Dawgs

[klaximilian]

I don't know training dogs isn't that tough. My dog was a pain in the rear when she was younger but she learned fast. It's like kids, just be consistent and not mean.

Yep, you just have to keep reinforcing good behavior and they eventually will get it.

IMO, a smack on the derriere a once in a while in the beginning of training isn't the worst thing in the world. It gets the thought in the dog's head that there are consequences for negative behaviors. Providing them with treats for behaving well can encourage them to continue to do so. Just keep in mind, you don't want to smack them to hurt them...that's why you go for the derriere and typically do it just hard enough to get their attention. If you make your dog yelp or scared of you, you're smacking them way too hard.

Of course, there will be some that disagree and claim that smacking a dog is cruelty, no matter how soft/hard. To those people I say GFY. This one cuntbag that worked with 6 years ago was incredibly irate when she heard I reprimanded my puppy by smacking her derriere. She proceeded to cry and claim that it was abuse, and that the only way to train a dog is through positive reinforcement. Problem with that is, it's not nearly effective because the dog knows only what they should do, not what they should not do. I saw her with her dog at the company party at a local park later that summer. He was a disobedient little excrement. Go figure.

Both of my with dogs were both reprimanded like such when they were puppies, and now they are incredibly well behaved and happy dogs. They get complimented all the time.

[Miamipuck]

Yep, you just have to keep reinforcing good behavior and they eventually will get it.

IMO, a smack on the derriere a once in a while in the beginning of training isn't the worst thing in the world. It gets the thought in the dog's head that there are consequences for negative behaviors. Providing them with treats for behaving well can encourage them to continue to do so. Just keep in mind, you don't want to smack them to hurt them...that's why you go for the derriere and typically do it just hard enough to get their attention. If you make your dog yelp or scared of you, you're smacking them way too hard.

Of course, there will be some that disagree and claim that smacking a dog is cruelty, no matter how soft/hard. To those people I say GFY. This one cuntbag that worked with 6 years ago was incredibly irate when she heard I reprimanded my puppy by smacking her derriere. She proceeded to cry and claim that it was abuse, and that the only way to train a dog is through positive reinforcement. Problem with that is, it's not nearly effective because the dog knows only what they should do, not what they should not do. I saw her with her dog at the company party at a local park later that summer. He was a disobedient little excrement. Go figure.

Both of my with dogs were both reprimanded like such when they were puppies, and now they are incredibly well behaved and happy dogs. They get complimented all the time.

Depends on the dog. My dog was the size of my palm when she was a puppy, how do you smack that? lol. I hit her once and regret it to this day, it wasn't hard but still.

My wife had all the battles, Tammy always thought she was the alpha female in the house so it was quite the funny incident when Karen would tell her to do something. Finally, Karen picked Tammy up and made her show her belly by putting her on he back. That worked for a little while, very little while. lol

[Johnny English]

Unlike children who will insist on having a mind of their own, dogs are generally programmed to want to please their pack leader, which is you. (Unless you get something like a husky or a ridgeback, in which case you'll have a bit of a battle convincing them that you're the pack leader. Seriously, don't get one of those unless you really know what you're doing with training dogs.) Once you've established the pecking order, there's very little negative reinforcement required.

A few tips I've learned from having dogs:

- Dogs have incredibly short memories. Telling them off for something they did ten minutes ago is at best pointless and at worst counterproductive, because they won't associate what they did with the punishment. You can only punish a dog as it is doing the thing you don't want it to.

- Dogs don't really do shame. I get very annoyed by people who say that they trained their dogs not to excrement in the house by rubbing its nose in it's mess. The dog has no clue what that means, it only knows that you're being a queynte to it. House training is incredibly easy and requires absolutely no negative reinforcement, the puppy wants to please and if it knows that it's going to get a treat for shitting outside when it was going to excrement anyway, happy days. You stop treating them for it very quickly, but they've already made the mental association of shitting outside=good and it never goes away.

- Use a crate, and use it properly. Crates are not for punishment, ever. The puppy will quickly learn to love his crate, it's his space that no-one else can go in where he's safe from the world to sleep. And he won't mess where he sleeps, so it's a fantastic tool for training him to last through the night. Speaking of which......

