New Puppy Training Tips

[machinethomas]

So my wife and I just got a Lab puppy. She is six weeks old and mild tempered. I want to start training her and keeping her in a kennel but don't want her to be too anxious and freaked out. Any tips from you dog owners on how to keep her comfortable and where to start training? I grew up with labs and am super excited. Any input appreciated.

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[mfolch]

Depends on the type of training. I would avoid wee-wee pad training like the plague. Once they're trained to use those, they'll need to be retrained to go outside. We kept our GSD in a crate--taking advantage of the den instinct which keeps them from soiling their own sleeping area--and then carrying her outside half an hour after every meal, and two hours after that, and rewarding her when she went on the grass. Keeping a written log was tedious, but my wife insisted, and we had our dog housebroken in three days. She was 9 weeks old when we got her.

As for obedience training, trainers usually hold off until the dog is 6-9 months old. Before that they're crazy and teething and irrational, and they're going through all sorts of strange phases--basically, they're children and then adolescents. But when training starts, what we did was three weeks of intensive reward-based training (chicken hotdogs) so that she learned each command: kept her in the crate except to eat, use the bathroom, or do 15-minute training sequence (days 1-3, learn to sit; days 3-5, learn down; days 5-7, come, etc.). Followed by three weeks of training using a correction collar, followed by two weeks with a shock collar.

Dogs are cute when they're young--I met more people in the first six days of having her than in six years of living in the same neighborhood--but ours was a nightmare until she was about 6 months old.

Elk or deer antlers will really help with teething.

Good luck.

 

[2ski]

If you don't get her started in a kennel now, it will be more difficult later on. For you and the dog.

 

[AdamW]

Getting too long. Just emailed myself to come back later and post.

 

[AKMAN]

Crate+Poop training saves lives. It's brutal at first, but our golden/lab hybrid (and 9 lb poodle...) will quite literally poop on command.
Lot's of getting up in the middle of the night (Babers did all the crate training for our dogs ) for a bit, but so incredibly worth it.
Outside first thing in the morning then again after breakfast. Pee break when we get home and then again after dinner.
They stay home, inside all day while we work and illness not withstanding we don't have any messes.
This won't work as well if you plan to free feed, but that's a "whole nother" conversation.

That's a cute doggo. Best of luck.

 

[zeroforhire]

Join bird Dog Fanatics on Facebook.


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[elkyinzer]

Congrats on the pup!

Way too many specifics to get into. I'm by no means a dog trainer either.

Just be patient is my #1 advice. Our black lab (my first dog ever) just turned 2. She still has a shit ton of energy. It makes her awesome in the grouse woods but causes some frustrations around home. It took A LOT of patience to deal with first 6 months and she still has her moments. Making sure that she is consistently getting a good run off leash makes her tolerable. She's a lot easier to work with when she's tuckered out.

That whole "be the pack leader" mentality is not BS. Ours listens to me 99% of the time, my wife, she isn't so great with. My wife gets frustrated, I calmly correct her.

Ours is smart and super food-motivated, which made some training easy at first, but she's got quite the attitude as well. When you take the food away sometimes she just sasses out and won't listen. That's something obedience wise I've never learned how to correct.

It's easier to prevent bad habits than break them. Our pup is pretty good overall, she has some issues jumping on people because we allowed it when people would want her to. Then she can't be expected to distinguish.

 

[DFB]

I'm a retriever trainer. Leatherwood Gundogs is my kennel. You can and should absolutely start training obedience and crate training now. Depending on what you want the dog to do as an adult you can start basics of whatever that is now. Remeber to keep things light and fun. Stay calm and don't lose your temper. Remeber that a dog can't reason so if you come home and he has crapped in the floor there's no need for heavy handed reprimands. The dog will just lose trust in you and think "Man, this guy is a ticking time bomb." I'll answer any specific question you have anytime you want to pm me. Some good books to pick up are "Leader of the Pack", anything by Mike Lardy, and "Speed Train you own Retriever". Let me know if I can help with anything.

 

[LostArra]

I'm just glad I was better at raising kids than I am at training dogs or I would be sending Christmas presents to four inmates every year.

Our dog does not pee or poop indoors. She loves me and wants to be in the woods with me every day hunting squirrels. Past that, I'm a complete failure.

Good luck.

 

[bmart2622]

I just got a new lab puppy myself and did a ton of research before hand on training. I am following Tom Dokkens plan but there are lots of good trainers out there to follow. My pup just turned 8 weeks old today and I have had him for 8 days now. He will sleep all night without any accidents in his kennel and will often time take naps in his kennel during the day so I would say he is pretty comfortable with it. We never use it as a punishment and incoporate the "kennel" command in training and it has worked so far. As of now my dog will sit, stay, come, down, kennel, and place using verbal commands and treats. Maybe waiting for 6-9 months was a preferred method years ago but my boy will hopefully be in a blind by 9 months.
Take them out often like every 30-45 mins, right after naps, after heavy play and 15 mins or so after eating and make sure that they go to the bathroom before they come back in. Tons and tons of praise when they go outside. Put the pup in their crate periodically during the day and make sure they have some toys or something to keep them busy, make it a fun place not a prison. Have fun and enjoy the new pup!!

