Dog training

Being a canine therapist, I'm constantly being asked, how to house train pups. I'm a therapist not a trainer but I understand where they are coming from. I've had dogs all my life. Honestly, I cannot remember how I potty train my dogs. The most recent memory I have was to lay down newspaper all over in the kitchen then as the pup chooses her / his spot to pee, slowly remove the paper one by one day by day. It did work. Then eventually I moved the pup into the toilet, bought a pee pad and she just went there.

I must admit, it is easier when there is another older dog around the house when bringing home a new puppy. When we adopted our poogle, she was trained to pee on the rug. I don't understand why people teach their pups to pee on the rug because we have lots of rug in the house and the pup cannot understand which rug to pee! Worse if you have a carpet and they think it's ok to pee on that too! So out came the pee pads. At first she didn't know what she was suppose to do, then she slowly learned that she was suppose to do her business there, big and small, but she still peed on the rugs..what to do, what to do? Now what happened next was quite surprising. We have a 5 year old west highland terrier, male. He has stopped marking the house for 4 years. He only does his business outside, on his walks. I didn't realize this at the time, but this new puppy was observing and learning from him. Within a few months, she stopped doing her business indoors. She would hold her bladder until she got out, she would poo during her walks too! Eventually, the pee pad was made redundant and was kept away.

A year later, we adopted another dog. This time it was a Rottweiler. He was 6 months old when we got him. I admit, it was my husband that trained him. It didn't take him that long to train him. By this point we had moved to a house, with the house came a 10 year old boxer who was a family pet. She was trained to never go out of the house when the gate was opened. This was what the Rottweiler picked up. He's constantly watching the other older dogs and learning new things. He doesn't run out of the gate anymore when we come home. Of course, with learning new things, he also picks up the bad habits from the older dogs as well...they are after all like children. So, we will still need to discipline him not by beating him, but by stern words just like a child.

Ever heard of monkey see monkey do, well it applies to our dogs. :D Having one dog while is brings companionship to the human owner, taking another dog will bring joy to the house. It is true, dogs do keep each other company when the human owner is not around.

Our two adopted dogs and the youngest in our house.