New Puppy!

Do you know what the most frequent questions are, here at Brilliant Family Dog?

“How can I stop my puppy biting?” and

 “My puppy is crying all night - how will we ever sleep again?”

And I find in the course of answering these queries - not to mention my experiences from ten years of puppy classes! - that there are many things new puppy-owners just have no idea about. And life would be so much easier if they only knew!

See, for example, what Lisa said about her new Collie x puppy after asking my advice:

“Your advice and encouragement are invaluable! I felt so lost on Monday … it's only Wednesday and it's like a whole different world opened up! Thank you Thank you THANK YOU!”

So I’ve put fingers to keyboard and added another book to the Brilliant Family Dog series of how-to books, designed specially for the ordinary dog-owner in the street - that’s you, most probably. Most people aren’t looking to compete with their dogs, or turn them into performance dogs of some kind.

Most people just want a Brilliant Family Dog they can take anywhere, that will enhance their family lives … not make them ten times worse!

So I’ve written this book with this very much at the front of my mind. You won’t find endless scientific hypotheses, lengthy training programs, or explanations of what is normal for a puppy without telling you what on earth to do about it.

Instead, it tells you what you need to know, and doesn’t waste your time on stuff you don’t need to get confused by.

You get solid advice from the front line. Apart from the thousands of puppies I’ve had the privilege to work with down the years - in classes, on group walks and boarding in my home - there are my own many dogs who all started out with me as young pups.

Every dog is different, and every dog is valuable. Every family is different too - and you are just as valuable! So getting this “marriage” to work needs attention from the outset.

So often a puppy comes into a new home - it’s all excitement and craziness. There’s little structure, and sometimes not so much understanding. Love is wonderful … but you need to be armed with more than love to survive those early weeks without losing your sanity, or your cool - or turning your puppy into a “naughty dog”.

Once you “know your enemy”, you can manage your household in such a way that your puppy never gets to do anything you don’t like! Imagine that! And yes, it is possible.

If your home so far has resembled a war zone, with possessions destroyed, carpets ruined, and garden looking like a building site, it’s only because you don’t yet know this stuff. Get yourself the book - preferably before your next puppy arrives in your home! - and Be Prepared.

And if you have no puppy plans right now, this book would make a marvellous present for someone who’s about to get a puppy, or someone who has those bleeding hands, ripped sleeves, and bags under the eyes that show that they are battling with a fluffy little monster with horns and a forked tail, aka their new puppy.

What’s in the book?

• Sleep - yours, and your puppy’s

• Biting - sleeves, children, furniture

• Puppies and children

• Socialisation - just what does it mean?

• Exercise - how often? How much?

• Feeding - how often? How much? What to feed?

• Jumping up! - Simple step-by-steps to change this

• Housetraining - guaranteed recipe for success

• Stealing and running off and other irksome habits

• Choosing a puppy - the three key stages

And lots of free resources for the new puppy-owner

Go and check out this page now where you can choose ebook or paperback. And if you live in an Amazon-free zone (they do exist, I’m told!) you can ask your local bookshop to order it. It’s currently at a super-reasonable introductory price.

Why should I pay for training my dog?

Well, this is a question I hear a LOT!

And it’s a bit puzzling to me. I’m sure that many of those who query a cost on dog training are happy to pay their dentist or their doctor, their pharmacist or hairdresser. They buy clothes and food from shops …

Imagine if they stood at the supermarket checkout saying “I can’t afford this at the moment, so either give it to me free or we won’t eat till next month”!

It’s a question of priorities really. You got yourself a dog. And you’re expecting it to train itself. All those things that annoy you about your dog are not figuring in your list of priorities to fix.

But is this a short-term thought?

The sooner you get to grips with your new puppy, or any newly-developed thing your dog is doing that you don’t like - the faster you can fix it. For a puppy and a new rescue you have to invest a lot of time in the early months. And your older resident dog? You’ll have to pick up on any new thing he’s doing and decide straight away what to do about it.