 

[AK Troutbum]

I didn't read through all the posts, so this may have already been suggested. If you are planning on her being a house dog, a great little potty training tool is to hang a bell off the door knob of the door that you will be taking her out to potty. Every time you take her out to potty, ring the bell first, than take her out that door. Pretty quickly (at least it was for my lab), she'll learn to associate the bell with going out to pee and she'll start using it herself. My chocolate lab is now 7 years old and she still uses that bell ever time she needs to go out.

 

[SWOHTR]

Concur with above, two additions:

1. My wife hung some jingle bells on the door to our patio, then trained him to ring them when he wanted out. Now, any time he wants outside, he noses at the bells (rings them) and we know he needs to go out. She taught him this concurrent with head breaks outside.

2. Dogs are smart, and if you use the same phrases and motions, they will learn them. Without trying, we taught our dog "Shake it off" and he will shake water/snow off before coming inside. This surprised me only because we did not intentionally teach him that.

One other useful command is "load up" (into a car or in the bathtub). He also knows that after daycare (every Wednesday) he gets a bath. This one really surprised me because he goes once a week...so either the dog can read and understand a calendar or he has really good memory.

 

[Beendare]

I'm no expert...but I like starting early at least conditioning them to my voice.

You picked an easy breed to train....Cooper here at a little over a year old is more stubborn than my wife <grin>...and good luck trying to wear him out........

I can't turn around without stepping on him- EVER.

 

[Paul M]

x3 on the bell
Works for every lab i have had , there will come a time you will have to take the bell down she will ring it just to get you off the couch

 

[dvm_hunter]

if you just want a family dog or if you are wanting a duck dog or upland dog he also has books addressing those as well. Great books

Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: Family Dog: A Simple and Time-Proven Method

 

[monkey d luffy]

If you don't get her started in a kennel now, it will be more difficult later on. For you and the dog.

teach him how is the best so he can adapt to it

 

[BroodBuster]

Some pretty good advice here. And I agree start your training now but in short fun sessions.

I think spring puppies are the best if you are gong to hunt them. By Oct he should be big and strong enough to hunt all day but still young enough to not be wanting to challenge you as pack leader. With that in mind gear all of your training to this falls hunt. When I have a puppy I greatly scale back any fishing, hiking and big game hunting and almost completely concentrate on the puppy and our bird hunting future.

 

[mtswampfox]

Dont be surprised when your pup teaches you. Mine would lick my face at night to wake me when she needed out, was her way and idea not mine!

 

[zeroforhire]

Dont be surprised when your pup teaches you. Mine would lick my face at night to wake me when she needed out, was her way and idea not mine!

My three month old chocolate does the same thing. Lol. It is an interesting way to wake up.

Pic of my wife and Milo.


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[AdamW]

I'm a retriever trainer. Leatherwood Gundogs is my kennel. You can and should absolutely start training obedience and crate training now. Depending on what you want the dog to do as an adult you can start basics of whatever that is now. Remeber to keep things light and fun. Stay calm and don't lose your temper. Remeber that a dog can't reason so if you come home and he has crapped in the floor there's no need for heavy handed reprimands. The dog will just lose trust in you and think "Man, this guy is a ticking time bomb." I'll answer any specific question you have anytime you want to pm me. Some good books to pick up are "Leader of the Pack", anything by Mike Lardy, and "Speed Train you own Retriever". Let me know if I can help with anything.

Love this and from a gun dog trainer!

The only worse advice than marriage advice on the internet is probably dog training advice. There are just so many perspectives, methods and opinions and people lose their shit if they disagree with you. I became infatuated with dog training over the last 6+ years and unfortunately (if you want to call it that) it is because of raising a dog that is scared of the world and would fail damn near every facet of the temperament tests except for his loving all people.

Coming at this from a companion dog perspective:

1. SOCIALIZE that puppy to everything you can possibly think of. All kinds of people, all kinds of dogs, all kinds of places, noises, smells, EVERYTHING.

2. Google "crate training a puppy" and read those differing articles until you're tired of it. The short version: introduce the dog to it slowly, with the door open, letting him go in and out. Let him have his blankets, some toys in there, etc. Get him going in and out of it and enjoying spending time in there. Let him fall asleep in there for naps and slowly start to work on closing the door for a bit and going from there. Then you can start working on "kennel" or "house" and rewarding him for going in and out.

3. Start training him yesterday. You can teach the fundamentals to sit to a puppy in minutes and he will be happy to do it for a piece of kibble most likely. Puppies especially are often more than happy to work for their regular kibble. I would do some basic obedience type stuff with half his rations, then let him eat the other half or so. If you feed twice per day this gives you two training opportunities every day. Do a little here and there instead of an hour later.

4. You should be giving a puppy a lot more opportunities for reward than correction. He will figure that stuff out as he knows and learns commands.

I never feel like I can put enough info out there in a single post and there are people far more qualified than me. I can tell you in the last several years I've seen and worked with everything from "If the (adult) dog is biting you, just reward him when he is not biting you" to IPO/protection sport people cranking their dogs for swinging their ass too wide in heel. Like all things in life, I think some middle ground is probably the right answer. With that puppy though, remember this: He doesn't know anything. Everything you want him to learn you need to show him. And you didn't learn anything the first time. Make him your best friend, trust you and you'll have a lot of great years together.