When anyone decides they want a dog, there should be several pre stages to go through before that fantastic, exciting, alarming, fulfilling day when the pupster arrives. The first thoughts, of course, go to where the pupster should feed, sleep and play as these are things a pup has to feel comfortable with before you get on to the other facets of pupster care. Allowing a pup to form bad habits from the get-go is daft; it is not letting the pupster in gently, it’s actually a dereliction of duty, lurching towards insanity! All pups need to have firm but kind guidance from day one. |None of the shilly shallowing with the pup being allowed to get away with naughty things ‘ just because he’s a pup’. Pups need a little time to adjust to their new surroundings and then start on their training programme. Dog trainers are experienced in all aspects of misbehaviour and the list of matters they can confidently address and realign. Behavioural problems can include barking too loudly when anyone passes the front window; jumping up when someone new enters the room; aggressive play, especially if another dog joins the area. Many young dogs pull on their leads and make walking a complete nightmare. This is especially so if they are born into the hosting family. A dog pulling fiercely on his lead and wanting to grab things or just to bark a rather too enthusasic ‘hello’ when being approached by a usually very good dog can mean the difference between a calm and confident pupster and a complete disaster. We’ve all seen them, the lady with the tear away dog which keeps running off instead of sitting quietly by her feet when she waits to cross the road; or the dog that jumps up every time someone comes near and wants to overtake you slow coaches; the dog that pulls like crazy on his leash and looks like you’re choking him to death when you have to catch them to get them to behave – their hyper sensitive natures tells them that instead of being calm and walking quietly by your side, no . . . this is fun time and ‘let’s create merry hell’ time. Dogs also misbehave when they’re preparing for something stressful like agility – this is another issue that needs the experienced hands of a proper trained and certificated dog trainer.
A trainer really will help to iron out some seriously anti social aspects of looking after that much looked forward to . . . puppy. They seem able to understand a dog’s excitement pattern and be able to firmly train the pupster to listen for instructions and how to follow them and be confident that next time, it will remember to do it correctly. A professional trainer will have handled dogs of all shapes and sizes and will be able to recommend ways to stop that still newish pupster from grabbing things along the route or stealing things out of the shopping bag. It’s all a matter of confidence and having the right medium between fun and sheer naughtiness, which in the end makes for a fraught and exhausting dog walk that no one enjoys. Often the problem is not the dog. it’s the owners themselves and their behaviour at home. Letting the dog into the dining room at meal time is a bad habit. Even worse is letting them beg for titbits and being allowed to eat anything proferred. Get the training underway and very soon you will have a delightfully calm pupster who’s a joy to take walkies.