I know there are a lot of expenses with a new puppy. But people happily cough up large sums at the vet, possibly paying for a monthly program. The purchase price of the dog (especially if it’s one of the popular breeds or a “designer” crossbreed) can be very high. They pay loads for insurance, more for kennelling for holidays, they buy expensive beds and toys, get good food … but for some reason I can’t fathom, think that while their puppy won’t vaccinate himself, shop for himself, or pay his own insurance - he can train himself!

The hidden costs of failing to train your dog

Perhaps if people could see what they’re risking by missing out on this, they may move puppy training from “maybe” to “essential and urgent”.

It’s not just a question of having a dog who is a good citizen, doesn’t upset neighbours or other dogs, can be trusted round your food and belongings, and is not under your feet all day annoying you. There are real costs involved in abdicating your responsibility in this.

Hear what Laura had to say:

“As the manager of a busy veterinary practice, I’ve seen countless examples of how training can mean life or death to a dog. The most obvious examples are the dogs hit by cars because they haven’t been taught a reliable recall. It’s always heartbreaking, and especially traumatic for the owners who watch in horror as their beloved pet is hit by a car.”

She lists lots of examples of occasions where simple training could have saved the pet’s life - and saved possibly thousands in vet care.

“I remember Jake, the young Golden Retriever who got out of the yard when one of the kids left the gate open, and was hit by car. We did all we could to try to save him, but his injuries were too severe, and the owner ultimately had to make the decision to end his suffering. We all cried as we put him to sleep.”

“Then there are the euthanasias after a bite. These often involve children, and are gut-wrenching because of how preventable they usually are. In almost every case, the owner says that the bite “came with no warning”, but we know that actually there’s always signs that weren’t recognized. The body language that says clearly, “I don’t like what this child is doing to me,” or the averted gaze that says, “I’m anxious and feel threatened”.  Often the owners tell a story of escalating aggressive behavior that was unrecognized or excused until something tragic happened. Behavior that could have been much more easily handled had it been addressed at the start.”

Want to know how I teach my own puppies?

Here’s a taster course for you!

She is so right!

It can be simple to deal with what people perceive as aggression if we trainers are invited in to help. But we can’t do it by thought transference! We have to show you.

Here’s a great story from Laura that had a happy ending:

“We treated a young Lhasa Apso who growled when his owner tried to get him off the bed, or when anyone came near his food or water bowl. The vet tried to convince the owner that Jack needed training to address these behaviors. The owner would say, ‘Jack is a good boy. He just doesn’t like some things’. Unfortunately the owner’s grandchild tried to lie down on the sofa near him one day, and Jack bit her on the lip. She required sutures, and Jack was brought in to our hospital the next day to be put to sleep for aggression. He was adopted by our lead vet and after a few months of training, he became the favorite “example” dog at the puppy training classes. Unfortunately, they don’t all have happy endings like this one.“

It just shows that a bit of knowledge of how to train a dog can turn even the most serious cases round. But why wait till your child is bitten? Why not teach your dog AND your children how to behave round each other from the start?

Bites cost money

And you should know that if your dog does bite someone, it could end up costing you a massive amount of money in legal fees and fines. In UK law a dog doesn’t even have to bite! It’s enough for them just to frighten someone. Your dog could be taken away from you and killed because you didn’t understand him and his motivation.

This sort of expense far outweighs the costs of some simple training! Not to mention the distress all round.

Accidents in the home

You don’t even have to venture out to find that a little training could save a lot of upset and sadness for your family and your dog - and even save your dog’s life.

Debbie the animal first aid trainer told me of:

“A Jack Russell who was a window barker - he got caught in the blinds and hanged himself.”

What a thing to come home to …

Then there was the bin-raider Debbie came across who ate a cooked chicken carcase and got a blockage - this is a life-or-death issue, and the vet treatment will be urgent and costly.

What training would have saved all these dogs?

  • Recall is an obvious one. It’s not just a question of yelling the dog’s name and expecting a result - it has to be taught methodically!

