Puppy Training

JenniBaby85

Not fitness related, but I have a 2 year old daughter, a 3 month old daughter, and a 12 week old female black Lab puppy. I am having a hard time training the puppy and was wondering if anyone has tips. It's hard to make the time with two little girls, and the 2 year old definitely distracts the puppy, but I still manage to spend time trying to train the puppy everyday (about 20 - 30 minutes).

Example - She KNOWS what "come" "sit" and "no" means, but only obeys less than half of the time. Also - she is super hyper!

Chelle_Davis

I have a black Lab puppy that was abandoned, and he's the same way. He's so excited and hyper. He'll listen, but he gets distracted easily. Just stay consistent! Also, lots of research has helped to. Cesar Millan is a genius and his website is wonderful.

MrsPong

I dont have any ideas but interested in the tips you may get. I have a 10-12 month old that we just adopted and she doesnt know how to sit or lay down but does know "STOP" lol... I can tell her foster parents let her get away with stuff like sleeping on the couch (no-no!) BUT we are looking for training classes to help because we both work 8 hours a day....and she is starting to chew stuff!

BigAlfrn

repetition is the mother of learning. keep at it. when the puppy does what you tell it to do then you reward it with love and or a treat and ONLY when they do what you tell them to do. Show em lots of love. it doesnt happen over night but stick with it.

jesusHchris

It's been a while since I've worked with a puppy... If you can, I would recommend finding a high rated training book on Amazon and spending some time going through it. I know, more trying to find free time there, huh?

In my experience, it is just a repetition thing. Also try to ensure any other adults living there follow the exact same training routines, otherwise the puppy gets confused.

I have noticed that dogs do a good job of learning from other dogs that are already well trained. Healthy treats are a great tool - try baby carrots.

Have fun!

poodlelaise

I think you are making great progress with a lab that age. Try to keep up several short training sessions per day if you can, even 5-10 minutes each is plenty and may make it easier with your kids than trying to do longer sessions.

spike90

I have a 5 month old female cocker spaniel (that we got at 8 weeks old) who was extremely difficult to train. She is (was) hyper and got soooo easily distracted. I started training her with Cheerios (plain Cheerios cereal) and it seemed to do the trick. Now she is good as gold about 95% of the time. I also trained my male Golden Retriever the same way (he is now 15 months old) but he was very, very easy to train and caught on to everything in days.

Good luck!

itsuki

She's hyper because she's a 12 week old lab. All puppies have a huge amount of energy, labs more so.

My guess is she's not getting enough exercise. If she's not paying attention while you're training or giving her commands, this is the number one culprit. Make sure you take her for lots of walks and runs during the day.

miracole

3 month old puppies are a trial no matter how much you train them. Repetition is key, patience is ABSOLUTELY necessary. And training classes if you can do them are very very helpful. The hyperness will calm down in time, your puppy just needs to grow up. Just be consistent in the discipline and remember that dogs often have the same level of awareness and word recognition as 2 year old children, you undoubtedly have to tell your older daughter the same things over and over again to get her to understand, you'll have to do the same with your puppy (though dogs really never grow out of that phase!!)

Itsallbs15

Consistancy is the best training tip. I have a lab and retriever who I rescued at 12 weeks and have had them for 8 and 9 years who are very well trained without having to take them to a training school. The short training sessions is a great idea. To get her attention find something that makes a noise (my dogs were traing with snapping my fingers). People say that a bell or a can with pennies in it works. Making the noise gets their attention so that they can focus on you. Once you have her attention, make sure you use a stern but not harsh voice. She needs to know that you are the boss and what you say goes. To house train make sure you take her out frequently, praise her and give her a treat. I took peanut butter everytime I would walk my dogs and they were fully house trained in about a week. I hope this helps. Good luck.
BRENDA

allisona28

PRAISE PRAISE and more PRAISE!!! Every 20 minutes take the puppy outside...cheese helps too...hint hint...NEVER SPANK ... bladder is small and developing. PATIENCE too!! Good luck and may you bring each other much joy!!!! :flowerforyou:

LuzDeLaLuna

Try to find a place to train with her, without anything that could distract her. A room in the house would do.
Don't practice too much and the end of the training should be everytime a positive experience.

