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Dog behaviour expert Karen Wild talks about training a puppy




Animal expert Karen Wild writes in her latest column:

Give your puppy a better start, and you will reap the benefits later.

It seems to be that we are inundated with requests for puppy training classes. This is great for us, and thank you. It is really hard to manage the numbers given the current government restrictions, but trust me, we are doing our best to stay safe. We can always help online with lessons too, but there’s a lot you can do at home to make sure your pup gets a really good start right now.

Karen Wild
Karen Wild

What sort of training does your puppy need? Well, not any old-school ‘balanced’, ‘crank and yank’, ‘pack leader’ or ‘dominance’ stuff, for a start. They are so out of date that the cobwebs might actually show. We know a lot more about dogs and animal training in general, these days. I teach owners how to set clear boundaries, but with a much more sensible approach that is kinder and fairer to all. In essence, pick someone with up-to-date qualifications, (and I don’t mean an online certificate course!) who is listed and registered with the Animal Behaviour and Training Council (ABTC – see abtcouncil.org.uk who is the governing body). Otherwise, you are putting your puppy’s future at risk. Just ‘having had dogs all my life’ or ‘an affinity with dogs’ isn’t quite the same thing as being professionally trained to do a job. It’s like someone telling you that they are a hairdresser ‘because I have always had my own hair’. You have been warned.

Now, down to the pups themselves. Puppies like to explore new tastes, textures, movement and of course, smells. This leads to problems when the household becomes a playground, the kids become chew toys, and the cat becomes the subject of ‘Wacky Races’ around the home! Here’s some ideas to save your sanity and teach puppy how to play nicely.

Redirect your puppy by providing a wide range of hollow toys made to contain food, and buy several different types to keep him interested.

It is not wise to allow puppies to have toys that they may chew to pieces. They can easily eat bits of these, so only buy extra strong items for chewing. In particular, soft toys could be damaged by any puppy and are often not safe for the puppy to be left to chew. Squeaky toys can be pulled to pieces by any puppy wishing to ‘kill’ their prey, but this builds a destructive habit. It is not long before the puppy moves onto chewing shoes and even mobile phones, since the textures are similar. Rubber toys that are hollow, with food pastes that can be squirted or smeared inside, make puppies enjoy chewing without damage.

For the puppy that likes to empty the stuffing from a toy, provide a range of ‘empty’ toys, that are designed to have no stuffing at all, or super tough toys that do not have seams for the puppy to pull apart. One range of soft toys has a very tough inner lining and no seams at all, and these are particularly long-lasting.

How about walking on lead? Try not to allow your puppy to yo-yo back and forth. Guide them to one side of you, gently and patiently. Whatever you do, don’t yank them! It’s a poor technique. Just stand and wait until the lead goes slack and start walking again. It might take time but it will fill in the gaps until a professional trainer can teach you how to do it thoroughly.

Remember, it is far better to build a good habit than to break a bad one!



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