•    Correct socialisation with children, management, and education about this new species in your home for the whole family.

  •    Resource Guarding: can easily be made worse by the owner if they plump for a method they saw on the internet that involves challenging the dog and coercion. It’s a simple issue when you know how!

  •    Window-barking can be quickly solved by a bit of in-home management and Impulse Control training for the dog.

•    And stealing, countersurfing, hoovering - all can be fixed with teaching Impulse Control, and the owner learning to read their dog and manage situations safely.

Should I push dog training up my to-do list?

From all this you should be able to see that there is a real material value to training your dog! Not only will she become more amenable in the house and on walks, more fun, more rewarding, more entertaining for the children, but you should avoid the catastrophes listed above.

You don’t hesitate to get schooling for your child. Why should your dog not get the same courtesy and privilege?

A quick Google search will reveal that the costs of employing a professional force-free dog trainer - whether in group classes, 1-1 consultations, or online courses - is a lot less than you may expect. In most cases it’s much less than what you pay to have your car or your teeth serviced, much less than the purchase price of your dog, and sometimes cheaper than the fancy bed you bought!

So have sense and include dog training in your list of outgoings, before your dog makes your life an emotional and financial misery. And do keep in mind that dog trainers - like plumbers, mechanics, and doctors - need to eat and pay rent, and deserve a decent return for all the training and study they’ve put in.

If you like playing Russian Roulette, carry on saying you can’t afford training

But when you can remove all the petty annoyances so easily - not to mention the major disasters - resulting from lack of training, you’ll all enjoy a much better life with your dog.

New dog? Resident dog creating difficulties? 

Here's your course

Helping your young dog understand our world

I was standing in our local high street with my puppy, just watching the world go by.

We saw people, children, dogs, wheelchairs, cars, vans, and a very interesting pigeon on the pavement a few yards from us. Coco studied this for a while and I gave him plenty of time to look at it, ensuring his lead was slack. Whenever he seemed more than curious, I’d feed him for not reacting. We were taking everything in our stride …

UNTIL this pleasant episode was interrupted by shouting. A woman was walking down the wide pavement, yanking the lead of her dog. She shouted “LEAVE IT!!” and yanked again. As far as I could see the dog was quite surprised by this.

She marched on, towards us and the pigeon. The friendly-looking young dog looked towards my pup - YANK! “LEAVE IT!!”

Then he made the mistake of glancing towards the pigeon YANKYANK SHAKE “LEAVE IT!!!”

By now the poor dog was straining on his lead to get as far away from his owner as possible. She stopped, gave the lead an almighty yank and hoisted the dog off his feet, once more yelling “LEAVE IT!!”

I wonder if that dog had any idea what “Leave it” meant?

What I do know is that a naturally curious young dog was being abused and punished for … what? Showing interest in his surroundings. 

This is exactly what I had brought my young dog out to do!

•  It’s very sad that anyone should treat another creature in this way.

•  It’s more sad that the dog was doing nothing wrong.

•  Sadder still that his owner seems to think this is the way to teach.

•  And saddest of all? He is stuck with this short-tempered, unenlightened owner.

We can’t reach everyone, but by our example we can hope to change attitudes, one dog at a time

To get a flying start at this, get our free 8-part email course which gives you “training recipes” for changing things you don’t like, and encouraging the things you do like in your dog

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Puppy gear - what do you really need?

.. and what you really don’t need to waste your money on

You’re getting your new puppy any minute - exciting! You’re looking forward to enjoying quiet nights, a nice clean home, happy laughing children playing with the puppy.

But is it possible you’re underestimating the amount of work involved in rearing this new fluffball? Are you perhaps anxious about “not getting it right”, and turning your house into a war zone where nobody gets any sleep and everything is chewed up?

Let’s plump for the first image - a happy home with the addition of a much-loved puppy. A bit of planning is needed to make this all work. You could go to a pet store and come out with hundreds of pounds’ worth of stuff - much of which will be useless to you.

