Puppy training

My friend Jodi just got a new dog and I was sending her an email about how we trained Yeager. As I got going I decided this would be a fun blog post.

When we first got Yeager he was only 8 weeks old and I was fortunate to be home all day with him. I took him outside about every 1 to 1-1/2 hours for the first few weeks, then stretched up to 2 and 3 hours. He goes out first thing in the morning and last thing at night.

When he is taken outside we actually have a "potty spot" that he has to go to the bathroom in. His urine burns our lawn and JT doesn't want to clean his messes before daring to walk around the lawn! When we trained him outside I would put his leash on him and take him directly to his potty spot. He had to stay there until he had gone to the bathroom, after that I would let him off the leash and let him run around and play. It took about 2 months of taking him on his leash to the potty spot until he finally got it, then probably another six months or so of me going outside with him and making sure he went to the right spot, otherwise he would find a "naughty potty" spot to use, and that would just negate all of the work we had done.
Inside if he was not right with me he was in his crate. I have little beds or blankets in the main rooms that I spend time in for him to lay on when he is with me. As a puppy I would put him on his leash and hook his leash to my belt so that he had to follow me around. I didn't have to do that too much until he got used to it and he is 3-1/2 now and still loves to follow me around. It sometimes drives Bri crazy because she will be playing with him and he will stop to follow me if I leave the room!

His crate is his own space where he slept for about two years and would spend time when we were tired of dealing with him, had visitors or were gone. We tried not to put him in his crate as a punishment if he was naughty. He didn't prove himself until about a year ago when we went up to Rexburg to see the new temple. We left at 4:00 on a Friday afternoon and asked our neighbor to come over and let him outside before they went to bed and put him in his crate, then come back when they got up in the morning and let him out of his crate and let him go outside to use the bathroom. (We were letting him stay out of his crate because we were going to be gone so long and it was too cold for him to spend the day outside.) Well, the next morning I called at about 10:30 to see how he did and she frieked out because she totally forgot about him. He hadn't been out since 4:00 the day before and he hadn't chewed up anything or gone even to the bathroom on my carpet! He is now officially a GOOD DOG!

We also decided on clear and simple commands to train him. Things that the entire family knows and can be consistent with. Just saying "NO" doesn't get the point across, you have to say "no chew", "no bark", "no bite", etc. Likewise, you have to praise the good things with "good sit", "good chew" (when he chews on his toy instead of something naughty!), etc. We actually decided all of the things that were important for us to train him not to do and the things that we would praise him for and made a list and put it on the fridge so we could all see it and remember it.

When we decided to train Yeager to do tricks we had a lot of fun. We got some small cracker treats (they are about the size of a dime) and we would say "roll over", then have to physically roll him over so that he could feel the motion, then say "good roll over" and give him a treat. We did that over and over for about 15 minutes at a time. He eventually got to where he would try to do it on his own because he really wanted the treat. Now he will do it even if there isn't a treat waiting for him. He can play dead (We say "bang" and he plays dead). He can also do "high five" and "circle" where he turns in a circle. To teach him circle we would just swing the treat around his head and he would turn around trying to keep his eye on it, then we would say "good circle" and he would get the treat. It was actually the easiest one to teach!

It was frustrating at times, but actually became fun as I became more attatched to Yeager. Now he is so much fun and we are grateful for the time we spent at the beginning to train him to be a GOOD DOG!