No training is more basic for pet owners than that first important lesson: Do it outside! Teaching your pet to eliminate outside the home, not in it, usually starts between six and eight weeks of age. Dogs as young as four weeks have been started on the program, but at that age few have the…
Of all of the problems that dog owners face with raising a pet, the trouble involved in housebreaking stands out as the most common. In fact, of the tens of thousands of dogs that get trained by professional dog trainers in schools, 80 percent of the owners of these dogs complain of housebreaking difficulties upon…
At the first sign that your mature dog is going to eliminate (excessive sniffing of a particular area), the owner should immediately take him outside. The reason is obvious. How can you praise a dog for doing something right if you are not there to see it? The owner should go outside with his dog.…
The personality and thought process of the dog is an extremely complex mechanism. Training, whether for toilet training or teaching to sit on command, is simply a matter of communication. That is, communicating your desires to your pet and requiring that he respond in a certain manner, all the time. But when a normally trained…
There are some isolated cases where the cause of a breakdown in toilet habits in a mature dog starts as a psychological motivation, but results in a problem becoming medically motivated. An example of this would be the dog that suddenly forgets his housebreaking and urinates out of jealousy and spite. A dog of this…
How does a dog owner determine if his dog is getting old? How can he know that the “accident” that just happened is the result of the aging process that the dog is going through? These are difficult questions, since a dog five years of age can be considered old, while a six-year old dog…
There is a certain element of surprise, perhaps even shock, when the owner of a perfectly trained and well-behaved adult dog suddenly steps in a puddle. “No, it can’t be!” He shrieks. The possible alternative, such as a defrosting refrigerator, leaky water pipes, or a spilled cup of coffee give way to the awful truth;…
Let’s face it, as a new dog owner you probably have not taken a canine training class or have studied up on the latest puppy training techniques that are available. That’s okay! New puppy owners should not have to go to such lengths just to teach their pups the basics. But like all territories unknown,…
It is quite alright if you are a new puppy owner and feel clueless about how to initiate housetraining for your dog. Many new dog owners make the mistake of scolding and punishing their dogs when they make a mess. I made this same mistake with my first Chihuahua. Every time she would go potty…
If there is one thing that all dog owners can relate to it is the experience of taking a puppy that has no clue about the proper area to use the bathroom in and then training him to be a responsible pet to use the bathroom in the appropriate place and at the appropriate times.…