- .....when it comes to puppy bladders, one month = one hour. The muscles that control the bladder are still developing, for each month he has been alive he can hold his bladder for an hour while he's sleeping. That means that if you get your pup at eight weeks old (and you shouldn't take them away from their mother any earlier than that), you'll be getting up every two hours to start with to take him outside to pee.

Good luck. Dogs are all kinds of awesome. This one's mine at six weeks old:



And as he is today at four:

[klaximilian]

- Dogs don't really do shame. I get very annoyed by people who say that they trained their dogs not to excrement in the house by rubbing its nose in it's mess. The dog has no clue what that means, it only knows that you're being a queynte to it. House training is incredibly easy and requires absolutely no negative reinforcement, the puppy wants to please and if it knows that it's going to get a treat for shitting outside when it was going to excrement anyway, happy days. You stop treating them for it very quickly, but they've already made the mental association of shitting outside=good and it never goes away.

Agreed. Rubbing their face in their own excrement accomplishes nothing but establishing yourself as someone who doesn't have a clue what you're doing.

- Use a crate, and use it properly. Crates are not for punishment, ever. The puppy will quickly learn to love his crate, it's his space that no-one else can go in where he's safe from the world to sleep. And he won't mess where he sleeps, so it's a fantastic tool for training him to last through the night. Speaking of which......

Loved crate training. My lab goes in there from time to time on her own like it's her second home. Unfortunately for her, we're going to break it down because she's been completely trained for months now and we need the extra space. The crate is rather large.

- .....when it comes to puppy bladders, one month = one hour. The muscles that control the bladder are still developing, for each month he has been alive he can hold his bladder for an hour while he's sleeping. That means that if you get your pup at eight weeks old (and you shouldn't take them away from their mother any earlier than that), you'll be getting up every two hours to start with to take him outside to pee.

Never thought of it this way, just that they progressively get better at holding it as they age. Is there proof to this one month=one hour theory?

Good luck. Dogs are all kinds of awesome. This one's mine at six weeks old:



And as he is today at four:

Beautiful little fella you have there.

[klaximilian]

Depends on the dog. My dog was the size of my palm when she was a puppy, how do you smack that? lol. I hit her once and regret it to this day, it wasn't hard but still.

My wife had all the battles, Tammy always thought she was the alpha female in the house so it was quite the funny incident when Karen would tell her to do something. Finally, Karen picked Tammy up and made her show her belly by putting her on he back. That worked for a little while, very little while. lol

flick her.

[Badger]

My downstairs neighbors have some sort of German Shepherd mix, and it's a complete piece of excrement. On a semi-regular basis he'll have long fits of barking/crying when they leave him in the apartment. They've started as early as 6 AM and gone as late as 3 AM. It sounds like he's in a crate too, because he thrashes around in it/bangs it against the wall.

My wife told the landlord about it, he didn't even know they got a dog but apparently hadn't received any other complaints or had any other problems with them so he's not really willing to do anything. He said we could leave them a note, so we did, letting them know the noise was disruptive and included an article about how to deal with separation anxiety in dogs. That was a few months ago, and the situation never really improved so we filed a noise complaint with the DEP.

All in all it's just a shitty dog with stupid owners. And a few weeks ago we noticed them walking a second, smaller dog so we're not sure if they got a second one or if they were just dogsitting. It would be pretty unbelievable if they felt like they were doing a good enough job to get another one.

[Fenwyr]

I can't put a price on Tammy. I never had a kid because of life circumstances and she is every bit of that in my eyes and couldn't care less how ridiculous that may sound.

Lost my best friend of 13 years in 2011.  A siamese mutt of a cat.  I still think about him everyday.

[Fenwyr]

And for that, you're a great pet owner. I know some who keep the pet around while suffering for years just to make themselves feel better. They are in denial and say, "oh but I can tell my pet is still happy when they do (this) once a day/week/month"

Some people weren't meant to be pet owners. Part of it is being responsible and passionate enough to know when to pull the plug, rather than keep the pet around through years of agony for their own selfish reasons.

You just made me feel bad for giving my cat insulin shots for 4 years as he withered away.  Thanks.

