Today it was yet another freezing morning and sunny.
07:30am – He yelled to let us know his bladder was full! After urinating he was ready for his walk in the training field.
There we walked, he pooped, we came back, he drank some water and came with me to get his breakfast. We then walked to the kennel and I gave him his breakfast.
The wetting of his dinner the night before was a good call because his poop felt softer this morning. We’ll probably do that tonight again.
11:00am – Session 1.
He was awesome! But very bitey. As always I was equipped with “toys” that can take the place of my hands. Because he’s a puppy his teeth are like needles, these are the puppy teeth. They’ll fall out and will be replaced by adult teeth.
His down was good and his stay was really impressive. So far his vocabulary consists of kennel, sit, down, stay, house, Babe, place and a whistle blow. We worked each session to a few reps. During each rep I looked for specific criteria and rewarded it.
We ended with 10 minutes of ultimate workout – he did fantastic as always. One thing I noticed was I could throw the ball further than normal and we would get it. With very young puppies they sometimes lose sight of the ball and so you end up having to get it yourself. Best to throw it close range.
4:00pm – Session 2 .
He was fantastic – we got him to the next level of ultimate workout! He moved forward on all of his behavior progressions.
6:00pm – play time and dinner.
8:00pm – play time and walk.
10:00pm – play time and walk.
Some things to think about:
How To Handle A Teething Puppy
Otherwise known as hell, luckily it only comes once in a life time but it does last 6 to 7 months depending on the dog. If your puppy is high drive you’re going to have your hands full. House Von Weise (the breeder we exclusively work with) produces extremely high drive puppies. These guys come ready to rock and roll.
Our job (and yours) is to train them gently. Here are some guidelines we’ve found helpful:
Wear The Right Clothing
When you are working your puppy wear clothes you don’t mind getting chewed up. We also prefer high boots. Shoes and flip flops are an open invitation to chew when dealing with a high drive puppy. Same thing with any leg skin showing – shorts and skirts are also an open invitation.
Always Have Primary Reinforcement Available
Make sure you have primary reinforcement on you any time you are in training time with your puppy. But when they are teething it’s even more important. In our free resource videos we teach about DRI and DRO, those behaviors also need to be reinforced.
Be Mindful Of Success
Never EVER strike your puppy! It will be challenging but you have to constantly be thinking about how your dog is going to act 2 years from now. The simple fact is your puppy will be a raging lunatic until he’s about 2 years old. He’ll go through all kinds of stages and in each stage he needs to be trained and set up for winning. This enables your puppy / dog to “do things” and “go places”.
The whole point of training a puppy to become a trained dog is for the dog to be in better harmony with their human. Never lose sight of that fact.