dogs and wolfs

[eliman]

Goodmorning. when my pug does something really bad i take him for 5 to 10 minutes in one room all alone . i know that people say this is a very bad thing to do. But as far as i know wolfs wich are close relatives to dogs do the same thing. If a wolf tries to steal the < < kingdom> > and finally doesnt make it the other wolfs keep him away forever! of cource if he achieve to do his buissnes then he became the leader. So my question is simply this : is it right or totaly wrong to do that to my pug?

[Hellas]

The simple answer is that it's not a good method and that I would never recommend it. There are a great many misconceptions about wolves and dogs out there. I'm honesly not sure that wolves even act that way. Regardless, dogs are not wolves. Dogs don't compete with humans for domincance. That is an old myth and science has debunked it. Sadly, it doesn't stop some people on tv from teaching it. Dogs know very well that humans are not dogs and they don't treat us like they treat other dogs.

You have a small puppy if I'm not incorrect. When a puppy does something wrong it is NEVER because it wants to be naughty or "be dominant" over you. It's not because it doesn't know who's boss. It does it because it doesn't know how you want it to behave, because it's a little kid and - quite often - because it's fun doing it. Puppies are childish, just as children are. They are impulsive and playful, and they should be. Putting the puppy in a room after it's done something wrong will not teach the puppy anything, because it will have no idea why you did it. At worst, it may make him associate mommy being angry with him being alone, which can create separation anxiety.

There are much better ways of teaching a puppy how to behave. I strongly suggest you find a puppy class which teaches modern methods based on positive reinforcement, such as clicker training. It works great, especially with pugs. It will teach you how to teach your dog without using punishment.

Until you have a chance to take a class, I recommend that you focus on rewarding the behaviour you want and taking the fun out of the things you don't want. If, for instance, he's play biting your hands and bites too hard. Then you give a yelp (like puppies do) and stop play immediately. If he jumps after your pant leg, you stop walking and turn your back. This way, he'll learn that the fun stops if he does certain things. I have trained my own dogs this way, so I know from first hand experience that it works. Punishing the dog (lifting by the neck, putting it on its back) doesn't work, is cruel, and harms the relationship between human and dog.

Good luck!

[Snifter]

If you have a very determined puppy, sometimes putting it out of the room, or leaving the room yourself, is the only thing that effectively "stops the fun". Particularly with biting; you can stop and turn your back but you are physically still there to bite. If you sit up on the couch out of the puppy's reach you are still there as a challenge for the pup to reach, and a new game has begun for the pup.

I absolutely endorse positive reinforcement training and that is always the way to go, but sometimes you do have to stop a behaviour. Nipping and biting is the usual culprit. The problem, however, with "putting the puppy on the naughty step", as it were, is making sure that the puppy knows that the isolation is a direct response to the biting. Getting into a tizzy and eventually carrying the pup off to another room for isolation puts too much time between the biting and the consequence for the puppy to understand what is going on, and as Hellas said, that can be very counterproductive.

I found with my younger pug, who is very bright, very resourceful and very determined, that the best way to deal with the biting was in fact not to yelp (this excited him more, though it is the best place to start as it works with a lot of pups) but to say "No bite" in a flat voice, turn away very dramatically and disdainfully and leave the room, making sure he could not follow me through the door as I was leaving. After one minute (no longer - 5 or 10 mins is far too long) I would go back into the room as if nothing had happened and start playing with him. This works very well but you must do it EVERY TIME the pup bites, which is a right royal hassle if he is biting in the middle of your favourite TV show.

I can't think of many behaviours where this approach would be a good way to go, though. Mostly redirection to something you DO want them to do, accompanied by praise and a treat, is what works best. I don't know what you mean by "something really bad" that your pug could do. If you could give some examples of behaviours where you think it is appropriate to isolate your pup please let us know, as there may be other, more effective, ways to counteract the unwanted behaviours.

[Hellas]

I agree with Snifter that there are times when leaving the room for a short time can be appropriate, but only if done immediately, so that the pup understands that it is a reaction to the biting. To me, carrying a puppy off and leaving it alone for 5-10 minutes is something else.

There are also times when a puppy is being troublesome because he is simply too tired and excited and needs to sleep. On such occasions I agree with putting the puppy and his favourite plush toy in his crate for a nap. But that's not punishment in my book.

[eliman]

thank you for your information! about really bad : when i try to take something of his mouth , on our potty walks he bites me. i post answers but i dont know if you can see it because i cant . if you got the message let me know, i think i have a conection problem...

