic edges. At this stage, it is important that the drop from the doggy door opening to the ground is only small. If needed, roll up a second towel and use it as a step under the first towel (as shown on 2nd photograph below). Your dog will be much more willing to walk through opening without the door flap or any sharp edges.

Training Plan

Picture 1: Use an extra good treat (and a little patience) to lure your dog through the door opening.

Picture 2: Now push the elastic band on the doggy door-flap up higher towards the hinges; this will automatically lower the flap. If your dog is quite intimidated by the flap, break this process down to tiny steps, only lowering the flap 2″ at a time. Never move forward to the next step, unless your dog is already completely confident going through the doggy door at the current level.

Picture 3: Help your puppy practice coming out through the doggy door, now with the flap so low that it brushes against your dog’s back, but it doesn’t yet require pushing with the nose:

Picture 4: Of course, it is now awkward for your puppy to come through the doggy door from the side, where it needs to lift the flap rather than push it (because the flap is lifted up to one side). This is actually an important part of the process, because it forces your dog to start maneuvering the flap with its nose. It is by trying to squeeze under the flap, that your dog will gain the confidence to push the flap when it is eventually completely closed.

Eh voila! Now you just need to set up some situations, where your puppy reeeaally want to come through that doggy door…

How will you train your dog next?

If you would like some great tips on toilet training, go straight to our blog for new puppy parents: the-first-5-things-that-you-should-know

The first 5 things that new puppy parents should know

The first 5 things that new puppy parents should know

Puppies easily win over our hearts in a single beat. You are without a doubt totally in love with your new puppy. However, issues that are perhaps only small now tend to grow bigger along with the dog. It is fairer to the dog and easier for you if you teach your puppy good manners from the start. Correcting bad behaviour later on will always be more difficult.

Typically, the first thing people think of, in terms of puppy training, is commands like ‘sit’ and ‘drop’. In reality, any dog under the age of 10 can learn obedience commands quickly, so there is actually no rush. Instead of focusing on how to teach your puppy, you will do yourself a grand favour by focusing on how to raise your puppy.

There are a few things that are essential to get right from Day no 1. Use this as a check list and as your guarantee of getting off to a good start.

Prevent Separation Anxiety

It is not natural for a puppy to be completely alone without its mother and its littermates. Your puppy will instinctually get anxious about the separation and try to change the situation by whimpering. Take the first chance you get to train your puppy to cope with being alone.

At the age of 8 weeks, your puppy only has very little capacity for feeling fear. With age, your puppy will gain a much stronger expectation and sense of entitlement to have direct access to you. If you wait to train, your puppy’s anxious reaction will only get worse. Training your puppy to be alone right from the start is much easier and less traumatic than it will ever be in the future. Here is how to do it:

  • When bringing the puppy inside, head straight for an area where you can prevent it from having access to humans. It could be in a puppy pen, in the laundry or outside in the garden. Stay in this area with your puppy until everyone has had time to enjoy the puppy’s arrival and it has familiarised itself with the new surroundings (at least 10 minutes).
  • Then leave the area, so that your puppy is alone and has no physical access to any humans. Chances are that your puppy will cry to make you come back.
  • Wait to go back to your puppy until it has become completely quiet, relaxed and accepting of the separation. Realising that it can feel good and safe while being alone, your puppy will become accepting of the separation much quicker for each time it has the same experience. You are simply helping your puppy to get used to it.
  • If you do go back, you have just taught your puppy that making noise is how to get you to come back. Don’t do that.
  • If you first ignore your puppy, but then cave in after 10 minutes… or 1 hour… or 3 hours… then you have just taught your puppy that persisting and intensifying the sound is how to make the strategy work. It will do the same thing next time. Don’t do that.
  • Construct frequent separations so that your puppy gets plenty of practice in being alone. 3 -5 times per day would be a good ratio. It doesn’t matter how many minutes the separation lasts, it only matters that your puppy is quiet, relaxed and accepting at the time when you reconnect with it.
  • Randomise the nature of the separations, so that your puppy experiences being alone outside, being alone in a room and being alone in public. Make sure that your puppy gets to learn the same lesson in all the different likely scenarios in your lifestyle.

