Nine Tips for New Dog Owners
1. Familiarize it with the vet. Have fun vet visits, put it on the exam table, have the vet or a tech give it a treat, pet it, then leave without any potentially unpleasant treatment.
2. Have someone else walk your dog away from you. Why? Your dog needs to be comfortable if the vet, dog walker or kennel attendant if it ever been taken out of your presence.
3. If your dog becomes aggressive or barks, don’t reprimand it. Instead, try to redirect its attention back to you. Then reward it for being involved with you.
4. Teach your dog what you want it to do rather than what not to do. For instance, don’t tell your dog not to go into the street. Instead, reward your dog for waiting at the door or the curb. Teaching your dog not to jump is hard. Instead, teach your dog to sit — then reward it by only petting it when it has all four feet on the ground.
5. Dogs actually do have a good memory. It only takes one time of getting on the couch or finding food scraps in the trash for the dog to learn that “that sofa is really comfortable” or “that is where to find used chicken bones”. It is better to never let the dog learn something wrong, than it will to teach the dog not to do something it already knows is rewarding and fun.
6. A dog in a new home will often seem perfectly well behaved the first week. Usually its behavior will be suppressed for one to two weeks. So your dog doesn’t learn bad habits, provide free access around your house a little bit at a time, as its behavior and experience warrant it.
7. Brush your dog once or twice a week (more of course for long haired dogs). Start with short grooming sessions, then do it longer and longer. It is easiest if your tether your dog while grooming. Your efforts will be helpful for your groomer and will help prevent skin and flea problems.
8. Keep lots of different toys and chews for your dog. Rotating them every few days will keep your dog more interested. Rather than leave them all down all the time, introduce a new one every few weeks or so to prevent boredom.
9. Early socializing is an irreplaceable effort. Many more dogs are lost due to fear issues than sickness. Take your puppy to 5 new places every week beginning as 8 weeks. Just make sure to take it to only places with healthy vaccinated dogs. Play dates and puppy class is great; dog parks need to wait till all the shots are done.
For more training tips from “I Said Sit!” and Jonathan Klein, visit www.isaidsit.com or call 1-800-400-TRAIN (8724)
Achol
/ March 25, 2012My dog has HIS toobyxMy Baby has HER toobyxToys are kept separate.Baby is only allowed to play with her toys.. if she has a dog toy, I remove it from her and give her one of HER toysDog is only allowed to play with his toys.. if he has a baby toy, I remove it and give him one of HIS toys.Eventually the toys will have their individual scent and your dog should be able to recognize which are his and which belong to the baby.Baby toys are also put away when she’s done playing.. they are not left laying anywhere. Most of her toys are kept in the living room, which is baby gated off- the dog has limited access to that room.The best solution is to just supervise, and make sure that baby toys are put away when the baby is not playing with them. Your child can learn at a young age to keep her toys picked up, or they may become chewed up.
Trigga
/ March 25, 2012Please don’t start the dog vs. baby war already.You are taniklg about a DOG he has no way of knowing that toys he can get at are not for him why would he?You need to keep your baby’s toys where your dogs can’t get to them, not start a problem of dog vs. baby (one of the biggest reasons dogs get dumped when the new baby arrives).Not the dog’s responsibility, it’s yours. Please think this through and don’t make an issue where there is none just keep the baby toys out of reach, you should be monitoring the dogs with the baby at all times anyway and it’s not exactly sanitary to have the baby and his toys where the dogs can lick either.