Quote:
Originally Posted by MissSunni  Wow, YorkietalkJilly! That was great information. Thank you very much for taking the time to go into such a good explanation and hopefully a plan. What you said makes a lot of sense to me. I guess there is no fast way to train a puppy the right way. I'm really not in an extreme hurry, but I know there are a few important commands that are for her safety more then my convenience. Come, stop and no are the ones that come to mind. On another note, she and my other dog were home alone for much longer then I expected tonight, and she didn't have any potty accidents. She went on her pad by the back door, which is also her outside door. She seems to have that one pretty well now. I think, lol. Time will tell. |
Good for her, coming along on her housebreaking. Sorry the training use the male pronoun and reference. My dog is a male and I'm so used to dealing with him, I habitually fall into referring to dogs in that gender - a bad oversight when the dog in question is such a darling little girl!
Obedience training a dog can repay you literally 1000-fold for its whole life, especially if the dog tends to be hyper, anxious or dominant in nature, traits that begin to show themselves as the dog settles in to its new home and grow into its persona. Simple obedience training that teaches your dog, through a series of command and trick-training sessions - 2 -3 X 5 mins. each day - that obeying you is an automatic response and brings her her best life by keeping you happy - will make for a great, happy, playful, willful, impish but well-behaved pet. Trust me, a terrier will still have all the attitude and terrier qualities of a non-trained dog, it's just that she will be able to control it once you've had enough! My Tibbe is well-trained but still has plenty of fire and all the sass-back in the world, trust me!
In the process of the fun training, the dog learns that obeying you brings her good things, fun times(training and rewards are fun!), happiness, satisfaction as she learns to control her impulses and complete her task, food and happy praise rewards, gives her confidence and pride, helps her see you as a benevolent leader to be trusted and respected and she will learn to love the good feelings that flow in her brain when she gets it right and sees your pride and happiness in your face and demeanor.
When you train your dog, you're not always yelling at them "no!", "stop!", "don't!" for the rest of their lives - the dog is under control, controls its wilder impulses, rarely misbehaves and if she's doing something you don't like, a simple look or pointing of your finger is often all it takes to stop them and certainly an "uh oh" or "no" is sufficient. Teach her to stop and stay in place until you give the release command, drop it on command, leave it, sit up, lie down, rollover, high-five, handshake, sit up and beg, bark on command, go quiet on command, growl on command, wait at the door without going out until you give the release command and to do all of that inside and outside, for starters and you will thank yourself for doing it all along the road of your lives together.