Rescue Dog

Housetraining

No training is more basic for pet owners than that first important lesson: Do it outside!

Training your new puppy to potty outside the home, not in it, usually starts between six and eight weeks of age. Dogs as young as four weeks can be house broken, but at that age few have the muscular control to succeed.

Like any dog training regimen, trainer patience is as important as the dog’s temperament. ‘Sit’, ’stay’ and other behaviors can often be learned in a few days. ‘Potty’ training your puppy may take weeks – perhaps as short as two, often a month or more.

As with other learned behaviors, due diligence is necessary to watch for signs of the desired actions and enforce and direct them with a voice command followed by praise. In this case that technique works even more to the trainer’s advantage, since all dogs will naturally eliminate. The tactic is to get them to do it when and where you want!

Watch for circling or squatting, then pick up the pup, say ‘potty’ and dash outside. The puppy may circle some more, but will often squat soon after. As it begins, say ‘Go potty’ (or some other unique phrase) in a clear, firm (but not angry) voice. Wait until she is finished and then her praise lavishly.

You won’t always be able to catch the puppy about to begin, but don’t become angry or impatient when the dog potties indoors. It takes time for your puppy to learn to tell you it’s time to ‘go potty’. It also takes time for the puppie’s muscles needed to control bladder and bowels to develop.

Puppies need to potty every 2-3 hours, on average. If you haven’t spotted pre-elimination behavior within that time, take the dog outside anyway. Issue the command ‘Go potty’ and wait. At first, usually, the dog will have no clue what you want.

Again, even when outside, it helps to wait and notice for the desired behavior then issue the command. That helps the dog associate the command with the behavior. If your puppy still has not relieved himself after a few minutes and a few ‘Go potty’ commands, take him back inside for an hour. Of course, if you spot the pre-elimination behavior in less time, go quickly outside again.

Dogs have an amazing ability to quickly learn what their ‘alpha’ (the leader of the pack) wants. This is almost always accomplished by associating a verbal command with behavior, followed by praise. Punishment is usually counter-productive, and nowhere more so than in waste elimination training. Never rub your puppy’s nose in the mess.

Paper and/or crate training is preferred by some. A pup can be trained to go on a newspaper, or on one of the chemically treated doggie pads designed for the purpose. Some small breeds that live all day in apartments may not need to go outside at all.

The technique has a couple of downsides however. Unlike cats, dogs will rarely eliminate in a perfumed litter box. Newspapers will often leave an unpleasant smell in the house.

Also, long before the odor becomes repulsive to humans, the aroma is a heavenly scent for dogs. Puppies don’t find the smell unattractive – quite the opposite. And therein lies the problem.

Dogs that are paper trained will often prefer to potty indoors. Sometimes your puppy may miss the paper by only an inch, creating a mess to clean up.

Once the odor is in the carpet, the dog will often seek that area out as its proper ‘place to go’. This makes training the dog to eliminate outside even more difficult. Best to suffer a few accidents than to create a hard-to-overcome habit.

Praise, patience, and consistency are the keys to any dog training. Elimination training is the first test for you and your dog.

Get more tips and advice on housetraining or dog training at Luvurdog.com/dogtraining

As a pet dog lover, you always see to it that you give all the best in the world for your furry best friend. There are even some who would go undergo the extreme of enrolling their dogs to an obedient school for weeks or months. Well, that would be a swell idea if you have the financial resources. They can also opt for a trainer who can train their dogs right in their own homes. If you have the budget, you can do so. But unfortunately, most dog owners can’t seem to manage to invest in these things. That’s why, they would resort to going through the Web, browsing for an online dog training course and help them learn how to train their own dogs.

If you would really love to train your mutt on your own, this is also what you need to find. There are many advantages in learning how to train your dog. First thing is, you can make a stronger relationship with your dog. Of all people, you are the only one or your other family members, for that matter, knows the personality of your dog and training him on your own can be much easier as compared to hiring a dog trainer. A dog training course that you can do on your own is much cheaper. For example, you might find a system or an e-book guide which you will only pay for a minimumlesser amount and you can train your pet dog with it and you can even apply your knowledge from what you’ve learned from a book guide on other dogs.

