House Training an Adult Dog.

Meet Bella!

Bella is a sweet and even tempered, newly adopted Boston Terrier. Bella's new owners have owned Boston Terriers before and have a good handle on the basics as far as training goes. They stumbled on to a perplexing problem when they discovered that Bella was not necessarily house trained. Since one of Bella's new owner's is physically handicapped and the other works a very full time job, this became a significant issue.

First off I must disclose that when an adult dog starts soiling indoors or at inappropriate times, it may indicate potential heath problems. A visit to your veterinarian to rule out a medical condition may be in order. In Bella's case we were able to determine that it was due to a drastic change in her normal routine, post adoption. Even dogs that may be reliably house trained can breakdown when exposed to major changes. Most likely due to anxiousness and confusion.

When this happens, simply go back to the basics of house training. Re-establishing the rules will help your new dog understand what's expected of them and what is unacceptable. Some tips and tools that can help you take control of the problem are:

• 100 percent supervision is the only way to guarantee that your pooch won't make a mistake.
• The use of crates or indoor leads for when supervision is not an option.
• Restriction of food and water after certain times of day.
• Keeping a log of your dogs natural elimination habits to help create a routine for you and your dog.
• Rewarding successful outdoor eliminations with tasty treats.

For more information on Housetraining or to schedule and appointment with a Zen Dog Trainer, visit Zen Dog Training Online.

Video Blog Post - Cute Puppy Video

Ollie the Schnauzer.

Meet Ollie!

This guy is a wonderful bundle of Schnauzer energy but something his parents wanted to address was Ollie using pee-pee pads when left alone in the apartment. He had learned to use his pee pads very well, but the problem with these pads is that it's tricky to use them in the beginning of a relationship and then ask your dog to start to going to the bathroom outside. This is because dogs don’t get the idea of “sometimes." The word just isn't in their vocabulary!

By using the pee pads, Ollie had learned that it was okay to go to bathroom indoors. When left to his own devices, it's likely he’ll just go inside the house. It is possible to teach a dog to use pee-pads, but only if you want to use them for the rest of the dog's life!

If you want to train your dog to go outside, it's better to teach your puppy that going to the bathroom inside is never okay. Make sure he's supervised 100% of the time, or use a crate or gated-off confinement area to minimize mistakes. Diligently interrupt accidents and rewarding (with lots of praise and treats!!) your puppy whenever he goes outside, and he'll learn what you want to teach him.

We provide our clients with our Housetraining eBook along with our Simple Summary highlighting the important things to remember. In addition, we include a Housetraining Log so you can:

1. track your puppy's pee and poop "activities,"
2. identify your puppy's "problem times" when mistakes happen most frequently, and
   
3. share with your household whether your dog is full and needs to be taken out.

By understanding your dog's natural tendencies, communicating with everyone in the family about what needs to be done, rewarding good behavior, and, er, "eliminating" the chances that your dog can make a mistake, you can have a new puppy house-trained in less than one week!

To learn more about housetraining, crates and confinement areas, visit Zen Dog Training Online. Check out our Housetraining eBook, Simple Summary Housetraining and our Housetraining Log.

Woody the Daschund.

Meet Woody!

….But be calm and unthreatening when you do.

Woody’s family got him at eight-months-old from a breeder who assured them that their puppy was friendly and socialized. They were told that Woody was going to be a great pet since he was already past the most difficult of the puppy months. Unfortunately that wasn't exactly the case.

It was a huge shock for Woody, to be taken from his brothers, sisters and quiet backyard and brought to a new home. There were so many new sights, sounds, and smells that confused and frightened him.

Even though our dogs are domesticated, their primary instinct is still survival. When presented with a new frightening situation, that instinct kicks in and completely takes over — dogs go into fight or flight mode. The only thing dogs in these circumstances are concerned with is either getting the heck away or making whatever frightens them go away... which usually means barking, snapping and being as frightening as possible themselves.

In Woody’s world, two men like me and Gordon coming into his home was very scary. As we stood in the entry, we felt legitimately nervous. Since Woody was beyond the point of reason, we wanted to make ourselves as unthreatening as possible so we sat down; sitting made us smaller, and by being smaller, we were a lot less scary.

At that point, we began to earn Woody's trust quickly and easily: we had a Treat Party! By giving Woody Treats for No Reason, we stopped being a threat and became a source of food. Suddenly we weren’t so scary anymore! Ten or fifteen minutes after we sat down, Woody began to sniff around our chairs and even sniffed us, looking for more food. It was a major step, but it was only the first of many Woody needs to take in order to be comfortable with his world.

By giving a dog food when he is scared, we help him associate good things with what was once a life-threatening experience. Though it may seem otherwise, doing this doesn't reward our dogs for being scared — at that point, dogs are too scared to do any training exercises. Many terrified dogs won’t even take treats once they're scared and panicked. We want to teach our dogs to connect something they're frightened by (men, loud trucks, rolling chairs, etc.) with their favorite treats. If you train slowly while your dog isn’t too freaked out, you can work to change his feelings and associations enough so, while he might still be nervous, your dog can handle things he doesn't like.

For more information on Treats for No Reason and Treat Parties, check out Zen Dog Training Online.

Myth Busting: Waiting until the 6th month to train a dog

Nothing riles me up more than hearing someone say,"a trainer told me you are not supposed to train a dog until they are 6 months old."

What a crock! Absolute rubbish!! Hearing people say something like that makes my stomach turn.

