Train your Dog in Five Minutes

The ABC website has a great new section, called Wagging School, which gives some excellent training tips.

Training doesn't take much time, you can use every interaction with your dog as an opportunity to train him. Having a dog that behaves nicely makes owning him so much less stressful.

In this photo we are practicing the comand "come". Buddy runs when he hears the command, he knows we will probably give him a liver treat.

Puppy Preschool

Before we got Buddy our kids read a couple of excellent, simple books on how to train and care for a puppy. It was good to be prepared in advance and to educate the children on the best ways to interact with a dog.

Attending a Puppy Preschool was very helpful too, all three of our kids attended with Buddy and they learned lots about training and taking care of a dog.

Our vet, the Livingstone Road Animal Health Center, has a puppy preschool. They also have a great website with lots of articles and helpful information.

Loose Lead Walking

We are trying to teach Buddy how to walk on a loose lead, so that he doesn't pull at the lead as he walks. He is pretty good at it and a quick learner.

One of the best thing about walking the dog is that he gets to socialize with other dogs and people. He is a friendly puppy, especially with people. He is getting much more confident with other dogs too.

Training : "Settle Buddy, Settle"

At dog training we were told that it is good to have a word that you use to calm your dog down when they are getting a bit carried away or if they get upset.

Some people use the word "gentle" but we say "settle". You can train your dog every time you stroke him. We use long gentle strokes and say in a calm voice "settle Buddy settle".

Training Buddy

The dog trainer at the Dog Training Club that we belong to says that every dog should have one good trick. Buddy's trick is to dance on his back legs. But in this photo he got a bit too excited by the training treats (bits of cheese) - he loves cheese so much that is actually air borne here!

These dogs are very smart. It took about half an hour to teach Buddy to fetch a ball and return it. It took him about 5 minutes to learn to sit. I have had other dogs that never learned to do these simple tasks.

So we think Buddy is a pure genius!

Toilet training (part 1)

When Buddy first came home, we just made sure that we took him outside each time he woke up from a nap and after food. When we make the effort to do that he is very good. Realistically puppies don't gain full control of their bladders until around 6 months or age, sometimes older.

Cody's owners bought a special dog loo, a piece of synthetic grass that you can leave inside for your dog to go on. They live in a fully carpeted apartment and work longer days, so this was a good solution for them. For Pet Loo and other products you can check out the Pookinuk website, they have some good news items and videos too.

Where's my mum?

He looks a bit lost without his mum and littermates around him. This photo is taken about 2 weeks before Buddy came to live with us.

At this stage we were preparing ourselves by reading lots of info about dogs. We found a great book at the school jumble sale (for only $2) called "The Perfect Puppy: How to Raise a Problem-Free Dog". The author is Gwen Bailey, a very well known dog trainer, who has lots of great on-line articles about dog behavior and socialization, including "Ingredients for the Perfect Puppy".

(our puppy is already perfect - just look as his little face!)