Parenting Your Puppy

PARENTING YOUR PUPPY

by Marty Guerra

You have taken on a great responsibility. One that should not be taken lightly. Your puppy is one hundred percent dependent on you for survival. To ensure its survival and a rewarding relationship, you'll need to provide a safe and loving home, a well balanced diet, fresh water, veterinary care, exercise, training and guidance. It is no big secret that without proper training and guidance, your cute little puppy will grow up to be a threat to everyone that comes in contact with it, and a nuisance to you and your neighbors.

The biggest threat to your puppy may not be canine heartworms, parvovirus, getting hit by a car, or distemper. The biggest threat to many dogs is that their owners know little about dog behavior or how to communicate to it in a manner that it will best understand. This lack of education leads to more dogs being euthanized than any other canine ailment. After all, how many well behaved dogs are turned over to animal shelters? Very very few. It is the dogs with "behavior problems" that end up at a shelter. Problems that could have been avoided or corrected with proper training and guidance.

Understanding your puppy's behavior from its psychological perspective and learning to communicate to it at its level will help you tremendously. It is only natural for we humans to anthropomorphise our pets, that's to say, we treat them like humans and impart our human emotions on to them. Obviously, they are not human. Your puppy is an instinct driven, survival oriented animal, it is going to do doggy things. Without proper training and guidance, those "doggy things" that are so natural for your pup can become obnoxious "behavior problems."

He's so cute
Yes, he is a cute bundle of joy now, but don't lose sight of the fact that in just a few short months he will have doubled in size and weight, have more strength and powerful jaws. Set the rules and boundaries you'll expect your puppy to live by for the rest of your lives together, enforce them, and do not reinforce behaviors you do not want.

An ounce of prevention
When it comes to raising a puppy, good management is the key. Good management simply means planning ahead to set the dog up to be right. Good management will help to prevent many of the common "problems" from developing. In other words, proaction is far less costly than reaction. Punishing an adolescent dog's jumping up, or leash pulling behavior, for example, when it was allowed to do these things as a puppy, is most unfair. These and other types of "problem behavior" can and should be avoided now while the dog is still young.

Think of the things that you do not want your adult dog to do, such as jump-up on people, chase things, pull on the leash, bark excessively, etc. DO NOT reinforce (or allow) these behaviors now!! Make sure everyone that will come in contact with your pup knows and understands your doggy rules! This will help to maintain consistency in enforcing those rules. So, when your puppy jumps up on someone, they'll know how to handle it without inadvertently reinforcing that behavior.

Chewing machine
Oh yeah! The puppy will chew. Puppies learn about their environment by smelling and putting things into their mouths. As your puppy begins to teethe, her need to chew will be greatly increased. Supervise and provide your puppy with some chew toys and teach her that those are the best things in the world to chew on; not your furniture, clothes or hands! Destructive chewing need not become an issue if initial chewing is properly managed!

Socialization and Habituation
Think of all the things your puppy is going to be exposed to during the course of its life. He will most likely come into contact with other animal species, dogs, cats, birds, not to mention the ever popular humans.

Socialization is the exercise of gradually exposing your pup to other animal species. By learning how to interact with cats, birds, humans, etc., the socialized dog develops communication skills which enable it to recognize the intentions of others. However, until your puppy has been fully vaccinated, it should not be exposed to other dogs (other than ones you know are vaccinated and healthy), and it should be kept away from common doggy toileting areas.

Habituation is the exercise of acclimating your puppy to non-threatening environmental stimuli (wind, thunder, traffic, chairs, etc.) and learning to ignore them. The most important thing to remember, is that the process of socialization and habituation should be done gradually and in a positive manner. Forcing your puppy into situations that it is not familiar with can have a long lasting, negative affect.

Be kind and gentle. Heck, even "spoil" your puppy. Just do it on your terms and not the dog's. Use positive reinforcement to teach the puppy behaviors you like. Enroll in Puppy Kindergarten or Behavior and Training Class.

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e-mail: mguerra@dogmanners.com

Phone: 342-2494