The ABCs of the adolescent puppy......

 

Adolescence-understanding and enjoying it

Puppies enter adolescence at approximately 5-6 months old.  Their behavior changes in many ways

• Suspicion: most puppies will suddenly become suspicious of things they never noticed before.  They will enter the “Boofs”.  The “boofs” are special barks that are warning, questioning, and fearful at the same time.  You may hear a “boof” aimed at a fire hydrant or a stroller.  Whatever it’s aimed at, it’s an emergency.  Your puppy is not comfortable with the object/person and is fearful.  This can become aggression, later in the year. 
• Independence: Up until adolescence, puppies are very dependent and attentive to their owners.  At 5 months old, your puppy is no longer trustworthy off-leash for at least 6 months.  Honest.  There will be some exceptions to this, but they are rare.  Puppies this age are confident exploring and will usually refuse to come when called in the beginning. 
• Destructive: at about 8 months old, many pups go through a destructive phase.  It’s AMAZING what they can do in a short period of time and the things they choose often seem like puzzling choices.
• Sweet: Most puppies become very sweet and loving at this age, and it’s a different, deeper sweet and loving than when they were younger.  They are becoming confident and learning who you are.  Most puppies, before 5 months old, think EVERYBODY is super-cool and at 5ish months, your puppy will start acting like YOU are the best.
• Testing:  Do I REALLY have to sleep in this crate?  Do I really have to sit when you say?  If I act SUPER cute, will that change your mind?  Puppies this age are needing more information.  They need to know that the definition they think they have for your word is accurate.  They'll ask you by doing ANYTHING besides what you tell them you want.  If you say "Sit", they'll stand or down or roll over or something, asking, "Is this what you want?"  The answer has to be no.  You shake your head and don't move.  Ask again and again.  They will change positions, jump on you, bark, back up, or just stare at you.  All of these things are questions.  They need the right answer so just stay strong and remember, what you teach them now will shape them forever.   Be patient.  As long as they're trying things, they are working for you, praise the work, not the acts.  When they finally try the ONE THING you've been asking for, praise and treat!

Behavior-managing and modifying it

Let’s face it.  They can drive you crazy at this age.  Our human brains tell us they look grown-up, so we start slacking a little on our management because, “he KNOWS what to do”.  No, he doesn’t.  If he did, you would never have to supervise him again.

• Puppies need constant supervision, for feedback about their experiments and explorations
• Crates should NOT be put away yet.
• Puppies are NOT old enough to be loose in the house or yard for any length of time without CLOSE supervision.
• Being loose in the yard, unattended is the same as being loose in the house unattended.  The things they learn to destroy are just bigger.  Puppies need supervision to avoid becoming barkers, diggers and landscape artists.  

Communication-are you saying what you think you are?

Puppies this age need feedback.  Good idea, bad idea.  If they get attention for jumping on you and others, jumping is a good idea.  If they get caught by the collar and crated when they come to you, coming is a bad idea.  We need to keep it straight.  We need to see our communication with THEIR eyes.  After all, what they perceive is their reality.

 

THE BASICS

Heel – this means to stay at your left side, facing the same direction you are, waiting for you to stop so they can sit.  Heel is useful when you are walking in crowded areas so you and Rover don’t clothesline anyone with your leash, but is not appropriate for a stroll.  It’s hard work and can be very boring for your puppy.  It needs to be broken up with frequent sniff and pee breaks as rewards for working so hard.

 

Loose Leash Walking – or LLW.  This is exactly what it sounds like and will be your default walking style.  Think cooked spaghetti; that’s what your arm and leash should resemble.  Loose, with a natural sag in the leash.  Hold the leash as if you are holding a raw egg, soft and light.  If your hand is tight and hard and the leash is wrapped a dozen times around it, you are too tense and your dog is guaranteed to pull and ignore you.  You should always encourage your dog to walk on your left, but in front and side to side are fine, as long as the leash is SLACK.  A slack leash indicates the dog is using self-control and is paying attention to where you are.

 

Sit - Sit is either facing you (Front) or on your left facing the same direction you are (Heel).  You can use Sit to control your dog’s speed and direction.

 

Down - Down is the dog’s elbows and one hip being on the ground.  It will be used in the same ways as Sit.

 

Stay -  Means stay, exactly where you are, in the same position, until I tell you to move.  You need to practice Stay in LOTS of different positions and places.  Don’t call your dog to you from Stay more than once every 15 Stays.  We will be taking this in BABY steps, it’s much easier to teach what we want than what we don’t want.

