"Housebreaking Dog"

The absolute first thing your puppy must learn is housebreaking: No, no, you don’t teach your dog how to break into your house when you forget your keys. Housebreaking means he must learn where and when he may do his business.

Besides being substantially advantageous to the hygiene of your household, dogs benefit from having rules and a routine – as pack animals, they look for duties issued by the pack leader and naturally enjoy keeping schedules. Here are the steps to housebreaking your dog:

1. The best age to begin housebreaking your puppy is between 8 and 12 weeks old.

2. Experts suggest incorporating a crate in a young dog’s training process. (To housebreak an older dog, skip this section.) A crate usually resembles a cage, with a locking door and see-through bars, and should be big enough for the dog to move around in. While it sounds like a miniature jail cell, crates should not be used to punish your puppy. The idea is to make the crate into a doggy bedroom – someplace where your puppy can play and sleep. He should never be confined in his crate for more than two hours at a time. Read more…

“Dog Training Book”

Does your dog need a good seeing to? Does he act inappropriately? Those are just a couple of questions many people are answering in dog training books. Hundred of people are writing books on dog training as it is such a big market. Many people struggle to train their dogs on their own and people love the fact that they can make a profit out of it. I’m not saying that it is wrong to write a dog training book and charge for it, it’s good that there are book resources available.

There are people writing dog training books that have never actually owned a dog and the nonsense they blether is quite funny but then you get the serious writers. People that have had about 30 years of dog training experience are putting their knowledge onto paper and making it available to the whole world which is fantastic. Many people need guidance when it comes to teaching their dog basic training and books are a great way to learn. You just have to be careful you are purchasing a book from a genuine dog trainer and not someone who can paint a pretty simple picture of dog training, because a pretty simple picture is not what dog training is about.

One of my favourite books was “Help! My dog has an attitude” written by Gwen Bohnenkamp. This book is an excellent read and full of great tips and advice. She tells you about the problems that dogs are facing in an ever growing scary world and the pressures it puts on dogs, whether it are trains that are rushing past, cars that are coming to close or even the drain in the middle of the street making that funny loud gurgling noise! There is one thing about her book, it makes you realise that a lot of a dog problems are made by us, we drive our dogs to do these things but we are oblivious to it, thank goodness she doesn’t make you feel guilty about it though!
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