Puppy Training
It's important to start teaching your pup as soon as possible. Some things, like fetching, are really easy to teach small puppies but can be very difficult with older puppies.
Education doesn't have to be like army drills! Mary Poppins - style is much more enjoyable and very effective. Everything you want your pup to learn you can teach with short games. By playing for just 5 minutes a day it can learn everything traditionally taught to dogs over years in a matter of weeks, including fetching, finding, tracking, scent discrimination, sitting, downing, standing, staying, agility and even manwork (attack-work) if your pup is mature enough. If you can add your own special tricks to the menu even better! (See our page tricks .We would love to hear of any unique tricks that you manage to teach your pup - or any dog. Please e-mail us details and photo of the deed if pos'. We'd like to put this on our website to inspire other owners.)
There are a couple of principles that we use when teaching a puppy anything. Here they are :-
1. We teach everything by conditioning a puppy to act in a certain way. We show him to do something and then reward him when he does it.
2. We use a puppy's name before every command except "stay!" and "toilet!". It makes him excited and alert and ready to jump into action to do whatever it is that we want him to do! (That's why we don't use it for stays because we don't want the puppy to do anything or to be excited! And to go to the toilet the puppy must look at the ground and not us!)
3. We repeat a game several times to form a pattern for the puppy to learn from.
4. We reward the puppy the second he does the right thing.
5. We use the same command for the same exercise every time. We also try to use the same tone of voice and body gestures that go with that command.
6. We NEVER punish a puppy when teaching him something. The puppy only gets a reward when it does the right thing and we make sure that it does the right thing! Should the usual method not work we would think of another approach.
7. We use a high-pitched voice when talking to a puppy (rather like humans use 'cootshy-coo' language on their babies!). This tone excites them so that they're keener to work. This goes for adult dogs too!! Barking out commands to them army-fashion has the opposite effect.
Here are some handy things that you can teach your puppy .
TOILET TRAINING
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Because dogs are pack animals it is very important to let your puppy come into your house every day to spend 'quality time' with the family. If you're only going to let him in a short period at a time then you can easily prevent him from going to the toilet inside by watching him and taking him out if he needs to go. If he's going to be allowed in permanently then you are going to have to take him out regularly to the toilet (the younger he is the more often he will need to go) and know the most likely times that he will need to go (usually after waking up, eating, drinking, and long periods of play). (If your puppy is in the house with you all the time it is a good idea to restrict his movement at those times when you can't watch him carefully by having him in a playpen or even tying him up near you so that he cries when he wants to go to the toilet because he won't want to do it right where he is. This is especially important at night when you sleep. We find that a pen next to the bed is the very best solution. We put a blanket one side and newspaper the other so that the puppy can go to the toilet on the newspaper if he doesn't wake us up in time. Being next to us and hearing us sleep also prevents a new puppy from crying.) In both cases the secret is to condition your puppy to go to the toilet outside the house and preferably in the same place outside. Once he's conditioned to do that he will not do it inside. As with all training punishment serves no purpose - if your puppy has an accident then remove the evidence when he's not there and clean it with a sharp- smelling cleaning agent so that the puppy will not smell where he's done it (which would encourage him to do it there again).
Here is our toilet routine when we take a puppy outside to go to the toilet. This routine works like magic and we have trained scores of puppies, piglets and goats in this way!! People are amazed to see a litter of 6 week old puppies coming out of the car and all going to the toilet on command (to say nothing of piglets and goats of course!!).
We pick the puppy up as soon as he needs to go to the toilet (he will start circling to find a place) and take him to the place outside where we want him to do it. Once there we put him down and start walking in a small circle, looking at the ground and sing in a Barbara Woodhouse voice "Toilet! Toilet!". He will also start circling and then go to the toilet. As soon as he does we praise him "Good boy!" and when he's finished we stroke him and continue to praise him and then walk with him following back into the house.
The reason we pick the puppy up in the first place is to prevent him from going to the toilet before we reach our destination. We walk in a circle because if you stand still the puppy will sit and watch you to see what you are going to do next, and if you walk in a straight line he will not stop to go to the toilet because he will think that you are on your way somewhere and that there's no time to stop! Walking in a circle looking at the ground makes it look as though WE want to go to the toilet ourselves and the puppy will quickly follow suit! Rewarding him for doing it confirms to the puppy that that is what you wanted him to do and next time he will do it immediately. While he's going to the toilet we only praise him verbally because touching him would distract him. Only when he's finished do we stroke him. Taking him straight back into the house shows him that he is not being exiled from the house when he goes to the toilet outside (which would put him off from going).
