Well, I Guess It Is a Good Thing That I Won't Be a Father Any Time Soon...

A dog is either a possession or a real friend. I'm not really even sure my dog, That Graceful Girl of Texas (Grace), knows that she is a dog, but she does know that she is a key member of the family.

I have to go to Chicago for most of the week. I will miss my 55-pound alarm clock, because, as Rileydog suggested, her principal meal is breakfast. Again, good luck with Jake.

 

Bad dog! Bad dog! You go outside! Outside!! What do you want from me? Tell me! Money, you want money? I'll give you money, how much?!

 

One thing I forgot regarding training - hand signals. Dogs are bright and can pick up on voice commands as well as gestures. I used the following:

sit = point down to ground with index finger.

down = bending at elbow, starting w your forearm perpendicular to your body, lower your open hand down to where it's by your side.

stay = open hand held out in front of your body, hand facing Jake.

hand signals help with the training b/c it's one more clue that Jake can look for to figure out what you want. More importantly, it can save his life. I have had Riley sit and stay when he was across the street playing with a neighbor's dog b/c a car was coming. He sat and stayed on hand signals while the car passed.

Best of luck. Let us know how it goes.

 

Well as I recall I think the dog-owner relation is more comparable to a pack.Every member of your family will have a rank in the pack,yours being over the dogs.
Being the leader,u have to bring the food in!


ALA

 

this part doesnt really apply to Manny yet..

The tricky part about the pack mentality of dogs is that you have to make sure they know that the kids are higher in the pack then they are.
When I was first training mine, he had gotten the idea that I was the alpha..but he would still try to prove his dominence over my youngest..I had to take some extra time training with both of them so he would realize that while he was a member of the family(pack)...the two-legged pack members were higher up than he.

Good point made by Riley...
I use hand signals all the time for the basic commands..
sit, lay, stay, roll over..those are the only ones he knows by hand signals.

Good luck Manny. Take heart, it does get easier as time goes by.

 

we did the newspaper route..laid some sheets down in the front bathroom(one of the few rooms without carpeting). Once he gets housebroken, and knows outside is where it goes...he really shouldn't be tempted to use newspaper if you leave any lying around.

The crying stops once he gets used to the idea that at night he is on his own. Or maybe not, mine is 11 yrs old and he still insists on coming in my room as I am going to bed. If I try to close the door before he gets to it, he'll nose that sucker open so he can sleep near us. I'm just sucker enough to let him..

Sounds like things are coming right along...keep it up and everything will work out fine.

I dug up some pages with tips to help..hopefully one of them will prove helpful.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/woof/tips/tip_13.html

http://www.hilltopanimalhospital.com/housebreak2.htm

http://www.petcareglobal.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/resources_housebraking_puppies

 

Manny,

Re the overnight problem, you don't have many choices.

1. keep him in the crate, Jake will cry more and will have accidents in there until he is old enough to hold it (I don't know if the age issue is true).

2. keep him in the crate, get up once or twice a night to let him out. But, it will probably get him all riled up and he will cry when you put him back into the crate.

3. Do what you're doing now. I once "paper trained" a puppy when I was a student and had a rigorous courseload. Basically, I did what you're doing - confine Jake to a space (with tile, not carpet), line the floor with newspaper. Over time, you can reduce the amount of paper on the floor to where it's just one or two sections of the Chronicle folded out. That should give Jake enough room to do his business. He'll know to go on Newspaper soon, even when he's not confined to that space. i'd hear his paws clicking on the tile in the middle of the night when he went to pee. For me, I papertrained that dog so that he knew it was ok and good to do his business inside (b/c I couldn't get back sometimes to let him out), he just had to do it on paper. Eventually, my schedule eased up and I took away the paper. My dog was sorta confused at first (where do I pee when there's no paper? I pee where the paper was.) However, I started taking him outside more often, praised him for going inside, completely nuked the area where he used to do his business with disinfectant, and started scolding him for going where he used to. When he would approach that area, I would just take him outside and praise him for doing his business. When i was gone, it eventually became ok b/c he could hold it and didn't particularly like doing his business inside. i think most dogs prefer to go outside.

Jake may be confused as to why he can pee on the paper at night, but not during the day. My suggestion is to leave out the paper whenever you're not home, but to still take him out as much as possible when you're around.

Warning: dogs tend to chew paper and stuff when they're mad that you're not home or have separation anxiety. it's not pretty when they chew up paper with their stuff on it.

I hope you're renting.

separate hint: if he chews on walls or furniture, you can buy sour apple spray. However, my dog developed an affinity for that stuff. i dissolved cayenne peppper in water and that did hte trick. before you go dousing the house with cayenne pepper, put some on your fingertip and show Jake. If he licks it and starts shaking his head, you're good to go. If he licks it and comes back for more, back to the drawing board.

 

And this is why I have turtles.

 

Is there any way to teach dogs to shut the **** up when I get home at two in morning so they don't wake everyone else up? Or is it true you can't teach old dogs new tricks?

 

Very hard to get dogs to not bark. barking requires little to no effort, is their natural way to speak. so, the answer is no, there's no easy or difficult way to get them to stay quiet.

 

Damn... Thanks guys. Oddly enough, they don't seem to mind it when I come in extremely late, but anything before 3AM really sets them off.

 

Debarking is cruel. Anybody even considering that should not own a dog.

 

I would get a dog....like a pug or our pekinese.....that is not naturally predisposed to barking excessively. When my dog gets pissed at us or the kids....she just kind of grunts, like if you don't pay any attention to her when she wants it or you don't let her outside. Dogs bark naturally and asking a dog not to bark is like asking a cat not to meow.

 

I expected to and did get up every AM to the let the little shiyats do their business outside. It's as close to sleepwalking as you can get. I had to adapt to that. It became part of the routine.

Oh...and I still do it during the summer especially. Because the dogs are couped up inside during the day and are not active much during the day due to the heat during summer days, they compensate their schedules by getting up early in the AM(try 2:30 am this morning) to go outside to do romp around or whatever. Ridgebacks are pretty good about not barking during those hours and in general unless they truly have something to bark about. My neighbor has dogs that bark all night long. My dogs stare at them like their stupid or something.

The problem I have with my Ridgebacks is they will give the neighbors a bad time in their backyards when they first see them. They go into an aggressive, barking taunt mode all for show. They wag their tails and jump around. It's not that bad and doesn't last. It can be annoying, though. I have two no-bark shock collars that I sometimes use to control that behavior. It's hard because you would have to be outside to correct the behavior firsthand when it happens and not after so these collars come in handy. Their cheap($35 each), too, and the shock setting is adjustable.

 

Debarking should be illegal.

 

Please anyone, don't ever do this, it is one of the cruelest things i have ever seen.

My mum inherited a Great Dane off a friend who was very sick, the big guy and i am talking massive had been debarked, almost made me cry when he tried to bark, he would really still try to bark but their was only silence. the thing that makes it worse is Dane's don't bark that much to start with, sure when they bark it damn loud, but they don't really bark much.

i can't believe anyone with an animal would do this, it should be illegal.

 

what does debarking and girdling have in common?