Accelerate the Toilet Training

Toilet training is essentially creating a habit for your dog to go to the toilet in a certain area (outside) every time. The more often you get your puppy to toilet outside, the stronger the habit becomes. Every time your puppy toilets inside, it’s an exception to the pattern and fails to support building the habit.

Dogs naturally don’t want to toilet inside their den. In most cases the puppy will be toilet trained once it understands what area is the den and what’s outside it. It’s often hard for a new puppy to grasp that a big open house with panoramic windows is the den. Here’s how to make it happen:

  • Limit your puppy’s access to a small part of the house. Once your puppy is reliable in that area, gradually expand the area to the rest of the house.
  • Feed your puppy in the area in which you are currently toilet training your puppy. It’s a great idea to always place the food bowl where your puppy last had an accident.
  • Take your puppy outside every time it eats, drinks, wakes up or has played for more than 10 minutes. Most puppies need to toilet every 40-60 minutes, unless they are sleeping. If your puppy has stayed outside, while you were not at home, do not let it inside until it has gone to the toilet first.
  • If you catch it in the act, scoop up your puppy and rush it outside with a sense of urgency.
  • Do not scold your puppy for going to the toilet inside. You’ll only teach your puppy to hide and do the accidents when you are not paying attention. It may also refuse to go to the toilet in front of you when you take it outside in the garden.

Avoid Rewarding Your Puppy’s Annoying Behaviour

Puppies are insatiable attention seekers. Although they are cute and deserve your attention, make sure that your puppy knows when to leave you alone. In particular, make sure that you do not train your puppy to perform annoying behaviour to get your attention.

Typical attention seeking behaviour that you will not appreciate when the inconvenience has grown bigger along with your dog’s size are: jumping up against you, barking at you, chewing your shoe laces, chasing your feet, pawing or nudging at your leg and stealing stuff such as tissues, socks and children’s toys. Here’s how to prevent the problems:

  • At times when your puppy is being attention seeking, avoid giving your puppy any attention. Do not offer eye contact, talk or touch the puppy with your palms.
  • Make the puppy’s game ineffective or even uncomfortable. You could for example leave the room and close the door behind you. -Or walk straight towards your puppy forcing it to run away from you. -Or take its bed or favourite toy and keep it in your arms and out of reach (when it has stolen your belongings).
  • Do not chase your puppy or let it tease you into acting frazzled. Your puppy’s attention seeking game is a test to your ability to stay in control. Do not in any way let off that you lost it.

Beware Of Habituation & Socialisation

While your puppy is still under 16 weeks of age, it is very capable of coping with new sounds, movements and surfaces. After that age, it will be suspicious and even fearful of new experiences. They will appear as foreign, unusual or just not matching its expectations. It is important that you habituate your puppy to many different sounds, movements and noises while it is still young. That way, your puppy will avoid stress from encountering unfamiliar things in its environment.

In addition, it is important that you socialise your puppy. The concept of meeting strangers –individuals that are not members of the usual pack- is very unnatural for dogs. In particular, it is very abnormal for them to let strangers into their own den, hence why dogs often bark and jump up at visiting humans or attack visiting dogs. Here’s what to do:

  • Expose your puppy to stranger men (=known them for less than 10 minutes). Especially men with beards, hats, hoods, glasses, umbrellas, uniforms, big bodies and deep voices and men coming into your own home.
  • Expose your puppy to stranger dogs that may belong to friends or family, so that you know with certainty that they are vaccinated and healthy. Also grab the opportunity to let your dog socialise with unfamiliar dogs at puppy school. Professionals will be there to supervise and advise on what is happy and friendly play.
  • Expose your puppy to sounds like thunder, fireworks, dog barking, door knocks, crying babies, loud machines and air whistling. You’ll find a handy compilation of puppy habituation sounds on our Youtube channel (turn the volume down to zero before you click the link!).
  • Expose your puppy to bouncing balls, flagging arms, rolling trolleys and wheely bins, and fabric waving high up in the air.
  • Expose your puppy to slippery, shiny, slanting and unsteady surfaces. Also practice standing or walking near ledges and walkways with gaps between the slaps. Once your dog has mastered ordinary stairs, you can start practicing on open slab staircases.