Lastly, training your own dog won’t really be a hindrance to your time and your other important obligations. You can set out your fixed schedule on when to train your dog effectively. But the concern is, where can you find a a good method to train your dog? If you go to the Net right now, you can come across some dog training reviews site which has compiled several guides on how to train your dog. From there, you can get to learn the different system and after reading them, that’s the time for you to decide to choose from among those options which you think will work best for you and your furry friend.

Let me ask you a simple question.  Do you know the triggers for fear aggression in dogs?  If not, then you need to read this article to learn more about this type of canine aggression.

Fear Aggression In Dogs

This is one of the most frustrating types of dog behavior problems.  Your dog may not hate all strangers; just certain ones.  He may hate all men, or just men wearing hats, or men with beards.  He may absolutely detest kids under five, but older children are fine.  He may be fine with strangers outside the home, or he may bark at anyone who walks by the house.  

You can use dog behavior modification techniques to desensitize your dog to strangers.  But in order to do so, you need to identify exactly what it is about a stranger that’s scaring him.

Common Triggers For Canine Aggression In Fearful Dogs

Men often seem more threatening to a nervous dog than women do.  They’re bigger, their voices are deeper and louder, they may have beards or moustaches, they may wear hats.  Men have a more direct way about them.They make direct eye contact more often, too.  Sometimes a man may remind your dog of someone who scared him or abused him in the past.

Just having a few chldren around may be enough to frighten a nervous dog, leading to aggressive behavior.They move quickly and unexpectedly, and they have high-pitched, squeaky voices.  They’re sometimes attached to scary things like skateboards and roller blades.  Small children may come with noisy toys, which can be terrifying to a dog who’s nervous to start with.  

Kids also have a tendency to grab dogs with no warning and hug them.This can lead to an attack by an unfamiliar dog.  Most dogs don’t like to be hugged anyway.  Teach your children never to hug a dog, especially one they don’t know.

Any dog finds it threatening if someone makes prolonged eye contact with him.  This is especially true with a nervous, fearful dog.  Avoid looking a strange dog directly in the eye.  Look down or to the side instead.

Someone who’s just walking down the street fast or very slowly can be scary, too, especially if they appear to be coming right at your dog.  Anything out of the ordinary can be unsettling for him.

Odd movements like somebody waving their arms around, or jumping up and down, will also get a fearful dog’s attention.If your dog catches a whiff of an unfamiliar smell on a stranger, like beer or cigars, it can scare him, too.

Sometimes it’s not something as obvious as any of these things. You’ll need to spend some time watching your dog and making notes of which trigger, or combination of triggers cause him to display fear-based aggression towards strangers.

Dog Behavior Modification Can Help

Punishing a dog who displays canine aggression towards strangers doesn’t work.  Dogs learn by associating things.  So punishing a dog who’s already aggressive towards strangers only serves to teach the dog that strangers really are bad.He thinks that he gets punished whenever a stranger shows up, so he becomes even more aggressive with strangers.

What you need to do is to desensitize your dog to strangers.  You do this by associating strangers with good things, like tasty treats.  Dog behavior modification is a long, slow training process that can’t be rushed.

A good dog training course can be worth its weight in gold when working with a fearful dog.  When looking at courses, you’ll want to choose one that has lots of good testimonials from dog owners who have used the course material.  It’s also important to find a course that includes a free consultation with an experienced dog trainer.  Another essential feature you’ll appreciate is a dog owner forum where you can ask questions, and talk to other dog owners who have solved the same problem with their dogs.

This is the easiest way you’ll find to to deal with fear aggression in dogs.

Visit No More Bad Dogs to learn more about fear aggression in dogs.

One of the best things about housebreaking your puppy is that the whole exercise of puppy training can prove to be a very enjoyable experience. Though it is fun training your puppy, puppy training also offers a good opportunity for you to educate your puppy and this in turn means that you will need to take the whole exercise very seriously. Also, by following the right kind of puppy training tips you will soon come to learn that it is also possible to employ play as an effective tool to teach your young puppy elementary aspects of proper behavior.

