The First Few Weeks

04.42 in Dog, few, first, the, weeks

Raising and Training Your Puppy - The First Few Weeks 

The first week your puppy comes home is the most important week of her life. From the very first day, start an errorless housetraining and chewtoy-training program so that you prevent any future housesoiling, destructive chewing, excessive barking, or separation anxiety problems.

When you are not at home, leave your puppy in a long-term confinement area (puppy playroom, or crate with a puppy play pen attached), which has a comfortable bed, fresh water, several chewtoys stuffed with food, and a temporary indoor toilet. Long-term confinement prevents mistakes around the house and maximizes the likelihood your puppy will learn to chew chewtoys and use her toilet.

When you are at home but cannot pay full attention to your puppy, confine her to a small, short- term confinement area (doggy den or dog crate) with a couple of stuffed chewtoys. Confining your puppy to a den prevents any mistakes around the house, maximizes the likelihood your puppy will learn to chew chewtoys, and allows you to predict when your puppy would like to relieve herself. Knowing when your puppy wants to go makes housetraining easy because now you can show her where to go and reward her for going in the right spot. Confining a pup to a den temporarily inhibits elimination, so that every hour, you can take her to an appropriate toilet area. When she promptly pees (and sometimes poops), give her three liver treats as a reward.

Confinement is a temporary management and training measure. Once your puppy has learned household manners, he may enjoy full run of your house for the rest of his life. 

Other important things to do over the first few weeks include (check out are articles on these too):

• House Training
• Socialisation
• Leaving your Dog Home Alone
• Teaching your Puppy to Play 
• Learning Bite Inhibition (Controlling Puppy Biting) 
• Choosing a Vet/Groomer/Dog Trainer 

Suggested reading includes:

Before you get your Puppy - Ian Dumbar

After you get your Puppy - Ian Dumbar

The Power of Positive Dog Training - Pat Millar

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First 2 Weeks with a puppy

02.46 in 2, a, Dog, first, puppy, weeks, with

My new puppy is a terrier/chi mix. He is about 20 weeks old, 5 months. 

His pre existing issues were-

separation anxiety

house training

Timid with handling 

SO most of our training has been building the crate as a safe and wonderful place to be, as well as counter conditioning to me leaving the room while he is in the crate or loose.  

His initial behavior to being left alone for 10 minutes the second day that I had him was barking and howling and peeing and pooping in the crate and smearing it around on the crate walls with his paws.  Now after 2 weeks of tons of training, he settles and sleeps, and the other day I had to lure him out with a treat!  So I am very happy with how that is going!

The puppy hates grass, so I have also spend long hours standing in the yard patiently waiting.  The patience has paid off! :) 

Handling exercises 

What issues he didnt have but would be very important for  a new puppy in the first two weeks would be-

1- Restraint games

2- Reinforcing calmness rather than mouthing and biting 

3- Bite Inhibition

The first games we have been playing in these two weeks are-

1- default leave it from treats and bait bag while not working

2- positive interrupter/attention noise (I can call him away from playing with my other dogs already with the kissy noise)

3- Recalls

4- * Counter conditioning to handling!!!! * (the puppy was very hand shy)

5- Confidence on different surfaces using counter conditioning

6- How to follow a treat lure- (he would just pounce on my hand like it was prey rather than just follow it like a lure)

7- Crate games

8- Mat games

9- Settle

10- Loose leash walking

11- Touch with nose

12- Targeting with front paws

13- Building the tug and toys as secondary reinforcers

14- Basics of fetch

I constantly reinforce calmness and wonderful interactions with my other dogs, and interrupt him with the positive interrupter when play starts to get too aroused.  

So far so good!  

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