How to set your new puppy up for success part 2

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Happy New Year!

Photo by Anna Dudkova on Unsplash

In part 1 we discussed 5 tips on how to set your new puppy up for success. Giving your puppy lots of attention when all 4 paws are on the floor, Playing with your pup using soft toys instead of allowing him to bite your hands, Leaving home alone by slowly building the skill of being confident on his own, Letting your dog sleep and providing a quiet area, Toileting - teaching your pup going outside. Make sure you read the details in the previous blog. Here are 5 more tips. 

What to do to avoid mistakes

6. Teaching grooming and handling gradually

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Dogs have to be groomed. Dogs with long hair need at least daily care. Dogs when shedding needs more brushing. The shorthaired breed might not need as much attention to grooming but they will also need their nails clipped and all dogs will need vet exams from time to time. Preparing your puppy for all those procedures can reduce stress for both your puppy and for the person grooming or handling him in the future. Start gradually and follow it up with a piece of treat your puppy likes. You can start as small as one hair brush or quick touching a paw followed by a treat. We want to make it into a positive experience. Take a towel and wipe your puppy’s paw or belly and give a treat. Depending on how your puppy reacts, you can start increasing wipes and touches or take a break and come back to the exercise when your puppy is relaxed. Keep the session very short, 2-3 minutes only and come back to the exercise later in the day or the next day. Make it fun for yourself too, follow it with something you like to make sure you would like to do it again too. Eventually, your puppy will calmly allow you to examine his whole body, wipe it with a towel and brush him. Nail clipping requires a few more components like standing still with a paw in your hand but you can start from just bringing the clippers close to his paws so he doesn’t get scared by this weird object near him. I don’t recommend clipping his nails if you have never done it! You can clip too short and injure his paw. Make sure you take him to a professional but the more you prepare your puppy for it, the easier it will go for whoever will do it. 

7. Teaching car rides

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Depending on where you live, your dog might need a lot of car rides or just an occasional one. No matter what is your situation, it’s good to prepare your puppy for it. Take him to the car when it doesn’t run and make it a nice experience by giving him his favourite treats. Add the noises of the car first, before you add the movement. When it’s all going nicely take him for a little ride followed by a nice experience, coming back home to a nice chew or going out for a nice walk if your puppy enjoys them. 

What I would also like to mention alongside training, is to equip yourself with a travel carrier. I can’t recommend any specific one as it depends on the size of your dog, the size of your car and I don’t have any favourite brand. Make sure you do your research and keep your puppy safe.

If you have to take your puppy out for a long drive before having time to prepare him for it, make sure someone sits next to him and comforts him if he is anxious. He might pant, yawn, tremble or whine. Ask someone to pet him gently if the pup doesn’t turn away from the hand. Depending on how bad this experience was, you might consider hiring a trainer to work through this with you. Otherwise, take it slow when you don’t have to take your puppy anywhere and make the car a nice experience again. If your puppy got scared it might take longer but it’s doable to change his feelings around the car. Don’t give up and keep on working on it until the signs of stress disappear. It’s never all lost and turning things around by systematic short training sessions can give your pup a better life. 

8. Socialising with other people

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Socialisation became a buzzword in many circles. It’s true that it’s very important but it’s equally important how it’s done not just that it’s done. It’s unfair to demand from your dog to be friends with everybody, he can have his preferences. At the same time, having a dog who wants to greet everybody he meets can be a nightmare. It’s safe to presume for your dog to greet some people and ignore others. Playing with all can be way too much, instead, it’s nice to say a quick ‘hello’ and move on. When your dog shows no interest to people, that’s ok too. You can sporadically encourage nice interactions with treats by asking someone to hand a treat to your puppy on a flat hand but it’s important to not force your dog to be friends with people! He has the right to choose to ignore them. If you continue to force your dog to interact with people, you face a threat of him expressing his dissatisfaction to the point of growling or even biting. I used to believe that all dogs should love all people but I realised how unfair that is. I don’t go to every person and pat them on the head, no matter how friendly they seem. Yet, that’s what many people do to dogs. Accepting people is enough done from a distance. If every person your puppy meets was educated in how to approach dogs appropriately I wouldn’t mind him going toward them but that’s not the case. You might observe people throwing themselves on your puppy and it’s best to have a strategy on those occasions. One way to do it is through a nose-magnet trick. Take a treat in your hand and hold tightly, take your hand to your puppy’s nose, you can let him lick the treat but don’t give it to him, gently and slowly move your hand away from your puppy so he starts to follow the treat, give him the treat. To re-cap:

1. Treat on the nose,

2. Move,

3. Give.

Make sure your puppy keeps his nose on your hand (the magnet works well) and increase the distance that your puppy follows gradually. Now, you will have an option to take your puppy away from a situation he wasn’t yet ready for. To the people you met, gently say, ‘I’m sorry, my puppy is going through training and we have to go’. Please, don’t get angry or blame those people. It’s natural that they want to interact with your cute puppy. They believe they are doing the right thing and that your puppy likes it. I used to have a hard time ignoring puppies too! It took me many hours of training with different puppies and dogs to finally be able to ignore a dog I see. Still, I will be smiling towards them - I just can’t help it!