But hey, I’ve been there before - many times! I’ve had many new puppies of my own to care for, and plenty of students’ puppies too. So I can show you how to get what you need to make this run as smoothly as possible, and avoid cluttering the place up with unnecessary purchases that get destroyed in short order.

It’s pointless, for instance, buying a smart expensive bed for your puppy till you know his chewing proclivities. Some pups chew, some don’t at all. Some are piranhas, some just suck and love their beds to death. Use any old blankets or towels you happen to have around to make a cosy nest. You can get a beautiful bed when you know it won’t be shredded.

Like fencing a field for your new livestock - you soon get to know what you are up against in terms of the escapability quotient of the boundary and the crushing strength of your puppy’s jaws. Till then, make sure that boundaries are stronger than you think, and watch carefully when you give your puppy anything to chew.

Get your free Guide to all the Puppy Gear you’ll need

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Download your free Guide to Puppy Gear and eliminate all this worry. It shows you just what you need - and what you don’t need.

Also check out these posts - which give you the inside track on how to use this kit:

Errorless Housetraining

How to use a puppy playpen

You’ll see from the Guide that the right sort of crate is essential to the whole system. Don’t get a soft crate. That fabric and zip will last 0 minutes if your puppy is an escapologist and tries to fight his way out. Start with a robust, good-quality crate with a metal pan, that will last for donkey’s years, and he’ll never even try to dig an escape tunnel. If you teach him kindly to love his crate, of course, he’ll never want to escape!

The same goes for toys. You can buy one specially for your new puppy, but the children may enjoy donating one of their old soft toys as a welcome gift. The local charity shop is where my supply of bears and monkeys come from. If it’s safe for a baby, it should be safe for your puppy. 

You’ll need a soft easily-adjustable collar to carry your puppy’s id disc. He may be microchipped, but you want to make it easy for anyone who finds him to return him to you fast. And I’d recommend using a body harness from the start so your puppy never learns to pull into a collar and choke himself.

Just as your children go through growth stages and need larger and possibly tougher clothing that fits, so your puppy will go through a few harnesses on his way to full maturity. This is an item that needs to fit snugly and safely, so don’t try to save money on this. If your puppy slips out of his collar or harness and ends up under a car you’ll see it was a false economy.

And skip the retractable lead - this article shows you all the horrors and dangers of one.

If you follow the Guide to Puppy Gear you’ll know you’re doing your best for your new companion while avoiding the mistakes that could cost you money. If you don’t get the right stuff to help you, you may end up with chewed furniture, wet carpets, a crying puppy, and no sleep - not a happy outcome!

Let’s get you started so that you have speedy housetraining, easy puppy compliance, and no chewing; quiet nights, nice clean home, and happy laughing children playing with your new puppy!

Get your free Guide to all the Puppy Gear you’ll need

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my puppy Coco was on the sick list

Poor Cocopup!

I remember it so clearly:  one minute he was having a fantastic game of catch the frisbee and chasing Cricket with her frisbee, the next minute a yawning chasm opened up before him, swallowed his front leg and twisted his shoulder.

The shrieking! Ow ow ow, he cried.

After a visit to the vet for x-rays, diagnosis and anti-inflammatories, he was sentenced to a few weeks’ bed rest.

For a young miniature poodle - poodles have everlasting energy, in case you didn’t know - this

was hard!

And inexplicable.

Easy peasy

But the whole thing was made easy because Coco loves his crate, takes himself there when tired, and knows to settle down as soon as he’s in it.

We also do a lot of matwork, regularly. This translates now to any mat or bed I point him to. He will stay there until released.

He got regular sessions with his very own Canine Massage Therapist to aid a fast recovery, which he absolutely loved.

So while I was working, he was stretched out on his bed beside me. When I couldn’t be paying attention he could go in his crate. I was able to achieve the bed rest prescribed by the vet without any stress on the part of my dog.

Or me.

Stress on top of injury

An injured dog is already stressed enough. Confining a dog who isn’t used to it could add a lot more anxiety and tension.