Pick The Right Vet For The Puppy Vaccinations

  • Pick a vet that offers the most modern vaccination type, which only requires 2 shots. The second shot is often given at 12 weeks of age, but it can be given at 10 weeks. This means that your puppy will be safe to socialise with random dogs in public already at 11 weeks of age. This is a huge advantage to your puppy’s confidence and its joy of meeting other dogs throughout life, not just while it is young. Also, you’ll save yourself the cost of a third vet consultation.
  • Avoid vets that use the old fashioned vaccination type, which requires the puppy to have 3 shots. With this vaccination programme your puppy will not be ready to socialise until 17 weeks of age. Holding back your puppy from socialising with unfamiliar and stranger dogs in public can easily affect your dog for life. Even if it seems fine as a young puppy, it may start showing overly timid or even fear aggressive behaviour towards dogs in the street or in the dog park later.

In our Basic Package of puppy classes, you will learn how to teach your puppy to be patient, self-disciplined and focused when training. In our Advanced Package, we teach you how to get your puppy to listen to you and respect your house rules. Our Master Class Package is for those who are on a roll and ready to complete their puppy’s training as a well behaved pet at all times, when out and about as well as in the home.

We hope to see you in class soon and wish you and your puppy a great start to living together.

The art of communicating with your dog

The art of communicating with your dog

It is easy to fall into the trap of focusing on how smart your dog is or isn’t at learning. Your dog is probably astoundingly smarter than you think. You just need to start communicating with it in a language that it understands.

Imagine if I expected all my clients to learn from me while I only spoke in Danish! Would you want to come to my classes to learn if I scolded you for not understanding me? And wouldn’t it be crazy, since we both speak English?

Of course, neither English nor Danish will ever serve as effective ways to communicate with your dog. Dogs are not even born with the concept of a verbal language. Instead, they have a very well-evolved body language. This makes them incredibly perceptive to changes of mood and energy. Humans have both, but because it is so easy to communicate with words, we often neglect to use our body language and intuitive perception.

Dogs can learn a few words, but it is as hard for them to learn words as it is for us to distinguish exactly what each type of bark means. Please note, a bark is not a word; it is an expression of the state of mind: impatient, hostile, over-excited etc.

Since both humans and dogs understand body language, it makes perfect sense to use it when we communicate with them. In fact, our body languages are very similar. The only difference is that the dogs’ body language is simpler than ours yet also more extreme.

As an example, when you scold a person, they may lower their head and look away. However, a dog’s reaction will be more extreme. As well as lowering its head and looking away, it may also crouch right down towards the ground and put its ears back while squinting.

There are fewer nuances in the canine language. The dog’s reaction above could mean several things such as submission, begging, trying to get away with disobeying an order (fake submission), cowering and even just a submissive dog’s standard greeting. In a dog’s mind, they are all the same one thing: appeasement.

Using the right language is a great first step to getting the desired responses from your dog. I suggest you start by focusing on how you can communicate in a way clear and easy to recognise manner. Start with commands like stop, stay outside the kitchen, and come. A quick way to get yourself thinking correctly is to imagine that your dog is a deaf person. You will amaze yourself with your own creativity and range of signs/ body language expressions that emerge.

Check out my quick video of instructing Meg, a 12 weeks old Cavoodle, without using any words at all. She performed the sit-stay-come-stop half way-sit-and-come perfectly in our very first go, simply because the instructions were clear to her:
https://www.facebook.com/242826639078102/videos/1264863220207767/

If your dog isn’t paying you enough attention to read the signing, then you need to consider if it is motivated enough. Most parents would know that their problem is seldom about the child’s understanding, but instead about respect and willingness to cooperate. For gaining the right attitude from your dog, please check out our page about the Canine Code.

(The only) 3 commands that you need

(The only) 3 commands that you need

Teaching your dog many different commands and tricks is GREAT! When you and your dog connect by communicating, understanding and responding to each other, your bond and mutual respect increases. Whether you train your dog in an obedience school, by following the instructions from Youtube videos, or joining a doggy dance class, training is fun, meaningful and helpful. But it isn’t strictly necessary.

As a dog owner, for everyday life with kids, cars, grocery shopping, walking in the dog park, and snuggling up in front of the TV, you only need THREE commands: Stay, Free (release) and Come.