What do you do, when she does the tasks right? Does she get some yummy things for it, or a toy or some nice words?

You have to show her, that she should do what you want, but without geting louder. Just get more specificity into your voice, but stay calmed.

(Hope it is understandable what I wrote so far.)

JenniBaby85

Try to find a place to train with her, without anything that could distract her. A room in the house would do.
Don't practice too much and the end of the training should be everytime a positive experience.

What do you do, when she does the tasks right? Does she get some yummy things for it, or a toy or some nice words?

You have to show her, that she should do what you want, but without geting louder. Just get more specificity into your voice, but stay calmed.

(Hope it is understandable what I wrote so far.)

Yup, I give her treats, hugs, and a lot of praise an petting

lavieboheme1229

repetition. consistency.

I like clicker training. You can go to petsmart, and they have clickers. every time the dog does what you want it to do, you click. Positive reinforcement.

First you need to "load the clicker". This means you have the clicker in your non dominant hand, and you click it, and treat with the dominant hand. Click, treat, click treat. I would do this for 2 days or so. SIDE NOTE- with a Puppy, 20 straight minutes is simply TOO LONG. Do 5 minutes at a time, 4 times a day, or something like that. Or even 5 minutes once a day, until you find time, during commercial breaks, etc.

Next you move on to sit. I know you said they know what the sound means, but hand signals is the best way to train your dog. Because if you are at the beach, or a quiet area, and you don't want to shout at the top of your lungs to get them to come back, a hand signal is very useful. It is also a more reinforced signal.

For sit, you place a treat in your dominate hand, palm opened upwards, hand open. let the dog smell your hand, so they know the treat is there. Hold you hand, still palm facing the ceiling, in front of the dogs nose, and bring it straight up towards the sky, with the dogs nose following you. Once you get above their head, bring your hand straight back behind the dog. this forces the dog to sit in order to follow the treat. When their but hits the ground, you click and give them a treat. Do this over and over again with the treat in your palm. Soon, they are going to know that movement means they need to sit and they will, then you click and treat.

For lay down, you put the treat in your palm, with your palm facing the floor (this takes some finagling with your thumb to hold the treat in your hand while open). Once again, make sure the pup knows you have the treat in your hand. Then press your palm towards the floor, in front of the dogs nose. Once again, the dog will need to lay down to follow your hand. The minute their belly hits the floor, click and treat.

For stay, you have the dog sit in a specific area. You stand up straight and your hand out to them, palm first, (in a manner that any human would think you are telling them to stay put.) Keep your hand up, and take a step back. If they stay in the same spot, click and treat. Practice only one step away over and over and over, and then move on to 2 steps etc. This is going to take a while for them to figure out what that hand motion means, but I swear to god they figure it out fast when food is involved. If they move, you make sure their butt is in the EXACT same spot it was before.

For treats, use something that is easy for them to chew quickly, and something that is small enough for them to consume without having to break it into a lot of pieces. We had to use our dogs regular food because she gets too overexcited at other food. You mentioned you have a puppy. You NEED to have about 20-30 minutes of play with the puppy before trying to do this. you need to get some of their energy out.

Once you get through these with consistency from your dog, feel free to message me, and I can tell you how to do things like come and to your bed and wait and all that stuff. Like I said, you NEED to be consistent. From the treats you use to the tone of voice to the exact movements, and eventually, the exact words you use. Only add words AFTER the dog has associated the command with the hand signal.

Our dog has gotten to the point where I can give her compound commands through normal conversation. For example "Mommy is going to leave and Sassy is going to Stay so Sassy needs to Go Outside and Go Potty Now" or "Sassy Go Get your Squirrel and Bring it to Mommy". Whenever I give a verbal command, I always say her name first. It simply gets their undivided attention.

I'm glad you are starting young. Include the kids! It will be as much child/adult training as it is puppy training. Good luck! Message me if you have any questions!

cherrytulips

do you live near an Unleashed by Petco store? They always have an in-store dog trainer whom you can chat with and get some solid advice from

AmeChops

A lot of good advice already, all I can say is make sure everyone in your house is doing the same thing...consistency is vital! If she does something wrong try not to yell, for example if she nips too hard (which she will at that age), simply get up and walk away and stop the game - I found that works a lot better than a stern 'NO'.