9. Socialising with other dogs

Behaviourist and dog trainer Fiona Whelan proposed 1:3 rule when meeting other dogs: 

1. Ignore: walk past without active engagement, 

2. Be pleasant: “say” hello then keep moving, 

3. Engage: spend time around; playing, mooching.

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Just like with meeting people I don’t presume that your puppy needs to be friendly with everybody, so it is with other dogs and puppies. Some puppies would like to play with every dog and many of us want them to. However, I would still encourage building a strategy to move your puppy away from other dogs, for example with the use of nose-magnet described above. When every time your puppy sees another dog he is playing with them, a sight of a dog means great things that he won’t be able to resist. You will have a hard time teaching him a recall. Use the 1:3 rule (roughly, you don’t have to be rigid about that) to help yourself develop a companion who is well socialised but also manageable. 

I also need to say something about playing with other dogs. Your puppy can learn from other dogs but he can as easily learn bad habits from them! Playing with appropriate dogs, matched in size and temperament can be a great experience but it isn’t always possible. If it isn’t, it’s usually better to not encourage play with unmatched dogs and instead take your puppy away. Socialising is important but when done poorly it can backfire. The notion that other dogs will “teach your puppy” how to play appropriately when your puppy already is boisterous to me is ludicrous. It’s unfair for the other dog to be forced to be a teacher when it’s you who took the puppy. Sometimes you can meet dogs who are brilliant at teaching puppies but if you see that the dog starts to run away from your pup, help him! Don’t just expect the dog to change and teach your puppy a lesson. Why would you expect from a polite dog to develop snapping to teach your puppy something? It’s amazing that this dog is polite! By giving your boisterous puppy more opportunities to chase this polite dog, you are encouraging even more bad habits in your pup. You are facing a threat that he might be the same with a dog who is not polite and who will bite very hard! Those dogs are out there and some of them are kept off-leash. It’s irresponsible but that’s a reality. Dog fights happen and having a puppy who never learned how to stop going after other dogs, is a disaster waiting to happen. Interrupt the play from time to time, especially when the other dog is being bullied by your pup! Don’t leave it to chance, instead observe your puppy’s interaction with other dogs asking yourself a question “is that what I want to see him doing?” Remember, what your puppy practices, he gets good at - that includes ignoring you and bullying other dogs. Practice paying attention to you first then playing with other dogs can be used as a great reinforcement for this attention.

On the other spectrum, your puppy can be afraid of other dogs. Here, I would encourage you to never force him to play with other dogs and leave him enough room to run away. If he feels that he has nowhere to go as he is on a tight leash, he can quickly develop a different strategy like snapping, growling or even biting. For a fearful puppy, it’s important to find a polite dog who can build confidence in your pup. Often it’s dogs who just wag their tail quickly and then ignore your puppy who will give him enough confidence to finally go over to the dog. 

It would be great if all dogs you meet were well socialised but it’s not the case. Accidents happen and it can develop reactivity in your dog. However, it’s not all lost. If it ever happens, there are trainers and behaviourists who will help you through positive reinforcement and careful environmental arrangements. I don’t want you to get afraid that all dogs can ruin your puppy! It’s absolutely not the case! Doing many different types of interactions (longer, short or completely ignoring the other dog) gives the biggest change to avoid accidents. 

10. Habituating to new objects and sounds 

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For a puppy, everything in your house is new and potentially scary. The vacuum cleaner is dreaded by many dogs but that’s not the only object that can be spooky for them. Pushchair, skateboard, umbrella, cane or even a hat can make your dog act fearfully. Allowing your dog to investigate a new object in his own time and pace is great confidence-building exercise. As always, start small and add complexity later. Opening an umbrella in front of your puppy is much scarier than just showing him an open one standing still on the floor. Skateboard just standing in one place is less scary than the one that moves and makes noises on the hard floor. Turned off vacuum cleaner moving slowly is much less scary than when it’s roaring and moving fast. Let your puppy understand that there is nothing scary in those objects and sounds, don’t expect him to know it right away. It’s ok if it takes time for him to be brave enough to investigate. Reinforce him for it and encourage this bravery. Even though for you all those objects are normal, from your puppy’s perspective it's an alien thing that moves and makes sounds. Let him get to know them slowly before he ever gets spooked by them. That will create a confident companion who lives happily in this crazy human world. 

Be a superhero for your puppy, he will love you for it! 

Happy New Year!