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Training the Kerry Blue Puppy
by Carol Postley
The fastest and kindest way to house train a puppy is with the use of a wire crate.
The crate becomes the puppy's safe and comfortable bed, and most puppies will
make an effort to keep their bed clean. If the puppy is not accustomed to a crate,
there may be a couple of difficult days at first, so line the crate with newspaper
and shred more paper on top. The shredded paper will help keep the puppy clean
in case of accidents. The crate is a home, not to be used as punishment!
In nature no young puppy is ever left alone in a strange place, and the puppy
that screams the longest and the loudest in that situation is the one that is
most likely to be found by his pack and will survive. So, if you take a new puppy
home and leave him alone overnight, you can expect that he will be awake all night
and make a real mess of the area. If you take that same puppy and let him sleep
in a crate beside your bed, he will feel safe and secure with his new pack leader
(that's you) and sleeps through the night clean and quiet. Give him a raw hide
toy to chew on, put him in the crate and go to bed yourself. Do not talk to the
puppy or fuss over him. Most will quickly fall asleep. If he really persists in
being restless, or wakes you up at night, take him out for a quick airing, but
that is really unusual. First thing in the morning, pick the puppy up and carry
him outside to the place you want him to use to relieve himself. With this method
most puppies are clean and quiet through the night from the beginning. After the
puppy is settled in and beginning to understand house training, you can move the
crate somewhere else.
First thing in the morning or after a meal, take the puppy outside. Give him plenty
of time to empty out, and just as he finishes relieving himself really give him
a lot of praise. Applaud; cheer, rah, rah, what a clever puppy! This is how you
explain to a dog that, yes; this is the place I want you to use. This is your
positive reinforcement for correct behavior. Then ask, "are you ready to
go in?" and occasionally a dog may, in effect, say wait a minute, and make
one more puddle. When you take the puppy indoors, and you are pretty sure he is
empty, you may allow him to run free in the room with you, or keep him with you
on a lead as you work around the house.
The puppy will play and explore for a while and then settle down to chew on a
toy or to nap. When the puppy wakes up or becomes restless, take him out again
immediately. Puppies have a very limited capacity for waiting. Each time you prevent
a mistake by getting the puppy out at the right time and each time the puppy eliminates
outdoors, you are reinforcing the correct behavior and the puppy's natural instinct
to keep his home clean. The time will come when the puppy relieves himself and
looks to you expecting praise, proof that the puppy is beginning to understand
where the "correct place" is. Until this happens you should never, never,
make any correction for mistakes indoors. Just clean up and say nothing. If you
make too tough a correction before the puppy understands what is wanted, he may
be frightened and simply never do anything when you are nearby. This is what has
happened to most older dogs that are not house-trained. Even when the puppy is
obviously getting the idea and being clean most of the time, you should be careful
to avoid overdoing the corrections. You should see progress each week even though
there might be a few mistakes along the way.
If someone is home most of the time and really paying attention to the puppy,
he should be well trained in a month. If no one is home during the day, you will
be lucky to have the puppy trained by six months of age simply because the puppy
is not physically capable of waiting that many hours. Can you wait all day? It
will speed up the process immensely if you can get someone to take the puppy out
in the middle of the day. Just keeping a puppy outdoors doesn't help because he
is not learning to wait and to keep certain areas clean.
When you are too busy to pay attention to the puppy, when you have to leave the
house for a while, exercise the puppy and then put him in the crate and go about
your business. Ignore the puppy. He should be used to spending some time in the
crate every day.
Kerries have a wonderful barometer on their rear ends, the tail! If you catch
the fellow chewing on a chair leg and you tell him "no", and the tail
stays up and he goes right back to chewing, you know that that correction was
not severe enough for that dog. If on the other hand the tail goes down and stays
down, you over-did it a bit. Should a dog pick up a piece of laundry you dropped,
a mild "no" would probably be appropriate. Don't use the same correction
for minor things that you would use for something major.
If you crate the puppy when you are too busy to keep an eye on him, the puppy
will not be learning -destructive habits, and prevention is much more effective
than corrections. As the puppy becomes more civilized, you may gradually increase
the time he is left unsupervised. At the first sign of chewing or soiling, go
back a few steps and use the crate. Almost all pet owners give the puppy too much
freedom too soon, which fosters the formation of difficult habits. It is not uncommon
for a puppy that seems well trained to go through another chewing stage as an
adolescent. Just use the crate and closer supervision again. Dog breeders often
house-train several new puppies each year, and with the help of a crate, their
houses survive with less damage than most pet owners have with one puppy.
The surest way to bond a puppy to one person, if he is supposed to be Suzy's
dog for instance, would be for him to sleep beside Suzy's bed and for her to
begin basic obedience training the day after the puppy arrives.
Last Updated: 12/19/2002, 4:05 pm
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