Here are the step-by-step instructions again:-
1. Take your puppy to the place you'd like him to use for the toilet.
2. Looking at the ground, walk slowly in a circle singing "Toilet! Toilet!" until your puppy complies.
3. Praise him as soon as he does this "Good boy!!" but only touch him when he's finished (otherwise you might distract him!). Then you can stroke him.
4. Take him back into the house.
FETCHING
We teach fetching using the puppy's hunting instinct. We use a soft toy (or old sock) and entice the puppy to chase it, as a cat would chase a mouse, by wiggling it on the floor just out of reach of the puppy's nose. When he gets interested and tries to catch it we let him succeed and then play tug-of war with him gently swaying the toy from side to side. We then take the toy out of his mouth and throw it a foot away and tell him to fetch it - "Puppy, fetch!". When he runs forward and pounces on it we praise him and ask him to bring it - " Puppy, bring!" - while clapping our hands. When he obliges we praise him again and, stroking him from head to tail, resume the tug-of-war game.
This is repeated 4 or 5 times to form a pattern for the puppy to learn from (but no more or he would get tired of the game).
Here are the instructions step-by-step:
- Entice your puppy to chase a soft toy by wiggling it on the ground in front of him.
- When he grabs it gently pull it from side to side to play tug-of-war with him.
- Gently take the toy out of his mouth, shake it close to him to keep his attention, and then throw it a foot in front of you.
- As the toy lands you say "Puppy fetch!" in a high-pitched voice. (Use his name where I write 'Puppy'.)
- He should jump forward and pounce on the toy. If he does, then you say "good boy - bring!" and clap your hands. If he doesn't, then you should shake the toy where it is on the ground until he grabs it, and then proceed as below.
- He should then bring the toy back to you. Say "good boy" and play tug-of-war again with him while stroking him from head to tail. If he doesn't come back to you then take the end of the toy hanging from his mouth and gently pull him to you and proceed as above. To prevent him from running away from you, throw the toy into a dead-end (like a passage with all the doors closed) or into a corner so that he has to come past you to go anywhere.
- Repeat 3 or 4 times.
- Increase the distance you throw the toy gradually.
- Once he's got the hang of it with his favourite toy, use as many articles made of different materials as possible, such as keys, a wooden stick, a plastic pipe, a rubber ball, woollen socks....- whatever you can think of.
FINDING
Teaching your puppy to find is easy once it knows how to fetch. This is how we do it.
We play tug-of-war and then take the toy out of the puppy's mouth as before but instead of throwing it, as we did for the fetching, we slide our hand along the floor and quickly hide it behind a table or chair leg, whatever is close-by. We then show the puppy our empty hands and in a surprised voice ask it "Puppy, where's your toy? Find it!". At the same time we point along our hand's trail. The puppy usually follows our finger along the trail until he sees his toy at which point he then pounces on it. As soon as he grabs the toy we end the game as we did for the fetching with high-pitched praise "good puppy! Bring!" , clapping hands if necessary, and when the puppy brings it again praise and resume the tug-of-war, stroking the puppy from head to tail.
Here are the details step-by-step:-
1. Play tug-of-war with your puppy.
2. Gently take the toy out of his mouth and quickly slide it and your hand along the ground and hide it behind something near you. It doesn't matter if it sticks out - you're teaching your puppy to find it and he's allowed to use his eyes!
3. Show your puppy your empty hands and, looking extremely surprised, ask him "Puppy, where's your toy? Find it! Where is it? Find it!"
4. Point along the trail made by your hand and toy and your puppy should follow your finger. (Make sure that he's read these instructions first!) .
5. When your puppy sees the toy he should grab it and when he does praise him in a high-pitched voice "Good boy!" and ask him to bring it. "Puppy, bring!" and clap your hands.
6. When he brings it to you praise him again "Good boy!" and play tug-of-war again while stroking him from head to tail.
7. Repeat a few times to make a pattern for your puppy to learn what you want. It doesn't matter if you hide the toy in the same place every time as long as he realizes that you want him to find it. You'll see when he's looking for it because he will sniff the ground loudly looking for the trail!
8. Once your puppy knows what you want then you can hide the toy further away, increasing the distance gradually as you did with the fetching, and leaving a trail to it to make it easier for the puppy to find .