Of course Coco got out for garden visits, lap visits, and some trick training, aka therapy for the injured leg (“Take a Bow” gave him an excellent shoulder-stretch). But preventing him racing and playing with the other dogs was the hard part.

Soon we were able to graduate to short road walks.

It was a while before young Mr.Coco was joyfully chasing his frisbee again.

But at least the time passed calmly.

Could your dog do this?

You never know when you may need to keep your dog quiet for a period. Want to know how to get your dog to this calm, accepting state?

Go to Calm Down and get your free copy.

Now you can work through the steps and teach your dog how to relax - any time, any place, any how. It is an enjoyable method, gets super results, and makes life easier for all of us.

What’s not to love?!

 But why listen to me when you can see what readers think!

I love your books! Your simple, fun, and loving training methods are helping me make tremendous progress with my brilliant puppies. 

Mary Anne and her two Springer Spaniels, USA

AMAZON 5* review

This book is excellent and so clearly written my 7 year old is enjoying working through the stages with us. After two short training sessions our 9 week old pup is already lying on his mat as soon as I put it out. The author is clearly very knowledgable and when I emailed her a question I received a very informative personal reply. I have read books 2 and 3 in the series also and can honestly say they make training my pup an absolute pleasure for both of us.

Dianne and Ted, UK

Three dog trainers, two behaviour specialist vets, three vets ... and a six month old  terrier who thinks he’s a tiny pup, a fierce crocodile, and a bucking bronco. Went to purchase your book Calm Down! but got it for zero payment on Amazon. Read it, started training - immediate success. The difference has been amazing, pup is now snoozing near me, with a constant eye on me but definitely better! I want to send you a big, heartfelt thank you.

Ute and Gilbert, Germany

AMAZON 5* review

I bought Calm Down! before the arrival of my 8 week old puppy. In under 5 days I had him leaping onto the mat and lying down waiting for his treats. It was just amazing!

Reni and Rupert, Australia

I can honestly say your books have changed the lives of me and Bo. He loves nothing more than learning new things and playing games, he loved every single part of the process.

Cara and Bo

Your "Calm Down" book saved me. Literally! It's only been a week and she is a different dog, relaxed lying at my feet on her mat. I don't hate her any more and have allowed myself to bond with her. I really didn’t think this would ever happen as she was making my home life so stressed out.  Thank You!  

Peggy

A surprisingly easy and fun skill to teach!

So go get your book and get started!

My dog is busybusy all day long and never stops!

You may enjoy your dog keeping you company all day - but if your lifestyle is very active and busy you’re actually not helping him! Like toddlers, dogs need to have naps and calm periods built into their day. They are crepuscular beasties - which means they are most alert at twilight, their ancestral hunting time.

And just like toddlers, not getting these vital rest periods will result in disturbed behaviour. For your dog this means that he’s much shorter-tempered, easily agitated, hard to reason with.

This is making your life much harder than necessary! And if you are blessed with a Growly Dog who is already disposed to reactivity, fear, anxiety, or aggression, you can 10x that!

Plenty of ideas in this free 8-lesson email course for calming down your life with your dog!

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And as we know that stress is the silent killer for humans, so it can be for dogs, predisposing them to ailments that they are unable to resist.

I wrote about sleep and puppy-biting a while ago. And I’m revisiting this subject because it is SOOOO important, and so seldom understood!

So how can you curb your frantic dog’s activity and improve life for both of you?

Bedtimes

The first thing to do is establish sleeping areas in the home where your dog can sleep without being disturbed. So rather than letting your puppy crash where he runs out of steam, always transfer him to his crate or bed. Build these sleep-places into your day from the start.

Protected sleep times are also important to build in from Day 1. My dogs are all adult, and as I write they are all in or on various beds near me. They sleep while I work (lucky them!). This pattern of “when nothing’s happening you need to sleep” is carefully baked in from the day the puppy arrives with me.

A puppy who’s been awake for more than an hour or so needs to go to bed!