 

Front – Front is calling your dog to sit straight in front of you, facing you, close enough for you to easily touch the top of his head.  This is used to position your dog for Heel.  It is used instead of Come and the rule is, NEVER touch your dog when he’s been called to Front.  Give a treat or play a game, but never touch him.

 

Finish – Finish is the “people signal” to move your dog from Front to Heel.  It can be done to the left or the right.  The dog-signals (commands) for that are Heel (Finish Left) and Around (Finish Right).

 

COME! – Should be self-explanatory, right?  Come means come to you from whatever he’s doing.  Humans usually say Come when they mean, “Get out of the garden!” or “Leave those people alone!”  Come should never be used for a negative and should ALWAYS be heavily rewarded with things your dog LOVES.  Come does NOT mean to come and sit in front of you.  Too often, pet dog owners get caught up in the sit in front thing and end up discouraging or even punishing the dog when he leaves something fun to come to you.  Come means Come;  Come to me, pause, wait for further instructions.

 

Raw beef bones available from your butcher- they are wonderful for your puppy’s mouth, and will keep him busy for a long time.  Throw them away after 2 weeks.  Make sure you don’t cook them.  Raw bones are made for predators to chew on.  They help keep  most dogs' mouths clean and healthy.

 

Compressed rawhide – It’s wonderful for enthusiastic chewers.  It’s long-lasting and comes in lots of shapes and sizes.  My dogs LOVE the ring shape.

 

Pig’s Ears – are great for reluctant chewers.  For big chewers, they’re just a treat.

 

Bully sticks- are great but they are sometimes SMELLY.

 

Interactive Toys- Like Kongs, Buster Cubes and Wiggly Gigglies and the like are great for bored puppies, but they are not chewies.

 

Dog Parks- are great for “getting their yahyahs out”.  Dogs need a time to run and play and not worry about human rules.  They also need to be around savvy adult dogs who will tell them that, “no means no”, in dog language.

 

Most puppies in our community enter adolescence thinking that the world revolves around them.  They have their own crate, their own bowl, their own collar and leash, and some even have their own car!  When they meet an adult dog, they expect the dog to love their antics as much as people do.  Adult dogs, however, seldom enjoy puppies in their face and most will tell the puppy clearly.  Often to the extent of snapping and growling at the puppy, causing the puppy to scream and roll over and the owners to thinks that the adult dog, “doesn’t like puppies”.  In actuality, that was a very important lesson and should be repeated soon!

 

Puppies who lived with their moms (mom spent the majority of the day and night with the puppies having full access to her), until at least 8 weeks of age, usually learned, “knock it off” and “leave it” from Mom.  If a puppy didn’t learn it from Mom, it’s much harder for them to learn it from people.  So adult dogs can play a huge part in helping them “get” that not everybody wants a puppy jumping on them and licking their face.

 

Collars and harnesses- are very important tools and no one of them is perfect for every dog. 

 

In a perfect world, every puppy owner would be a dog trainer and have the ability to teach his or her puppy to walk, without pulling, on a regular, old flat collar.  However, most people who come to classes are NOT dog trainers, nor do they have any desire to be.  They just want their dog to walk nicely on a leash, not bark at other dogs and never pull.  They aren’t really interested in the techniques and theories that produce a “well trained” dog, they just want to be able to take their dogs where they want to and not be embarrassed or injured by their unruly “Rover”. 

 

IF you want to learn the training, there will be ample opportunity in class to learn how to train solid, long-term control.  However, even with the best trainer in the world, much depends on your dog, his temperament, reactivity, dependence (or lack of), and motivations.  Regardless, your training will NOT be reliable until your puppy is well over 14 months old (generally).  Everything depends on how you handle things outside of class.   

 So, in the meantime, managing leash pulling and recalls is the key.  Keeping your puppy from learning that pulling is possible, much-less rewarding, is critical. 

 

“Flat” collars are great for hanging tags on and, rarely, a puppy will learn loose leash walking and never need more than this.  However, in the real world, most puppies learn to pull, pull harder and longer to get what they want.  They learn this because we reward them for pulling by following them to where they wanted to go. 

Because we are kind and don’t want the puppy to hurt himself by pulling on the leash, we tolerate him pulling and pulling, until it’s clear that he’ll choke to death unless we do something.  But the “something” we do is the most enormous cruelty of all.  We reward his hurting himself by giving him what he wanted.  We actually TEACH him that we won’t let him have what he wants unless he shows us, by hurting himself, how badly he wants it!