9. When he seems good at it you can reduce the trail gradually until there's no trail at all. Just make sure that the toy has a very strong smell at first - like a freshly used sock or something he's chewed a lot or something you've warmed up under your armpits!
TRACKING
Once your puppy can find hidden toys it is very easy to teach him to track. He's actually already tracked your hand trail when you taught him to look for toys inside the house (or outside in the garden - wherever you did the finding). Now he's going to do the same but following a track made by feet and for longer distances.
The command for tracking is going to be different from the one for finding (which is "find it") because the two games are actually different. 'Finding' is finding an object without a trail - for instance a golf ball lost in a rough patch (golfers please just be careful that your dogs don't swallow the balls!). 'Tracking' is following a trail made by man or beast (or a beastly criminal!) in order to catch up with the pursued, as well as to find anything dropped along the way. Tofind an object without a trail a dog has to move across an area until he picks up it's scent which leads him to it. (He can pick up a scent from far away if the wind is blowing from the object towards him. I was amazed the first time I did an 'area search' with our Olderhill bitch Leo. I threw a tennis ball about 50 m away from us and then sent her at right angles to the direction of the wind. She trotted fast in a straight line and when she caught the ball's scent she changed direction towards it so suddenly it looked as though someone had jerked her with a lead, and ran straight to it!) To track something the dog needs to follow a continuous trail or track.
Our command for tracking is "soek-soek". As with any command it doesn't matter what it is as long as you use the same one every time.
When we first teach a puppy to track, though, we give him the command to find followed by the new one to track so that he immediately knows that we want him to find something. We tell him "puppy, find it , where is it, soek-soek!" Later we drop the first part of the command so that we're left with the new tracking one.
This is how we teach a puppy to track.
The puppy has a collar and lead on. We either tie the puppy up to something (which he's used to - see the section on teaching your puppy to stay) or ask somebody else to hold him. We then walk a short distance away (perhaps 10 -20 m) and put a toy on the ground in such a way that the puppy can't see it. (Don't forget the objective is to follow the trail and not just find what's at the end of it.) We then make a wide circle back to the puppy so that the scent of our return track doesn't blow across our first track. We point to the ground where we started and ask him "Puppy where's your toy? Find it! Soek-soek!". He will immediately follow the track and then we praise him ONCE, IN A LOW-KEY TONE for a change because we don't want to distract him by sounding excited, and then quietly follow him while he works. For as long as he's on the track we keep quiet and don't break his concentration. If he stops and is distracted by something next to the track then we stop and remind him of what he's supposed to be doing ("Puppy, where's your toy? Find it! Soek-soek!" and point on the track again). As soon as he sets off again on the right track we praise him once again and then follow silently. When he finds his toy we erupt into praise and try to play tug-of-war with him as a reward. A common response in our puppies is that they give us a disapproving look because we are now disturbing them (after having behaved ourselves so well up to now, shutting up and following them obediently!) and the track has not ended so there's still work to be done!! If they feel that way we usually suppress our urge to play(!!) and follow them again quietly while they complete the circle! Then we make a fuss of them and show them that we see how big and clever they are!
With tracking IT'S VERY IMPORTANT TO KNOW EXACTLY WHERE YOUR TRACK IS because you need to know whether your puppy is on it or not (so that, like anything you teach him, he is conditioned from the beginning to do the right thing - in this case stay on the track). If the ground is very sandy then you can see your footprints and easily know where the track is. If you can't see your footprints then you need to either mark where you begin (with a stone or by scratching the ground ) and walk in a straight line to a marker (a tree or bush or post... whatever) or drop little bits of paper or the like along your trail to mark it. Put these pieces of paper as far apart as possible so that they distract your puppy as little as possible.
Here are the step-by-step instructions for tracking:-
1. Secure your puppy (tie him up or someone can hold him) and mark the start of your track (unless you can see your footprints). You can wave the toy at your puppy at this point if he's not giving you enough attention. (A person has to do allsorts for attention nowadays!!)
2. Walk a short track (10-20m) (in a straight line to a marker if you can't see your footprints) and put the toy down where the puppy can't see it.