But you can still teach an older dog this way of life, even if there are established patterns of lunacy!

Teaching an older dog to rest

Here’s an extract from my book series Essential Skills for your Growly but Brilliant Family Dog which you can find here. I’m repeating it here because it illustrates so well how quickly you can influence some of your dog’s behaviours when you approach it the right way.

“I was visiting a very caring couple who had brought their young rescue collie Tim to classes when they first got him. I was glad they’d got in touch again, because the young dog was very fearful and couldn’t cope well with life. We arranged a visit.

While there, it became clear that this hyperactive dog was wearing himself out. For the first twenty minutes of my visit he never stopped. He raced in and out of the room, jumped up my front, my back, chewed my hair, poked the other dog, ran off again, paced … never rested.

So I quickly amended my training plan to include some relaxation work. After some active games to get Tim to engage with me, I started teaching him to slow down and relax. After just five minutes of this, his owner expressed amazement at seeing her frantic dog actually lying down still for more than ten seconds at a time!

When I finished the short session and released him, what did he do? Do you think he went straight back into busybusy mode, panting and racing?

Nope. He just slid onto the floor beside us, and as he lay there his head started to loll, his eyelids drooped, and he was … asleep!

To the total astonishment of his owner, who had never seen him sleep in the day!

So how much sleep should Tim be having?

Did you know that dogs need to have an average seventeen hours of sleep a day to work at their optimum level with the least amount of stress?

Seventeen hours.

I can hear you all saying, “My dog never sleeps that much.”

Well, it’s seventeen hours for adult dogs - obviously more for puppies. And some dogs need to be helped to achieve this total.

Tim had had a poor start in life before his present owners took him in and gave him a secure and loving home. So he’d developed habits of nervous and stressy behaviour which had stuck with him. Showing him how to relax transformed him in just a few short minutes and allowed him to get some much-needed rest.

His owners are carrying on this work with him, and it will make all the other things we have to teach him so much easier.”

Calm

Want to know what I did to relax this hyper dog? To get the exact program, work through the first book in the Essential Skills for a Brilliant Family Dog series: Calm Down! Step-by-Step to a Calm, Relaxed, and Brilliant Family Dog It’s free at all e-book stores, and also available in paperback online and you can order it from any good bookshop. Quite apart from the usefulness of this skill for any dog, anywhere, if you have a reactive dog it will hugely benefit him.

Be aware that teaching calm and relaxation is not teaching a stay exercise with the traditional stern shouting and finger-waving! (Although, curiously, you will get a solid stay as a result.)

The object is quite different - to change your dog’s mental state, not to anchor his physical position.

Learning how to switch off can also help with Separation Anxiety. If this is an area of distress for your dog, you could do with going through a whole protocol to make positive changes. This book by Patricia McConnell has a step-by-step program. It’s not an overnight fix, and few people in my experience can be bothered to resolve this issue for their poor dog - unless he’s destroying the house and defecating all over the carpet. But think how much happier you’ll all be if instead of agitated pacing when you’re out, you just get peaceful snoozing.

I’ll also mention the Relaxation Protocol. (These audios have been generously provided by Roxanne Hawn and are free to download.) This is a program which takes incremental steps from frantic non-resting dog to chilled-out dog with a lower heart-rate and dreamy feelings of comfort and relaxation.

It’s a simple program: you don’t have to do Day 1 only on Day 1 - repeat each “Day” till you have it right, then move on to the next “Day”. I choose to have the dog lying down for this - more conducive to dozing. It takes time, yes, but it’s time well spent helping your dog destress. You’ll feel as if you’ve had a relaxation session yourself when it’s over!

It’s worth getting started on it to help your dog access the calm side of his mind, which he may have lost sight of in his anxiety. Again, few people in my experience follow through on this and complete the cycle in several different places. But those who do get MASSIVE improvement! It’s especially useful for the never-resting dog, the hyper dog, the anxious or fearful dog, your Growly Dog.

For plenty more tips on getting the best out of your relationship with your dog, get this free 8-part email course

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