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Originally Posted by Goddess537 I have been reading your posts which are very informative. I am so glad I came across this message board. I just got my first yorkie, Chloe, 2 days ago. She's a little thing, just about 12 weeks old. I am wondering at what age you all started training your pups at?
Jessica, NJ |
Congradulations! That's wonderful! Welcome to the wonderful world of Yorkies! Once Chloe is adjusted to your home, you can start training immediatly. With a young dog, keep sessions SHORT (five minutes tops), always end on a good note, and keep it light and fun. Incorporate training into playing and games so that your dog doesnt' know the difference between what is play and what is work. You'll find that Chloe will pick up what you are trying to teach her quicker this way and she'll learn to love to work for you. That book I recommended "Building Blocks for Performance" is specifically focused on training young dogs. I beleive it is published by Alpine Books (they have thier own website) but it is probably also available at
http://www.dogwise.com
Currently have three dogs. My agility yorkie who was adopted from an animal shelter at three, a show dog who was purchased from the breeder at four months and a geriatric poodle who was adopted from Poodle rescue at nine years! The Poodle, admittedly doesnt' get a heck of a lot of training but that's mostly because he is very sedate, slightly blind, toothless, and is happiest sitting on the sofa watching football with my father. For him, training was mostly focused on housebreaking (he had lived in a kennel his entire life) and getting him desensitized to all the strange things and going-ons of a a household (when we got him, we soon discovered he had no idea what even GRASS was!). The agility dog and the show dog were trained almost as soon as they moved in. With the show dog, who was only a puppy, I followed the advice I just mentioned. Take it slow and make it fun.