Good luck!!

Eve23

Since you have some young children, I would suggest making sure you help your puppy learn tolerance. I have a pit bull who is 5 years old now that we got when he was 7 weeks old. I worked with him from the time we got him to make sure he was tolerant of any type of handling. I laid him on his side and got him comfortable with being touched (not hard) but then I started pulling on his ears, mouth, anything a small child or vet might do. I have neber had an issue with him being aggressive. Another thing I suggest is taking his food away while he is eating and then giving it back to him. He should not be food aggressive. My son was bit and given blood poisoning by a lab when he was young for being to close to him while he was eating. One last thing I believe is very important is the leave it command. We began this training by simply showing him a treat and telling him leave it (not allowing him to have it) when his attention went away from the treat we allowed him to have a treat from somewhere else. (Not the treat we told him to leave)

I hope these suggestions work for you, they made a huge difference for us.

GangsterKim50

I have 2 very hyper American Bulldog puppies and I found the best way to train is to first take them out for some exercise and try to take some edge off their energy. I usually take them to the doggie park and run them around for a hour so that they're nice and tired.

From there, it's all about repetition and consistency. Even when you think s/he gets it, do it 20 more times. It's tedious but effective.

I don't give them treats until the very end of the training. Pet stores have these awesome clickers that you can get or you can do like my poor butt and train them to know that snaps and a pet means good job, arms crossed means bad job.

Then it's all about affection. Lots of "good girl/boy", hugs and usually a bone. But I would try to stay away from lavishing with praise during the training and give it to them at the end, so they understand training is serious learning time.

Just my experiences! Good luck!!

seamonkey789

I had to retrain a 2 year old with separation anxiety. I at a veterinary behaviorist and his wife, a certified trainer working with him. I'm also a pet food rep on the weekends and see the training classes and work with the trainers on their new puppy classes for food.

First, get a clicker and some soft treats your dog loves. Pick a hand movement and assign it to each command if your dog is visual more than aural. Do the hand movement and speak the command. When the dog obeys, click the clicker and give a treat and praise.

George is super hyper, especially on walks and especially if there are other dogs out. But if I click that clicker, he knows there is a treat coming and I automatically have his attention

lookingforsomething

Over my life I have trained a number of dogs the latest being a pure male Australian Shepherds.

Small bouts of training - 5 minutes at a time - lots of treats that aren't it's normal food - left over meat, cheese, kabana, a different brand of dog food, hot dogs anything that is different.
Most likely with a Lab it is going to be food. Some dogs aren't food orientated and they like a certain toy - only give it to them at training times.

Always make sure before you give a command that you say the dogs name first so that he knows that you are talking to him.

One of the best commands that you can teach is "watch me" this gets the dog to focus on you and you alone.
Get your dog to sit in front of you and tell him to "watch me" while bringing a small treat up towards the corner of your eye - this should make the puppy watch what you are doing and not what is going on around him. Once you have his attention/eye contact for a second - give him the treat. Like all things once you practice this with him, if he is playing in the yard you should be able to call his name and say "Puppy watch me" and he should stop and took at you - waiting to see what come next.

kristi5224

So far you have some goo advice here.!
These are the rules.
1. Work everyday but for a short time.

2. always end with a success. If they aren't successful. it is too hard move back a step/
3. It is much much easier to teach them to DO somethign than NOT DO something. For example. Its hard to teach them not to run out the door when you open it but easy to teach SIT and WAIT.
Dog training shoul dbe fun. The dogs love it/ Teach your kids to do it.

foxyforce

you HAVE to be consistent, this is the key to all behavioral training.

always reward good behaviours, you can get a clicker to ween the pup off the treats. so you would say "sit" when they sit you give them the treat and then click, or vice versa someone may haev a thought on that, and it replaces the reward.

12 weeks is superrrrrrrr young. so don't punish bad behaviours too severely, just time outs and stuff. rewards work better.

my dog just turned one and is in a bratty stage, she listens but has attitude about it, she will literally talk to me after i say 'no'. so just be consistent and maintain dominance.