STAY:

If your dog knows to stay outside the kids’ toy room, then it won’t be stealing any toys. If your dog knows to stay out of the hallway when the doorbell rings, then it won’t jump on visitors. Likewise, if your dog knows to stay in the car when the doors open, it won’t jump onto the road. If your dog knows to stay alone in public, then you can nip into a shop and make a quick purchase while it waits outside. If your dog knows to stay on its bed, then it won’t try to get up on the couch. However, if allowed on the couch, then it can stay at the other end of the couch while you relax.

Personally, I’m not at all concerned about whether the dog is standing, sitting, or lying down while in stay command. I just want it to be quiet and stay in command until I give the release command.

FREE:

Not many people are familiar with the concept of a release command, but it is in fact very important. Without knowing exactly when it is free to stop following your command, your dog will not know how long to continue following the stay command.
Therefore, you will never get a good reliable stay command unless you also consistently use a release command.

COME:

If your dog knows to come when called, you will be able to call it to come outside the house. You can also call it to come to you in the park and on the beach. This is no doubt an essential skill.

Again, personally I’m not at all concerned whether it comes and sits, or comes and walks around my right side to end up sitting on my left side, or comes because I call out Buddy, come or chicken. I just want the dog to come to me, close enough and for long enough for me to take hold of the dog collar…with dignity!

With this article, I have no intention whatsoever of discouraging further training of your dog. In fact I highly recommend it. But for those who are too busy for in-depth training, these three simple commands make your everyday life much easier.

If you would like to get started training your dog to stay or come when you call, please check out our workshops schedule. We often train both in our Out & About Obedience and Recall classes.

Dogs & Children Do’s & Don’ts

Dogs & Children Do’s & Don’ts

Did you ever have an image in your mind of sitting relaxed in your family home and enjoying watching your children play with the family dog? I bet it didn’t include sharp puppy teeth, petrified little girls and bloody scratches, did it? Well now that it’s all happening, let’s get started on some damage control…

Firstly,
DON’T think that your children are going to rank higher than your dog in the pack’s pecking order. Your dog knows the age of your children and the level of their maturity. They will never be above the dog in the hierarchy, in the dog’s eyes. There’s nothing to fear and nothing wrong with that. Your dog is going to be mature enough at a very early age (8-16 months depending) to deal responsibly with your children and to follow your guidelines about interacting with them.

DO act like the ‘policeman’ who makes sure that every member of your pack follows your instructions on how to treat the other pack members. Do intervene and stop the dog from bullying your child (or vice versa!). If you do not intervene, you will appear as a weak pack leader –or simply not as a leader.

DON’T let the children consider the dog as a toy who has no right to say no.
DO provide a space where your puppy can rest and be left alone. Typically if the dog is in it’s bed, or hiding under the coffee table, you would instruct your children not to touch it.. In my experience, children develop a much healthier and more respectful attitude to the dog if they take part in the practical care taking. Poop scooping, brushing and feeding – it all counts.

DON’T let young children pick up the dog in their arms or carry it around all the time. It’s exhausting for the dog and it will soon become tired and grumpy. It will be likely then to start growling or snapping at your children.
DO instruct small children that they can only pick up the dog in their arms if they are sitting flat on the ground. This position tends to calm the child and help it focus on holding the dog properly. It’s also a lot less scary and stressful for the dog if it feels confident enough to wiggle out of the grip and safely jump to the ground.

DON’T up your energy in order to calm your dog. If you are playing together and you yell out ‘No!’, try to push away the dog with your arms, tap the dog over the nose, or try to run away, you will most likely excite your dog further. Its play will only intensify. The same will happen with your children, but possibly even more dramatically, because your dog thinks of them as equals and playmates.

DO teach your children to stand up straight, put their hands on their shoulders and turn away from the dog. Your dog may make a small attempt to continue playing, but your childrens’ body language clearly says no. Becoming bored, your dog will soon look elsewhere for fun. You can use the same technique yourself so that your dog learns to read the message even faster.

DON’T let your dog and your children play together without having put some guidelines in place first. Especially if this involves toys. It can get out of control very quickly.
DO teach your children to always hold dog toys below their waist. If they hold them up at head height, they will soon have dog teeth and dog claws flying around their face.

DON’T let the living room become a race track.
DO insist that all boisterous play must happen outside in the garden. Then make yourself a cup of tea and sit back to enjoy the quiet, while it lasts.