GreatDanes Online

Shadow · Site Admin Joined: 15 Nov 2007 Posts: 26

BRINGING THE PUPPY HOME

Houses are made for people - not dogs - and so one of the first steps you need to take when you bring the puppy home to meet the rest of the family is to "puppy-proof" your house. Doing this beforehand can save a lot of frustration with your young canine. Puppies are forever running into and over things, and your crystal, glass and ceramic pieces will break, and anything is a toy to them. Electrical cords and scatter rugs are, from the puppy's perspective, wonderful teething opportunities.

If you plan to spend your time training and bonding with your pup instead of patching up one disaster after another, then pick up, put away, or restrict the pup's access to carpeting, doo-dads and hanging cords and tassels.

Training is really about timing, consistency and learning to shape your puppy's behavior. This can be done very simply through natural and gentle methods. Crate training dogs at any stage is the most effective and gentle way to form good behavior. Potty training dogs can seem like a negative and frustrating experience. Crate training however, if done correctly, can be a positive and rewarding experience. In properly crate training dogs you can control your puppy's or dog's environment so that he can't get into trouble. Right from the start you must bring yourself to understand how your puppy or dog is viewing things, and what actually forms puppy behavior. By understanding the canine mindset better, you can make the process a lot easier and faster, which in turn makes it a lot more fun and rewarding for both you and your beloved companion.

You should crate the puppy whenever you cannot supervise his activities. Some people will look at a standard dog crate made of metal or plastic and erroneously assume it's cruel to confine a dog to a small space. In fact, getting your puppy accustomed to a crate has many benefits for both of you. {t give a dog a sense of enclosed shelter and security, which it would seek in the wild. Many an adult dog still retreats to the relative peace and safety of his open crate when you have. Also it keeps a young dog from getting into unforeseen trouble when you're not around. You can use it as aid in housebreaking also. It is not an instant housebreaking solution. While it's generally true that a dog will not soil the place where he sleeps, it can take a while for a puppy to catch on to that idea. For that reason, for house training a puppy I prefer a plastic crate with nothing but the puppy in it - no toys, food or blankets. The plastic cleans up easily, and contains the mess until I can get to it.

Place it in a quiet area of the house and make sure that everyone else know when puppy is having quite time. Your dog will use it as a place to have a nap. After the puppy is potty trained you can add a blanket or something soft to sleep on. It’s best for both of you that he has a place to nap that isn’t under foot, out of eye range for him/her.

Getting the puppy used to napping in the carrier makes it easier when you travel also. The puppy won’t be as scared of the going inot the crate when it’s brought out. All you have to do, is close the door on him while he’s napping. It doesn’t get much easier than that.

In order to be successful at crate training dogs or puppies needs to be based on understanding natural puppy behavior. At first they don't understand what we're saying, they understand immediate consequence to action, whether good or bad, tone of voice, some body language, and they pick up on our emotions.

Dogs and puppies respond more quickly and more reliably to positive incentives than to fear or punishment. In many cases, these tactics actually cause behavioral problems and bring about the opposite behavior than we are trying to achieve. And in puppies, fear and punishment can and will damage your puppy's personality for life.

Crate training dogs allows you to control your puppy's environment and shape his puppy behavior in a positive way. Here are just a few tips you can implement for crate training dogs. Make sure puppy has a balance of crate time and activity time. Your puppy needs ample exercise to be healthy. This is an important part of crate training dogs and puppy potty training. Being in the crate too much will have a negative effect on his personality and puppy behavior

Your pup or dog will soon see his/her crate as a place of security if it's approached correctly. The crate and crate training dogs is an effective way for you to keep your puppy from engaging in, and forming a habit of several unwanted behaviors. The crate is NEVER to be used as a punishment. Introduce it gradually and gently; make the crate and his puppy potty training a positive, happy experience and your puppy will come to use his crate like Linus and his blanket.

While many dogs spend most of their lives indoors, outdoor shelters are certainly acceptable provided certain conditions are met. In my opinion, tying or chaining a dog to a stake with a kennel house nearby is not acceptable. The reasons I do not care for this approach are twofold. First, it leaves your dog vulnerable to theft or harm by strangers. Second, if your dog is teased or agitated by someone, it could bite or otherwise harm a person, as with Danes, they could break something very easily and really harm a person or other animal if teased enough.

Dogs have "fight or flight" instincts - if they feel threatened and can find no avenue out, they will almost certainly turn and attack. You may say, well and good, no one should be trespassing by your dog anyway. But the law will take a dim view of your dog's actions if a child or another innocent party is hurt - from a legal perspective, you did not take reasonable precautions to protect people on your property.

In my opinion, a proper outside kennel would consist of a six by ten foot concrete slab, at least 40 x 40 for Great Danes, surrounded by a chain link fence six to seven feet high with a chain link top. Inside the enclosure there should be a leak-proof, insulated house with a door the dog can easily pass through. And put a padlock on the chain link gate for people who might be visiting and decide to go in and pet the dogs. It's best if all of this is inside a fenced yard to keep people from coming by and sticking their hands in while you are not around. Also a fenced in yard prevents the dog from running out when you go in to clean and or feed and water, just in case someone new is in the yard. The older a dog gets the more likely it is to be very protective of its family, home and yard! You absolutely 'never' know what a dog is thinking, although it would be wonderful to be able to! Yes, it takes a lot of work and money, but that's how important it is for me to protect my dogs from urbanization and harm to them, others property or strangers of the dog. Someone can still come in and harm them when I'm gone, but at least I've taken reasonable precautions to avoid this.

taken from http://www.angelfire.com