3. Make a wide circle back to your puppy.
4. Show him where your track starts and tell him "Puppy, where's your toy? Find it! Soek-soek!".
5. When he sets off on the track praise, low-key, once and then follow him quietly for as long as he stays on track.
6. If he strays or is distracted and stops to look at something then STOP and remind him of the track. "Puppy, where's your toy? Find it! Soek-soek!" and point on the track. When he's back on track then praise once and again follow quietly.
7. When he finds his toy praise excitedly and try to play tug of war. If your pup wants to finish the whole track back to the beginning then let him praise him there instead.
SIT, DOWN, STAND AND COME
At the same time that you teach your puppy to fetch, you can teach him to sit, down and stand with tidbits (small pieces of food). It's so easy that in a matter of minutes your puppy will do all three things. Here's how we do it :-
Sit (and come): We give the puppy a tidbit for free first to see if he likes it. If it's something new and the puppy is very young he will probably taste it and spit it out several times before swallowing it! If he does this then we give him a second free piece or even a third until he swallows it quickly and immediately looks for the next one. The tidbits are small enough for him to swallow instantly because otherwise he would sit chewing them for long periods between exercises and interrupt the pattern. When he swallows the tidbit quickly and is keen for the next one we position the tidbit just above and behind his nose. To get into the right position to take it with his mouth he will automatically sit down and as soon as he does we give him the food. Note that we haven't told him to "sit" yet. This is so that we can see whether he's going to go into that position naturally and easily. We don't want him to associate "sit" with struggling - it must go with the right position straight away. If he sat easily we put the food above and behind his nose again and ask him to "Puppy, sit!". As he complies we give him the tidbit. We repeat this many times. Unlike the other games like fetching and finding, which demand concentration that can make a puppy tired, tidbit work cuts out any message to the brain that it's tired and a puppy will be keen to do it lots of times! Of course the food has to be tempting enough. If the puppy doesn't get up after sitting then we step back and call him to us "Puppy come!", enticing him with the tidbit. When he comes to us we praise him "good boy!", and then ask him to sit. This teaches him to come when he is called. We therefore teach the puppy to sit and come at the same time.
Here are the step by step instructions to teach your puppy to sit :-
1. Give your puppy 'free', SMALL, tidbits until he swallows them greedily.
2. Hold a tidbit just above and behind his nose. This should make him sit automatically. Don't give any command.
3. Give him the tidbit the second that he sits and praise him "good boy!".
4. Repeat the above but this time tell him to "Puppy, sit!" as you position the tidbit above and behind his nose.
5. After you've rewarded him step back and call him to you "Puppy, come!". When he comes to you (often at a run!) praise him "good boy!" and immediately ask him to "Puppy, sit!" with the food in the correct position. When he sits give him the tidbit and praise "good boy!".
6. Repeat as many times as you like.
7. If your puppy grabs your hand with his front feet, just move your hand so that his feet fall back to the ground and reposition the tidbit above and behind his nose. If he grabs you again repeat this until he sits with his feet on the ground. He will quickly learn that being impatient will get him nowhere!
Down : We teach a puppy to 'down' from a sitting position. We first get the puppy to sit with one tidbit and then immediately put a second one under his nose and slowly lower it to the ground with his nose following it! On the ground we then move it slowly forward (again with the puppy's nose following) far enough to force the puppy to shuffle his front feet forward until he is laying down. As soon as he's down we give him the tidbit. While we do this exercise we put a hand on the puppy's bottom as he sits there to prevent him from standing up to walk forward after the tidbit. It is also better to hold the tidbit in your closed hand and to hold your hand upside down so that the puppy tries to look under it. When the puppy has done it successfully we then tell him "puppy, down!" the next time we do it. We draw out the word 'down' and drop our tone with the word to make it more distinguishable for the puppy. (We try to make the "sit!", "down!" and "stand!" different tones to help the puppy hear the difference.) We repeat the game many times.
Here are the step-by-step instructions:-
1. Get your puppy to sit and reward him.
2. Put one hand on his bottom to stop him from standing up and hold a tidbit in the other under his nose.
3. Lower your hand slowly to the ground so that the puppy's nose follows!
4. Move your hand slowly along the ground in front of the puppy so that he has to ease himself into a 'down' to keep up with you.
5. As soon as he's down flat open your hand so that he gets the tidbit and praise him "good boy!".
6. Repeat and this time tell him "Puppy, down!" as you put the tidbit under his nose.
7. Repeat as many times as you like.
Teaching a large adult dog to 'down'.
