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Originally Posted by alaskayorkie  Yes! I have understood the importance for a while but it's rarely presented so eloquently. Thanks! Sticky!
Question for you: Is this true for all breeds? |
Not really, as far as my training goes with the large breeds. We tend to place at 8 to 10 wks old, and usually pups at that time weigh 15- 20 or more pounds.
The bitch has usually weaned by at least 6wks old, and trust me, she is pretty adamant about that. And yes she disciplines her pups, and teaches bite inhibition from a very young age, somewhere around 4 1/2 wks old it starts.
It is very important to place the dogs while they are relatively young into the owners home, for training and socialization to their family. And for the bonding to happen.
We at least the responsible breeders of a large guard breed are very very selective for our pups homes. Usually we have training requirements built into the contract, and trust me we do follow up a lot, at least for the first three years.
You need to understand that it is much much easier to teach a young and relatively light dog to heel on a leash, to not jump up, etc. We teach as breeders come, sit, and usually all pups are already acclimatized to a leash and collar prior to going home.
And they are already 90% the way to house broken, by the time they go home.
With in one wk of Magic coming home he was fully house broken to our home.
As a working breed, they are mouthy! Most good working breeds are as young pups. And you spend a lot of time helping them not to "mouth" your hand. Mostly they just love you so much they want to munch on you.
Of course you need to train this out of the young pup .
WE spend a lot of time making sure our large dogs won't jump up on citizens, mouth citizens, go into attack mode at any provocation. WE also through our training make sure that big boy knows who is the boss, and will obey our commands.
Magic and I from the time he was 12 wks old spent 3x a week training in obedience until he was about 2.5 yrs old. He was and is what is called a "hard" dog. This descriptive is both a compliment and a whole lot of caution with it. A hard dog, once trained is the ultimate obedience and guard dog; but getting there is going to take a whole lot of time.
There is no physical discipline in the world that will correct a "hard' dog, they don't and won't recognize it. Instead you need to find your way in, delicately, judiciously and with much trial and error.
You need to do physical correction only when necessary, and believe you me, this breed judges what is necessary or not. And by physical correction I mean a quick snap which is likened to you putting your finger in their neck and a quick push. You need to always "make" them listen. That means come means come. Stay means Stay. And stop means stop
This training started at my breeders and continued with me from the time he was 8wks old.
So in summary ... gosh I wrote a bible, but no larger breeds have different needs to the YT and one size fits all placebo, just doesn't fit.
We usually have trainers we can refer to, if the buyer is too far away from us, to help the new owner with training the BRT.