[klaximilian]

You just made me feel bad for giving my cat insulin shots for 4 years as he withered away.  Thanks.

It's not as bad as letting cancerous tumors infest his body from the inside out for 4 years. A little perspective....

[Fenwyr]

- Use a crate, and use it properly. Crates are not for punishment, ever. The puppy will quickly learn to love his crate, it's his space that no-one else can go in where he's safe from the world to sleep. And he won't mess where he sleeps, so it's a fantastic tool for training him to last through the night. Speaking of which......

Best advice so far in this thread.

[Miamipuck]

You just made me feel bad for giving my cat insulin shots for 4 years as he withered away.  Thanks.

That's totally different. Diabetes isn't necessarily a painful disease, it can be, but it's treatable. You were totally cool doing that. I would love for it to be diabetes rather than Cancer and chemo. That's more than likely a whole other ballgame. It can be a lonely painful process and I don't want that for Tammy.

[klaximilian]

[guinness77]

My downstairs neighbors have some sort of German Shepherd mix, and it's a complete piece of excrement. On a semi-regular basis he'll have long fits of barking/crying when they leave him in the apartment. They've started as early as 6 AM and gone as late as 3 AM. It sounds like he's in a crate too, because he thrashes around in it/bangs it against the wall.

My wife told the landlord about it, he didn't even know they got a dog but apparently hadn't received any other complaints or had any other problems with them so he's not really willing to do anything. He said we could leave them a note, so we did, letting them know the noise was disruptive and included an article about how to deal with separation anxiety in dogs. That was a few months ago, and the situation never really improved so we filed a noise complaint with the DEP.

All in all it's just a shitty dog with stupid owners. And a few weeks ago we noticed them walking a second, smaller dog so we're not sure if they got a second one or if they were just dogsitting. It would be pretty unbelievable if they felt like they were doing a good enough job to get another one.

The dog is not a piece of excrement. Its owners are.

[guinness77]

Unlike children who will insist on having a mind of their own, dogs are generally programmed to want to please their pack leader, which is you. (Unless you get something like a husky or a ridgeback, in which case you'll have a bit of a battle convincing them that you're the pack leader. Seriously, don't get one of those unless you really know what you're doing with training dogs.) Once you've established the pecking order, there's very little negative reinforcement required.

A few tips I've learned from having dogs:

- Dogs have incredibly short memories. Telling them off for something they did ten minutes ago is at best pointless and at worst counterproductive, because they won't associate what they did with the punishment. You can only punish a dog as it is doing the thing you don't want it to.

- Dogs don't really do shame. I get very annoyed by people who say that they trained their dogs not to excrement in the house by rubbing its nose in it's mess. The dog has no clue what that means, it only knows that you're being a queynte to it. House training is incredibly easy and requires absolutely no negative reinforcement, the puppy wants to please and if it knows that it's going to get a treat for shitting outside when it was going to excrement anyway, happy days. You stop treating them for it very quickly, but they've already made the mental association of shitting outside=good and it never goes away.

- Use a crate, and use it properly. Crates are not for punishment, ever. The puppy will quickly learn to love his crate, it's his space that no-one else can go in where he's safe from the world to sleep. And he won't mess where he sleeps, so it's a fantastic tool for training him to last through the night. Speaking of which......

- .....when it comes to puppy bladders, one month = one hour. The muscles that control the bladder are still developing, for each month he has been alive he can hold his bladder for an hour while he's sleeping. That means that if you get your pup at eight weeks old (and you shouldn't take them away from their mother any earlier than that), you'll be getting up every two hours to start with to take him outside to pee.

Great post. That pack leader stuff is nail hitting head. My Shepherd still has a problem being "off guard" and sometimes I have to remind her "relax. I got this." It's her general instincts to be the pack leader, they are bred for it, but it took awhile but she understands now.

[Miamipuck]

Great post. That pack leader stuff is nail hitting head. My Shepherd still has a problem being "off guard" and sometimes I have to remind her "relax. I got this." It's her general instincts to be the pack leader, they are bred for it, but it took awhile but she understands now.

Female shepherds lol. I had a great female shepherd that literally got off scaring people. She would let people in the house no problem, she would patrol them and if they got up she would run over and growl. It was freaking awesome.