Early Start Is Recommended

Essentially, a good puppy training tip will be able to show you three essential aspects to training your puppy and needing to start the training process as early as is possible is one of these aspects. Next, you need to let your puppy understand the meaning of the word “NO” and you pet should be taught that this command must always be obeyed instantly.

Yet another important puppy training tip understands that a puppy is quite attuned to inflecting from the tone of his master’s voice what is being said. So, by showing your displeasure through use of a negative and forceful command you can let the puppy know that he is doing something wrong. The puppy on the other hand will act according to his personality and may growl at you or try and wiggle his way out of the situation. Repeating the “NO” command should help in getting the message across.

Another useful puppy training tip is learning to be gentle though firm with your puppy during the training process and to also be consistent with the training so that your puppy does not get confused by your inconsistent behavior.

There are several puppy training tips available in regard to imparting proper potty training and by using these tips you can greatly simplify the whole training process. One thing that is emphasized in all puppy training tips is understands the importance of timing your training right. If you teach your puppy after he has been caught in the act of doing something wrong chances of success will be greater because puppies have short attention spans and will not be able to correlate actions that took place more than a few seconds ago.

There are also many puppy training tips available to show you that there are many benefits to crate training a puppy. One final puppy training tips worth following is understands that it is imperative that you train your dog to never bit a human being. Though this is a difficult aspect to training your puppy it must be dealt with at the very earliest. Otherwise you might end up fighting battles in court because your puppy went and bit someone.

Only after your puppy has begun to show that he can obey your commands can you then look forward to many pleasant moments in his company.

Has this ever happened to you?  You just let your dog out, and here he is, asking to go out again.  Frequent urination in dogs can be a real nuisance, especially when the first thing he does when he comes back in is to head for the water bowl.  No wonder the dog urinating frequently is a problem.You wonder if he’s drinking too much water…

How Much Water Should My Dog Be Drinking?

A dog normally will drink about about three or four cups of water per day for every 20 pounds of body weight.  This means a healthy dog that weighs sixty pounds will slurp down up to three quarts of water a day.  

An easy way to see how much water your dog is drinking is to measure out a set amount of water and put it out for him in a bowl.Make sure he’s not able to access other sources of water, like a leaky faucet, or the toilet.Measure how much water is left at the end of the day, and subtract this amount from what you began with.Repeat this for a few days.

Should you find out that he really is drinking an excessive amount of water, you’ll need to take him to the vet.

What Causes A Dog To Drink Too Much Water?

Obviously, he’s drinking a lot of water because he’s thirsty.  But if he’s too thirsty, he’ll drink an excessive amount of water.  Your vet calls this “polydipsia.”  This leads to “polyuria,” a fancy term for frequent urination in dogs.  When your dog drinks a lot of water, he makes a lot of urine, which leads to a dog urinating frequently.

Polydipsia and polyuria are symptoms of some serious canine diseases.  These include:

• Canine diabetes
• Liver disease
• Kidney failure
• Pyometra, or an infection of the uterus (often seen in older unspayed females)
• High blood calcium
• Pituitary gland problems
• Cushing’s Disease

You can see that if your buddy is drinking too much water, he may have a serious condition.A canine urinary tract infection, which is easily treated, may also be the problem.

Natural Remedies For Pets Can Prevent Urinary Problems In Dogs

Across the centuries, people in many cultures have used natural remedies to treat bladder and urinary problems, and also to support the immune system.  Now these herbal and homeopathic remedies are available for pets.  

The number of natural remedies for pets that are on the market today can be overwhelming.  How do you choose the best one?  

First, be sure the remedy is formulated especially for pets, not people.  Second, purchase your dog’s remedies only from a reputable company that has been in business for many years.  This company should have a reputation for manufacturing only the highest-quality products for companion animals.  Check for testimonials from other pet owners who have used the products on their pets.  

In conclusion, excessive water intake and frequent urination in dogs can be a sign of serious health problems in your pet.You now know that these symptoms indicate that your pet needs to see the vet.