Comments on: 6 Common Puppy Training Mistakes You’ve Already Made

By: S

Wed, 25 Sep 2019 21:52:57 +0000

In reply to Sarah.

My son’s puppy is being trained by him with the active support of a private certified training organisation as a support dog for his complex PTSD. Although I am pro-crate training we deliberately did not crate his pup at night because his pup needs to sleep with him to help calm him when he wakes from nightmares. It has been very effective even though his pup is very young still. If some people would like to have their pup sleep with them this is our setup for preventing puppy oopsies at night.

My son has a king size bed surrounded by a pen and the floor is lined with heavy rubber flooring in case of accidents. The pup sleeps on the bed, but has his own ramp leading down from the bed as we don’t want to risk injury by him jumping off the bed. The whole bed, plus a bit of the room, is basically inside a penned area with the puppy’s crate and water bowl so he can go down to the floor and have some water or just lie in his crate if he so chooses. That way he has the ability to do his own things without getting into trouble by chewing on inappropriate things if he wakes at night. We did train him initially to use an indoor puppy loo and it is still available to him at night, but he was never very keen on it and at 10 weeks is fully potty trained.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big proponent of crate training, but I just wanted to mention that in some cases sleeping on the bed is needed because it encourages the kind of attentive relationship and behaviour we cannot train for in dogs that have to support people with conditions like diabetes, PTSD etc. Because his pup sleeps with him, the pup is able to respond instantly to my son needing him during the night without my son having to wake up completely and look for his dog while he is still anxious from his dreams. As the pup is a golden retriever and they get hot easily I have no doubt his pup prefers the cool floor to the bed most of the time, but as he’s still little this setup allows for him to be close to my son when he needs to him and vice versa. Incidentally this puppy has not cried a single night since coming home and has an exceptionally close bond with my son which I believe is due to sleeping on the bed with him.

By: Ashley

Ashley — Fri, 30 Nov 2018 20:27:45 +0000

These are great tips. We are currently owner training (with the help of a trainer) our puppy to be a service dog for my daughter.
I do have a question though, and I do not seem to be able to find the answer anywhere. When you catch your puppy in the act of peeing in the house what are you supposed to do?
I know you dont scowled when you find the mess afterwards, but when you actually catch them doing it, besides a quick/sharp ‘yelp’ to get their attention, what else is there?
Our puppy doesn’t seem to care when we yell Hey, or NO, or anything. She just keeps peeing lol

By: Martinique Eimer

Martinique Eimer — Mon, 11 Sep 2017 23:00:05 +0000

I love this article! These are such great tips for puppy owners. It’s refreshing to see a great accurate article on puppies. My husband has been a professional dog trainer for 20+ years, we run a business together training dogs in California. We see so many new clients who have behavior issues in their dog’s adolescence and adulthood that might have been easily prevented if owners were educated with good advice like this! While all the advice is good… #5 is a big one! (You don’t start training your puppy from day one.) The majority of dogs that we see requesting Behavioral Evaluations are from unhappy pet owners wanting to just begin their training at 6 months of age! I definitely don’t fault anyone though, and definitely advocate training at any age. You’ve inspired me to start and article as a continuation with #7… Leaving your puppy unsupervised with the kids and little ones. While many of their play behavior is cute as a puppy (play biting, paws-on, running around the house and snuggling), they quickly become problem behaviors as adults. It’s a shame because there’s just so much misinformation about what the right thing is to do with puppy out there. Thanks for a great read. Can’t wait to start on your other great advice to share with clients 🙂

By: Sarah

Sarah — Wed, 22 Feb 2017 05:48:11 +0000

My boyfriend and I picked up our puppy Piper almost a month ago, and the crate has been a godsend. We messed up at first, since she cried all night the first night we took her out and let her sleep where she wanted (she chose the hardwood floor, dogs are weird!). After about a week of that, however, she chewed our drywall while we slept and we realized the crate was necessary. After a few nights of crying (her) and frustration (us) she now sleeps through the night. She’s a Great Pyrenees mix, so she’s big for 12 weeks, which is great because she can now hold her bladder all night and doesn’t wake us up for pee breaks. She’s also mastered sitting and lying down on command, though we’re still working on the “off” command (she keeps jumping up against the counters and table.) Shes also part Catahoula so she’s very vocal and has recently started howling if we crate her while she’s really worked up. Anyway, short version is that I’ve totally made these mistakes but correcting them has been very worth it.

By: Colby

Colby — Tue, 13 Sep 2016 00:20:24 +0000

In reply to Christine. There is a lot of controversy with crate training, but we don't know what we would do without our crates. Nowadays we leave them open throughout the day and with four dogs and two crates theres not enough space. Archer will sometimes double up with Raven...

By: Christine

Christine — Tue, 06 Sep 2016 13:28:56 +0000

I had to convince my husband to crate train our dogs when we first got them. He thought it was cruel. Instead he wanted to leave them in the back yard all the time. We live in Florida and it gets very hot. I won and our dogs are crate trained and they love their crates. This also give us a place to keep them when it’s too hot or rainy outside. They are indoor/outdoor dogs and after 7 years I can’t imagine life without them.

By: Colby

Colby — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 07:19:38 +0000

In reply to lorena.

Hi Lorena,

Sorry for the late response. We had some troubles when we were crate training Stetson. Here’s an article we wrote on crate training puppies that might help you out: https://puppyintraining.com/crate-training-puppies/.

Good luck!
Colby

By: lorena

lorena — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 11:29:12 +0000

I just got puppy and our first night they told us to start crate training as soon as we brought him house its the first night an he has cried all night help i feel bad and my husband don’t want to hear him cry so he took him out because he too feels bad how do i stop jim from crying cause he wants out any suggestions would be great

By: Colby

Colby — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 23:34:17 +0000

In reply to gold price. Yes, and it's tough not to pamper a cute adorable puppy. I notice this a lot with the toy breeds.

By: Colby

Colby — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 23:33:03 +0000

In reply to silver price. Old habits die hard. It wasn't until I got a puppy of my own and started puppy kindergarten and obedience that I realized these were old and incorrect ways of training. Some are just plain mistakes. I really enjoy using praise and positive reinforcement when working with my dogs.