First, do you really think the dog isn't learning from the very first second they open their eyes and start to hear? Seriously, by the 6th month, the dog is now the human equivalent of a 7 year old child! At that point they have already made up their minds about how the world works - in my book if we start at 6 months we are "re-training" them.

Actually, good breeders (and I mean the REALLY good one's) are not only housetraining puppies by the 5th week, they are teaching them to 'sit' and pre-socializing them by exposing young puppies to lots of people, kids, loud noises and otherwise preparing the youngsters for success in our noisy, busy world! Cool huh?


Why do people recommend that you can't train a dog until they are six months old?

The most plausible reason I have heard is that trainers who use 'corrections', metal prong collars or employ "startle-techniques" (jerk the collar, pop-the-leash kinds of things) have to wait until the dog has bonded with humans first so they don't "break the dog's spirit" when training them.

Bottom line here, your dog starts learning what works and what doesn't in your house the very first second they walk in the door! Waiting to train them (especially if you have kids!) sounds ludicrous to me, but strangely I still hear about it!

Those of us who train dogs with peaceful methods (dog training methods that depend on communication and understanding) it is - completely reasonable - to have a 12 week old puppy mostly potty trained, doing simple 'sit', 'down' commands and even walking on a loose leash!

Of course, those are not my first objectives - my priorities with new puppy training are:

1. Teaching them bite inhibition - they should learn not to bite people!
2. Teaching them to accept their home as safe - including the mailman, visitors and strangers, outside things like joggers, bikes, scooters, trucks, kids, and strangers. (Socialization)
3. Teaching them to NOT protect food from us and to accept ANY touch at ANY time, from kids at the park, to the groomer, brushing their hair of teeth, or even mild-restraint at the vet or during an emergency.

Phew! That's a lot - a better summary of the essential puppy training lessons would be:

- Housetraining
- Playbiting
- Home Alone Training
- Socialization (People, Places, Things and other Dogs)
- Preventing Food Guarding
- Socialization to Touch


Remember, your dog is a learning machine! Who over hundreds if not thousands of years has learned to successfully live and co-exist with human. They are masters of learning what pushes your buttons and how to get what they want. That's why training them you rules needs to happen right away!

Gentle training methods like our Zen Dog Training system to interrupt problem behaviors can be used immediately upon getting a new dog. In fact, the ideal time for us to start In-Home Training is 2-3 days after the new puppy has arrived.

The most important training tools for puppies are the ones that create an environment for success. Confinement areas, chew toys, crate, bed, housetrining and feeding schedule, playbiting with kids or chasing cats...all potential problems that can be avoided from day 1 with good training tools!

For more information visit www.ZenDogTrainingOnline.com - See: Outsmarting your dog, and all the PDF's and Video's under "Your New Puppy"

Chewy the Yorkie.

Meet Chewy!

I know what you're thinking: what a shy little dog!

Well, I hate to tell you that you're wrong as wrong could be. This little girl is as bold as brass. She just looks shy because I happened to snap her photo as she took a breather after running round the grassy garden while Gordon and I spoke with her parents.

(Before you complain about the lack of full-frontal puppy cuteness, let me just say this: you try taking a picture of a nine-week-old Yorkie that's not out-of-focus and get back to me.)

Chewy's parents had a lot of "New Puppy" questions, but something they were especially interested in was teaching their girl things like sit and down. Lucky for them, we had just finished updating Zen Dog Teaching Commands notesheet — after our editing spree, Gordon and I still had all of our tips and tricks fresh in our heads.

With a frisky pup like Chewy, finding something that will hold her focus is key; for her, it was a meaty treat. We showed her mom and dad how to turn that treat into a food lure that will help them coax Chewy into sitting, lying down and rolling over. After a few minutes of practice, this smart little girl was showing us how eager she was to learn, and showing her parents how consistent training is key. In time, she'll be ready to move on to understanding hand signals and verbal commands.

To learn more about Teaching Commands and food lures, visit Zen Dog Training Online.

How Zen Dog Training Cured my Dog!

Molly the Adopted Beagle.

Meet Molly!

This wonderfully gentle Beagle was welcomed into her new home only a few short weeks ago. Her adopted family loves her to pieces, but Molly turned out to be a bit of a handful.

You see, Molly came from a home where she was able to do just about anything she wanted. She chewed on whatever she wanted — including the childrens' toys — demanded attention, jumped up on the couch, and jumped all over the toddlers!

Now, we knew this wasn't Molly's fault, but that doesn't mean her behavior was acceptable. Our goal was to help Molly learn what was okay in her new home. We also wanted to make this transition as easy as possible by simply being clear with the new rules.

The problem is, if Molly is allowed to jump on a human just every once in a while then she will never learn that jumping is not okay, so consistency is key! But with young children, visitors and, yes, even with Mom, having our dogs follow our rules is tough! That's why in order to train Molly, we had to find ways to Outsmart her.

To outsmart Molly, we asked her family to simply call her to them. When she ran up to them, her family rewarded her with praise and a treat. While they were doing that, they attached a drag line to Molly's collar so they could have immediate control. Another option was to simply attach a tether to both Molly and the sofa (or near to her bed). The next time Molly tried to bark at the window or chase after the kids, she was either quickly stopped by the drag line, or just tethered to Mom. This way this little Beagle can't get into trouble in the first place! We know that the fewer mistakes a dog makes, the faster they will learn.

By Outsmarting Molly, her family is able to help her behave correctly around the house more quickly, easily, and with much less stress!

To learn more about Outsmarting Your Dog, Drag Lines and Tethers, please visit Zen Dog Training Online.