You teach a large adult dog to sit in the same way that you do a puppy. However, trying to put one hand on his bottom while holding a tidbit under his nose with the other to get him to 'down' might prove a difficult acrobatic feat! Luckily someone clever thought of an easier way. You put a chair in front of the dog as he sits. You then hold the tidbit under his nose and lower it to place it under the chair. The dog will lower himself into a down position to get to the tidbit! It works like a charm! I told you the inventor was clever!
Stand : Like the 'down', we teach the puppy to 'stand' from a sitting position. We get the puppy to sit and give him a titbit. We then take a second tidbit and hold it in front of his nose and slowly move it forward until he stands up ready to follow the food. As soon as he's up we give him the tidbit and praise "good boy!". From the second time onwards we tell him to "Puppy, stand!" as we begin the exercise. We try to make the tone of the word 'stand' as different as possible to 'sit' and 'down'. Be careful to have the food just in front of his nose as you move it forward until he stands. If it's too far away he will stand and take a step forward as well, which is not what you want.
Here are the step-by-step instructions :-
1. Get your puppy to 'sit' and reward him with the tidbit and praise, "good boy!".
2. Put a second tidbit in front of his nose and slowly move it forward until the puppy stands. Give him the tidbit and praise him "good boy!".
3. Repeat and this time tell him "puppy, stand!" when you put the second tidbit in front of his nose.
4. Repeat as many times as you like.
TEACHING YOUR PUPPY TO STAY
The 'stay' has to be the easiest thing to teach and is probably the most useful because it teaches your puppy patience and to calmly lay somewhere when it might otherwise be bouncing around with exuberance. This is invaluable if you're in someone's house and don't want to have to spend your whole time stopping your puppy from wrecking the place, or if you're outside somewhere and need to concentrate on something and not have to worry about your puppy running wild and perhaps getting injured.
We teach a puppy to stay by tying him up, telling him to "stay!" (no name in front of the command), showing him the open palm of our hand (as a traffic officer would do to stop cars) and walking away! That's it!
O.K there are a few refinements if it's going to be a long stay. Then we put a chew-toy there for the puppy to amuse himself with. We usually do a long stay indoors and tie the puppy up to a heavy table leg or something that he can't drag around with him. We have a collar (not a choke-chain) and lead on him and tie it up just long enough for him to lie down comfortably. If it's too long he can tangle himself. We give him a chew-toy and, if he's on a cold floor, a mat to lay on, and tell him to "stay!" in a calming tone. We show him a traffic-cop's hand(!) and walk off to sit a distance from him. He will probably fight the lead and scream blue murder but we ignore that and just repeat for him to "stay!" in a bored voice while not looking at him. As soon as he settles down we praise him soothingly (not excitedly) so that he knows that he's doing the right thing. We get on with some work while he lays there watching us or sleeping. After a half an hour or so we go to him, while he's still waiting quietly, praise him, "good boy!", release him and then go for a romp outside so that he can loosen up and go to the toilet if necessary. We only end the exercise when he's calmly waiting and not when he's fighting to get loose so that the desired behaviour is rewarded. If we let him go while he was fighting he would think that he has won the battle and just has to fight long enough to succeed the same way next time. We repeat the short stays but it's not necessary to do a long stay more than once at a time. We do a long stay daily and eventually start going out of the puppy's sight for gradually longer periods. We then also do the long stays in different places and when the puppy is older start doing it without tying him up (but he has to be really reliable before we do that and we are then very careful to be ready to correct him instantly if he does move).
Here are the step-by-step instructions for a short 'stay' :-
1. Put a collar and lead on your puppy (not a choke-chain) and tie him up to something that won't move.
2. Show him a speed-cop's hand, tell him to "stay" in a calming voice and walk off.
3. Wait for him to stop fighting the lead or barking and when he's quiet return to him, praise, "good boy!", and give him a good rub.
4. Repeat a few times until the puppy waits patiently when you leave it. Then end the session. Praise and untie him.
Instructions for a long 'stay' :-
1. Tie your puppy up as above and give him something to chew.
2. Show your hand, tell him to "stay" in a calming voice and walk off.
3. Busy yourself where your puppy can see you and praise calmly now and again if he's waiting patiently.
4. If he makes a fuss then just remind him to "stay!" in a bored voice.
5. At the end of the period go to him while he's still quietly waiting and praise him, "good boy!" and stroke him and untie him. Take him outside for a romp around .
6. There's no need to repeat a long down stay in the same day.