 

“Choke chains” or “Training collars” are still used in many places as control for dogs. Unfortunately, we are such good trainers, most dogs learn the above lesson on this collar as well as the flat collar.  They just do much greater damage to their bodies.  Literally.  These collars have unlimited tightening ability.  UNLIMITED.  They squeeze the neck, bruising flesh and even to the bone in some studies.  Our dogs love us so much, they continue to want to walk with us, even with a cost this high.

 

“Harnesses” are collars that fit around the body.  Old style harnesses, where the leash attaches at the top of the dog’s back, allow pulling without the pain and injury.  But they still teach the dog to pull to get where he wants to go.

 

The new, “front pull” harnesses, like the Easy Walk* http://www.gentleleader.com/by Gentle Leader*, FINALLY let the dog know that pulling is usually not the answer.  When the dog pulls, the harness pulls his body sideways, throwing him off balance and forcing him to slow down.  When he experiences this repeatedly, he will usually slow down and pay attention to you, allowing both of you to enjoy your walk. 

 

For some dogs, an Easy Walk* harness is the answer to painless, calm and happy walks.  Some dogs, however, are less aware of their bodies and learn to pull past the feeling of “off balance”; they learn to lean in and GO.

 

“Head Halters” are collars with an extra loop that goes over the nose, just in front of the eyes.  Fitting these correctly is imperative and some dogs will never accept them.  Head Halters ( I recommend the Gentle Leader*  http://www.gentleleader.com/) give the owner great control of the head,  This is important for dogs that are incorrigible jumpers or aggressive on walks (or in your home, but that’s for another time).  Some dogs display a “flattening of behavior" in a head halter that is unacceptable for most dog lovers.  When a head halter works well, it’s a wonderful tool.

 

“Pinch” or “prong” collars are horrible-looking.  It’s true.  They look like something out of the dark-ages and most people are very averse to using them.  But in MANY popular breeds of dogs, they can make you love your dog again.

 

Dogs bred for certain jobs require a very specific quality; physical insensitivity.  Hunting dogs (Labs, Goldens, Springers), protection dogs (Rotts, German Shepherds, Great Pyrenees), Terriers (pit bull types, Jack Russells, Scotties) and some others, would be useless for their original jobs is they were worried about their bodies.

 

Think about what these dogs are bred to do… without exception, these types of dogs are bred to push through things (brush, ice, tunnels) and not stop if it’s uncomfortable, in fact, most of them are bred to use their feet and teeth to open up more room for them to make it through. 

 

They are bred not to quit if they cut a pad or scrape their nose.  If they were to quit, they would be taken out of the gene pool.  As a result, Labs use fences and walls as part of their play!  They crash into things so they can ricochet back into play.  Rotts throw their butts into things when they get excited and terriers are almost foolish in their courage.

 

These breeds share a lack of PHYSICAL sensitivity, as a result, they often need more clear signals than we are used to giving.  Pulling and tugging and shouting are all wasted on many of these dogs.  With a well-fitted pinch collar, peace reigns.  They “get” it.  They finally understand and everybody can relax.  

 

LEASHES – I recommend the lightest-weight leash you can safely control your puppy with.  “Safely control” means control when using the correct collar or harness.  The heavier the leash, the more likely we are to inadvertently allow (encourage) pulling.  Also, heavy duty leash clips are HEAVY and prevent accurate communication with your dog.

 

I prefer leather and very lightweight cotton.  Chain leashes are heavy and will hurt your hands, Nylon-type leashes are often slippery and can burn your hands.  Lightweight leather is strong and somewhat elastic, minimizing any jarring.  Leather lasts a long time and is easy to handle, usually improving with age.

 

The length and width of the leash is easy to decide, it’s the quality and structure the owner must decide on.  In the end, your dog’s safety is riding on your selection.  I recommend 6 foot leashes, important for training as they give you and the dog room to make mistakes and recover without tightening.  Much of a trainer’s instruction will include the phrase “go to the end of your leash”, this is based on a 6 foot leash.

 

Some dogs do fine with a ¼ inch thickness in leather, but the handlers hands may have trouble with it.  Some people may opt for a lighter weight, but slightly wider size.  A good quality leash for a 100 pound dog, should not have to be wider than ¾ inch.  Be careful to examine the snap and make sure it’s good quality and not heavier than the leash.  Horse-type and heavy-duty, triple thick leads are popular with people right now.  Maybe they think it looks cool to show that their dog needs something that heavy to be controlled, but I think “cool” is when I see a 90 pound Rott or Lab walking quietly and controlled with a soft. ½ or 3/8 inch leash and a relaxed owner…..