10 Things You (And Your Puppy) Should Learn in Puppy Preschool
By Dr. Roz Rowen.
The first few months of your puppy’s life are crucial in setting them up with key life skills to cope in our crazy world. Most owners’ frustrations with their pets comes from not setting them up from the outset to understand the human world and how they are expected to fit into it. Here are my top tips for working with puppies and choosing a puppy school.
Know Your Breed:
Many new pet owners choose dogs based on size and appearance but don’t always understand the history of the breed and what they were bred for. This is critical to ensure you are meeting their needs daily. For example, Jack Russell Terriers, while small and often chosen for being apartment dogs, are a high energy working breed used on farms to control rat and mice populations and work with livestock. Many behavioural problems often stem from these dogs needing these instinctual behaviours met for mental and physical enrichment.
Basic Needs:
It is important to understand the basic needs of dogs include:
Puppy Diet:
We know your puppy is looking at your dinner with the biggest, cutest eyes and we know it can be hard to say no. However, puppies need a special diet to keep them healthy in their first months of life and to meet their developmental needs. Puppies have a higher requirement for calcium, phosphorous, Vitamins A,C, E and K and fats than adult dogs. This is because they are growing, and we need to feed for this growth. This then will set them up for health as they transition into adulthood. We HIGHLY recommend a fresh food diet consisting of quality muscle meat, organs, vegetables, herbs, nuts, seeds, vitamins and minerals – not highly processed kibble. Puppies should be fed 3-4 times daily until 12 months of age (depending on size). Their tummies are growing and smaller meals supports healthy digestion and optimal caloric intake.
How to Toilet Train:
No matter how vigilant you are about your new puppy’s toilet routine, they are going to have a few accidents. Some of the accidents will be easy to clean up, whereas others may occur on less fortunate surfaces such as carpet, on a discarded shirt, or behind a door. It’s important to remember, however, that your dog is learning. Rome wasn’t built in a day and nor will your puppy learn toilet etiquette overnight. If your dog can’t easily go outside to toilet, offering toilet time after waking, food, water and play is a great way to speed up the process.
Socialization:
If you plan on letting your dog spend time around other dogs, animals, or small children, you need to socialise your puppy early in a slow and controlled way. Don’t just go overwhelming them, shoving them in lots of peoples’ arms and unfamiliar places. Puppy preschool is the perfect opportunity for puppies to meet and socialise with other puppies in a safe, controlled environment. They will have the chance to play, explore, and sniff to their heart’s content, and they will graduate puppy preschool with the basics in interacting with other dogs. However, most of this socialisation should be done by you in the first 6-12 months with short, positive interactions with different people, places, objects and animals.
Below are my top tips that you should be learning when picking a puppy school. If they have large class numbers, aren’t qualified, just want to talk about medications or use words like dominance, shock collars, command, alpha roll and control – they probably aren’t up-to-date with current ethical dog training methods and I’D RUN!
Co-operative Care:
Sit, stay, beg, rollover and heel are completely USELESS training commands that really serve no purpose to helping your dog cope in the human world. We highly recommend working with highly trained positive reinforcement trainers that understand how to teach co-operative care.
Calmness:
Most dogs these days are hyper-aroused and overstimulated by their busy home environment. Teaching your dog to relax and watch the world around them pass by without barking, chasing, stressing is a critical life skill. It’s also calming for humans too!
Loose Lead Walking and Re-call:
Having a dog that walks without pulling and that can come back when you call are essential. They are practical and mean you can do more with your dog. A beg and rollover can’t do that. We think heeling is old-school and actually can cause physical issues. Allowing your dog to use its natural gait to explore is more up our alley.
Humane equipment:
Whips, chains and shock collars don’t excite me! We’re built on the welfare of animals and science. We’ve read pro-aversive studies and they are so floored we fell through it. Put yourself in your pet’s paws. How do you like to learn new things? Through exploring, at your own pace, being guided kindly and rewarded when you do a good job or punished when you don’t get it right the first go?
We love harnesses that allow full body movement such as the brands NAKED, Anny-X and 3m or longer leads so your dog can sniff, sniff, sniff. Remember we can shorten a long lead, but we can’t lengthen a short lead.
Separation Anxiety Management:
For the first 8-12 weeks of a puppy’s life, they are constantly surrounded by others, most likely their parents and siblings. So, when all of a sudden they are alone in a home because you have to go to work, they are going to be scared, anxious, and upset. This could mean barking, peeing all over the house, escaping the yard, or destroying your property. Separation anxiety management is one of the most underrated skills you can teach your puppy in the early weeks of their life.
The puppy school you choose should teach you skills for managing separation anxiety such as counterconditioning, providing mental stimulation for when you’re away, and creating a relaxing environment for your puppy within the house.
Need more help?
Join our online community for ongoing support and guidance! Dr. Roz Rowen is an animal naturopath and homeopathic vet nurse. Learn more about Dr. Roz and help get your pet’s health on the right track. http://www.australianpetnutrition.com.au
