Too cute! I agree that socializing early and training early is incredibly important. For potty training, are you crate training? It helps quite a bit in my experience (family used to bread larger dogs and I have a 10 month old Great Pyrenees). It is all about being consistent...puppy gets food or water? 15-20 minutes later take puppy out to go potty. If your pup goes, praise, praise, praise. If not, puppy goes back in the crate for 10 minutes then out you go again. Also, no food or water for several hours before bed time. Its a lot of work in the beginning but they get it in time.
Nipping is normal for puppies but don't let your pup get away with it. If your pup nips, let out a yelp like your pup might. Try putting peanut butter on your finger and teach "kisses" as an alternative to nipping.
Have fun with the pup and enjoy her while she is little!
No problem! The woman I linked has an EXCELLENT dog training podcast (dogtrainer.quickanddirtytips.com) available there or on iTunes. Great stuff on all sorts of training, and enough back episodes to keep you going for a long while. She also takes questions on Facebook. One of my questions actually turned into an episode!
I post this as someone who was NOT in charge of her dog's socialization window. As such, she has issues with lots of things - skateboards, grates on the sidewalk, archways overhead, walking onto linoleum floors, and basically any kind of grooming. It's not her fault, and we're working on all of these things individually, but it is SO MUCH EASIER to deal with if these things are introduced as a puppy. Grooming is a BIG one (especially opening her mouth, brushing her teeth, and trimming her claws...those are things that are hard to do in an older dog that is afraid of them - seriously).
Last edited by mandalinn82; 03-21-2011 at 01:15 PM.
Awww. She's so photogenic. Why don't you try the site Dogchannel.com? I go to the sister site (Catchannel) all the time, and there's so many good tips.
I have an American Eskimo, and she's the sweetest dog! A lot of them can be nippy, but mine is a sweetie. I can even trust her around my chickens. (Yeah, I have chickens. LOL ) She is getting old now. She's 14. I'm worried about her. Enjoy your little one!
Scialization s really important and the younger the better. Do you have PetSmart or Petco near you ? Pet stores allow you to bring your dog in on a leash . In her case maybe keep her in the shopping cart. She will see a lot of people who will probably want to pet her. she also will see alot of dogs.This will teach her to not be afraid of people and other animals. I have a dog who had never been socialized and while he is great in many ways and I love him. He is a barker because he is not used to seeing anyone but his family. I never knew this would be a problem although I had been told his previous owner kept him home all the time and never took him out. They really did him a disservice. Get around as many people (strangers)as you can . By the way do you know about pee pads ? This will be a big help in housetraining.
I tried so hard to keep her in her kennel last night, but she yelped the entire time and my dad had work in the morning, so I had to take her out! I'm worried that I'm teaching her that if she yelps she'll be rewarded by not being stuck in her crate.
Thecandes, I honestly had never heard of the breed before I found this dog... but I've since fallen in love! I can't believe I hadn't heard of them before. I was always more of a lab girl, but labs were just too big to be an option for me. American Eskimos are just perfect! And beautiful even when they do get old. And I do have faith that if trained right their tendency towards barking/nipping can be broken. I mean, look at pit-bulls and their bad rep... the guy I'm dating has a pit-bull that presses his forehead to your leg to give you "hugs" whenever you walk in. I think I'll just need to be consistent. Which also makes me worry with this letting her out when she yelps in the kennel.
And Mandalinn! Thanks so much, again. I think not enough people know that you're really not supposed to train them based on punishment more than positivity - I would think to use a mixture of both. But it makes sense with potty training that there's no point in punishing them for doing what comes naturally for them when it's really your own fault for not letting them out enough. Ahh, how I see the mistakes my parents made with my dog growing up! Lol thanks so much!
Has anyone ever used clicker training? If so, care to share your experiences? I don't even really know what it is, but I get the basic idea. It makes sense to me, but is it more effective than saying "good girl"?
I tried so hard to keep her in her kennel last night, but she yelped the entire time and my dad had work in the morning, so I had to take her out! I'm worried that I'm teaching her that if she yelps she'll be rewarded by not being stuck in her crate.