[eliman]

when i take him outside in the yard for potty i wait about 1 to 2 hours and nothing. so if i take him out close the door ( but stiil see me through the glass) and say potty time , he does emidiatly so i open the door and goes straight away to the treet place ! is he playing on me? i dont have a problem with that , because i would like my dog to be clever so he'll get stubborn or do his own because he wats to!

[Hellas]

thank you for your information! about really bad : when i try to take something of his mouth , on our potty walks he bites me. i post answers but i dont know if you can see it because i cant . if you got the message let me know, i think i have a conection problem...

The key is that any response to unwanted behaviour must come immediately. And by that I mean within a few seconds of the behaviour. If he bites you during a walk, it is absolutely pointless to try to punish the puppy when you get home. He will have absolutely no idea why he is being punished.

Biting is normal behaviour for puppies. It is how they play and also how they explore the world, so it's not really "bad" behaviour. It's bad only in the sense that we humans don't want it. If you are gentle and patient, using the methods that have been described above, the biting will stop. My dog Winston was a wild puppy. He would bite our hands and attack our pants when we walked through a room. We had to be quite patient while teaching him that this was not a good thing. Now, he is extremely gentle with his mouth and would never dream of biting us.

One of the most important aspects of dog training is timing. If you learn to reward your dog at the exact moment he is doing a good thing, he will quickly understand what you want. With unwanted behaviour, the very best thing is usually prevention. Try to create a situation where it's easy for the dog to do the right thing. If you watch your dog closely, you'll be able to catch him the moment before he starts an unwanted behaviour. For example, my dogs like to jump out of their bed and bark at the neighbour dogs whenever they bark outside. I know this, so the moment I see my dogs wake up and prick their ears, I tell them them 'no'. Usually, they just go back to sleep. But if I let them jump up and start barking, it is much harder to break the behaviour.

[eliman]

i am sorry , maby i didnt say it in the right way. i say no when we are out emediatly . only when iam at home i do that , it seems to be the only way , sometimes i do what sniffter says ( i leave the room instead of him)that works alittle bit too. so i'll continiue with this and forget the other. although a trainer told us to do this -take him emediatly out without telling him anything! i dont have the money for trainer it was a free hour from where we bought him.!!and with pooping at night time if you remember the problem... you know he stoped it only after one morning my boyfriend wakes up he saw it afterwards , but he told him - what is this ?he took him in the yard - here is the place . after that night he was perfect with that issue, although he said that to him after many hours. i used to ingnor him in the morning and just clean it without say anything , because i wasnt there when he done it . sorry for the long and confusing message!

[Hellas]

Just remember that you have to be patient. Don't worry if you do not get immediate results. That is perfectly normal and doesn't meant that you are doing anything wrong. Puppies are kids, so it's natural for them to be impulsive, playful and to have a short attention span. It took several months before we were able to get Winston to stop jumping after our pants when he was in a playful mood. We tried telling him 'no'. That didn't work, but only made him worse. We even tried punishing him by pinching his ear (I would never do that now that I know more about dogs) and it didn't work at all. The only thing that worked was to consistently stop and turn our back whenever he tried to bite our pants. We had to be very patient, but in time it paid off.

If you can't afford a puppy class, I think it would be a great idea for you to read a good, modern book about dogs and how their learning process works. It will help you greatly with a strategy for how to raise your puppy. I'm sorry that I can't recommend a good book that is available in Greek. I suggest you look for a book about clicker training. It will explain to you the philosophy of reward based dog training.

[Snifter]

Picking up stuff he shouldn't when out on walks is very common behaviour. Puppies explore with their mouths. However, grabbing stuff out of their mouths can be counterproductive and dangerous. The puppy thinks that you want the item really badly and is highly likely to swallow it, or swallow quicker next time. You therefore need to be very vigilant on walks and scan the ground around for anything unsuitable that you know he likes. My pugs both went crazy for discarded kleenex. If you see the item before he does then (assuming he is on leash) you just steer him away from it. If he gets hold of the item then you need to get him to drop it. Drop training takes a while. Your best bet is always to carry around really good treats. If the pup has something in his mouth and you get out a nice treat, chances are he will drop the item. This will form part of the drop it training; as he drops you give the drop command and immediately pop the treat into his mouth. Only grab something out of his mouth if you absolutely HAVE to, and be prepared for a bite.

If your potty training method of putting him in the yard on his own but where he can still see you through theglass is working then I see no reason not to carry it on.