Thread: Tell me about training a new puppy

Well with the biting, just lightly tap her on the head when she does, just so that she learns that its bad, and when she stops give her a biscuit. That way she associates rewards with being good.

With the running away, don't let her outside without a leash on for a while. In the time when she's not outside in the garden, makesure your Grandparents give her attention and really bond with the pup. After a bond has been made, she will want to seek proximity and not run off.

Well thats what I did with my dog and she's very loyal now and won't go too far on walks.

Another small thing, when the dog starts biting during play, then it's time to stop playing for a short time. She'll then learn that if she starts biting, you'll stop playing.

not to sound mean but is your dog over weight? you should put it on a diet if it is. also dont give in to mooching... beggging, in the longf run it makes your new dog live longer

When our 15 week old puppy play-bites our hands, I give him a little slap on the muzzle and say "NO", then disengage in the attention/play for a few minutes. The association you want to impress on her is BITE = NO PLAYING. Use a low tone of voice when correcting her.

Also, don't give her a chance to play-bite - meaning, always use a toy to play with her, not just your bare hands. Don't set her up to fail. If you are just petting her and she does it, do the little slap and stern "NO", then stop the petting. Then every time you pet her and she doesn't play-bite, reward her with a treat.

It's a good idea to keep a baggie of treats in your pocket so you can use them on short notice. Puppies only associate action/consequence within 2 seconds of each other. So if she does something bad, and you wait after 2 seconds to correct her, she will not associate the bad action with the correction - and same goes with positive reinforcement - if she does something good, and you wait more than 2 seconds to reward her, she will not associate the good behavior with the reward.

Before letting the dog loose in the yard, you should be pretty confident that she will come when called. You can practice on a long lead (one of those long retractable ones) out in the yard. Bring treats with you. Practice the "come" command, and use her name often. If she is very food-driven, usually calling your word for treat will result in her coming to you.

Once you are fairly confident she will come when called, you can try her off the lead. *Usually* puppies won't venture very far off on their own since they want to stay close to the "den". Only let her go a few yards, then call her back and reward her when she comes. After a few times of this, put her back on the lead, reward her, and end the training session. ALWAYS end on a good note. Don't let her run away and you have to chase her down and correct her before you end the training. Do several short training sessions per day, if possible. Puppies have short attention spans so several short sessions are more productive than one long session.

Hey, thanks for the advice everyone! I'm relieved that both problems are easily fixed. (Didn't we have a smilie wiping his forehead that was either "whew!" or something to the effect of "what a relief"? I always thought we did)

I'll check back if I have anymore problems and when the advice starts working.

Back to report on the progress.

She's only bitten once since I posted and I followed the posted advice and she hasn't done it since.

A few days after I first posted my problems the leash I was using broke and I was pretty far from her barn. (Her kennel is an entire barn) I was pretty nervous but she stuck pretty close to me and never wandered off too far. Since then, her and I have come to an understanding. She'll go where I'm going but she loves to lead. So if she's going somewhere I don't want to go or if she's heading off property, I'll start walking in a different direction. As soon as she sees the direction I'm going, she'll race ahead of me and lead the way. It's so much better than the leash. Thank you everyone for all of your help!!

I have one more thing to ask but it's not all that important. There are still about 10 horses on the farm, big belgian work horses, and I would love to get the horses and dog to at least tolerate each other. At first, as soon as the dog and I would come into view of the horses, the entire group would stare at us until we went out of view. At least now only one or two of the group keep an eye on us while the rest keep eating. But if I go up to the group to pet the horses, every horse but the one I'm petting will try to drive the dog off.

Yesterday was the first headway I've made at all. Two horses were a good distance from the rest of the group, so I walked up real slowly while keeping the dog right next to me. When I got a few feet from the horses the dog hung back and stayed about 20 feet away. While petting both horses I motioned the dog toward me and she came slowly like I had. (that was pretty cool, she went just as slow as I had) When she approached, the horse had it's head low and it reached out it's nose. Their noses touched for a few seconds and they sniffed each other but the dog broke off and she seemed kind of scared. (I would be too if I was next to an animal that outweighed me by at least a thousand pounds and had been hostile towards me in the past)

I'm going to keep trying to find one or two horses by themselves and have the dog come with me while I pet them. Beyond that, any one have any good ideas?