To be blunt, you are. Your dad got you the puppy, and that's part of kennel training and puppy training in general..everyone loses some sleep. They whimper, they whine. Was the kennel near you at all? Some dogs do best if they're still in the room with you while being kenneled. You have to stop letting her out, though, or she's going to know that if she just cries enough, you're going to let her out...which is going to make the problem worse.
Re: clicker training, we don't actually use a clicker, but we do use a word (ours is "Yes!"...you can use "Good!" or any other word that is distinctive and fast/easy to say). In training, you pair that word (or the click of a clicker) with a treat every time the dog does a behavior that you like. The dog learns that "Yes" or whatever your word is means "whatever I just did earned me food!", and it pinpoints the EXACT behavior that you want. Every time you say the word (or click the clicker), the dog gets a treat and learns what exactly you wanted to happen.
To be blunt, you are. Your dad got you the puppy, and that's part of kennel training and puppy training in general..everyone loses some sleep. They whimper, they whine. Was the kennel near you at all? Some dogs do best if they're still in the room with you while being kenneled. You have to stop letting her out, though, or she's going to know that if she just cries enough, you're going to let her out...which is going to make the problem worse.
Yup, totally agree. Puppies are hard and it is "easy" to give in but anything you give in on now will probably be with you as a habit years from now. I was bone-tired when I got my puppy, slept with him on the floor (while he was in his crate) for a few days when I thought he would sleep in another room other than my bedroom but it just wasn't working for us when I tried to sleep in my room and leave him. I moved his crate into my room and let him sleep in the crate next to my bed so he could hear/see me and he was (for the most part) much better. He still sleeps on the floor next to my bed to date (though not in the crate- he's a big boy and needs some room to stretch ).
Hmm. I always picked them up when they were crying, and took them out and fed them in the middle of the night. I treated them like the babies they are. Eventually, they will stop crying and whining. They are just young. My brother's dog was my dog's sister, and she was a meany, but you can't really judge from that. My brother and his wife are not good "parents."
My dad has done clicker training with success. I have never tried it, though. I used a book called "Smarter than you Think." I can't remember who the author is, but I really liked the book. Both of my dogs were trained using that book, and both of them are wonderful dogs, and very smart. We have a new dog, who is a stray. She is coming along with the same technique. She was housebroken relatively easily (within 2 weeks), and the only thing I have trouble with is getting her to come when called. She likes to be outside, and doesn't like to come in. My husband got her to come in yesterday by taking her bowl outside and pouring dog food in it within her hearing. It worked. LOL
Edit: The book is by Paul Loeb. But, good luck whatever you decide!
Hmm. I always picked them up when they were crying, and took them out and fed them in the middle of the night. I treated them like the babies they are. Eventually, they will stop crying and whining.
To be clear, I took my dog out when he cried at night to go potty but if he was whinning for attention (i.e., he had already gone potty in the last few hours and I knew he didn't have to go again) I'd reassure him verbally but not take him out again. Didn't mean to imply that I left the poor guy in there all night without taking him out.
To be clear, I took my dog out when he cried at night to go potty but if he was whinning for attention (i.e., he had already gone potty in the last few hours and I knew he didn't have to go again) I'd reassure him verbally but not take him out again. Didn't mean to imply that I left the poor guy in there all night without taking him out.
Oh yeah, absolutely - puppies have to get out several times a night to go potty for sure. It's just when you've JUST taken them out, then put them in the crate/kennel, and they immediately cry that "I am lonesome!" sort of whiny cry.
Well, tonight I've taken her for a jog to tucker her out, and I'm going to put her in the kennel in about a half hour and put her next to my bed where she can see me. She's extremely attached to me, lol. When I left to go to the store my dad said she sat by the door and whined. Bahhh. I'm going to definitely keep her in there all night, and tell my dad to deal with it lol. She's doing extremely well on everything else though! Goes potty outside every time!
Thanks so much for your advice, and your bluntness. I definitely need to not set myself up for failure by letting her get her way by whining.
She's 14. I'm worried about her. Enjoy your little one!
).
