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NAVIGATION
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Dogs & Puppies
Looking
After Your Puppy/Dog
Attachment/detachment
Things To Be Learnt
Feeding
Reproduction
Emergencies
Well-being
Health
Vaccinations
Looking
After Your Puppy/Dog
It is always a great
event when a puppy arrives in its host family. After often several
weeks of waiting, the newcomer is the centre of care and attention.
But, if these good relations are to last, you will have to make sure
that the situation of the puppy you have just acquired is one which
eases integration.
It is indeed these
first weeks of life together which, to a large extent, will set the
pattern for your pet’s behaviour in future years.
In particular, you
must avoid two big mistakes:
- thinking of the
animal as a human being as far as intellectual and emotional capacities
are concerned
- or, on the contrary,
acting as though it were no more than a machine, devoid of feeling
and of understanding
Your dog is a living
creature. In their natural environment, dogs live in groups with complex
hierarchical social rules. Its development is based on attachment,
and the first weeks are crucial for the rest of its life. This is
when it learns the basic features of its environment, and how to control
itself. The very long period of its dependence on its mother (or human
tutors) goes with its considerable learning capacity. It is able to
acquire social rituals favouring the harmony of the group and to forge
individual bonds with one or other members of it.
For dogs, communication
involves all of the senses (sight, smell, taste, hearing and touch).
It represents a blend of instinctive messages, reflexes and more complex
learned sequences combining posture, vocalisation and emission.
- Like all mammals,
a dog will adapt- several times in the course of its life, if
need be- to very different conditions, families and environments.
But do not forget that, whatever the circumstances, your companion
is always going to react as a dog, with a dog’s understanding
and a dog’s reflexes.
- Nor should you forget
that your pet is unique- an individual moulded by its parents,
birth, early environment, time spent with the mother, and all
its various experiences of life.
All of the general
rules which you are going to be given here will need to be adapted
to each individual case.
So are you aware
now of your dog’s complexity, richness and limits? If so, then, let
us see a few important points so as to avoid getting off on the wrong
foot.
Attachment/detachment
Your puppy has
no doubt only just left its mother, the primary object of its attachment.
- If it is less than
6 months old, then it is going to need someone to replace her.
And so it will choose a person who can provide warmth and comfort.
It will try to be always as close as possible to this person,
whose contact is a source of calm for it. It is vital that this
new attachment should be formed, for the pup to be able to set
off to discover this new world of yours.
- At about the age
of 6 months, the time of puberty, you will need to detach your
baby dog from you- not that this in any way means ceasing to love
it! What it means is simply helping it to replace its primary
attachment, which was necessary at the beginning, by an attachment
to the group as a whole, which will be vital for the rest of its
life. For this, what you need to do is to make sure that, in the
contacts between you and the little dog, the initiative comes
from you and not from the puppy. This will enable it to put up
with your being absent. And in this way it will not fall prey
to a certain all too common pathology: separation anxiety, causing
the dog to howl and ravage or foul the house when you are not
there. This pathology is now well known and easy to treat.
Things
To Be Learnt
Toilet training
Adopting a little
dog means accepting that you are going to be using a floor-mop for
a certain time. At the ideal age for adoption- around 8 or 9 weeks-
toilet-trained puppies are few and far between!
To expedite matters,
there are a few rules to follow, and especially some mistakes to avoid
making.
- Spot the right moment:
in very young pups, each and every meal, drink and awakening triggers
the need to "do its business". If you take your dog out right
then, you stand a good chance of being able to hand out a bit
of reinforcement (strokes) for business done in a place of your
choosing.
- Reward works better
than punishment! It does not need to be systematic in order to
be efficacious.
- Never punish your
puppy if you have not caught it "on the job". It might get afraid
of you. "Putting its nose in it" is not a punishment at all (you
will see that dogs quite happily do as much by themselves!) and
would not help it to know what you’re so cross about. It will,
of course, put on its "hang-dog" look - but so would it if you
scolded it when it had done nothing at all! It reacts to your
expression rather than to any fault it may have committed itself.
- Don’t use the "newspaper
method"! Learning twice over is just twice as hard. Take your
puppy out, as soon as it has been vaccinated. That way, it will
soon learn, and will never be afraid in the street.
- Don’t clean up its
business in front of it. It’s going to take that as a sign of
interest on your part.
Simple commands
If you are going to
get on well with your dog, you will need to train it in two types
of command: call and stop.
- Many a dog has been
saved from an accident by being able to obey these very simple
commands. In both cases, you should begin training your new friend
very early on. Education begins as soon as the puppy arrives in
your home.
- Use simple words,
and always the same ones. "Heel, Fido!" or "Rex, come!" will do
just as well one as the other, as long as you do not change them.
- The younger the
puppy, the more the training needs to be playful, and the shorter
the sessions should be: 5 minutes at a stretch for a 3 month-old.
- Rewarding is always
more effective.
- Disobedience is
very often due to not understanding. Words mean little to a dog,
so you should back them up with clear accompanying gestures which
it can learn and interpret more quickly.
- As regards the call,
never stand in front of your dog pointing at it and calling to
heel!
Advice
For the first lessons,
crouch, face away and call softly, tapping your thigh, "Come, boy!".
This makes you attractive for your puppy, who will come, and be delighted
to get a vigorous stroking as a reward.
Walking on a lead
Walking on a lead
does not mean much to a dog. You are going to have to teach it this
new relationship which binds it to its master or mistress.
- At first, you could
put the collar and lead on your puppy, and let it get used to
this little constraint.
- When you pull on
the lead, do so gently. Give some little tugs, calling your dog’s
attention by clicking your tongue. As soon as it follows the direction
of the lead, be it only for a yard or two, reward it with some
vigorous strokes.
- Once the puppy begins
to frisk alongside you on its lead, go on catching its attention
with lots of little sound signals, so as to get it used to making
regular visual contact with you. In this way, the physical leash
is backed up by a vocal tether.
- Keep the lead slack:
as soon as the puppy pulls, bring it back sharply to heel and
slacken the lead straight away again, accompanying your gesture
with always the same command: "Spot, here!" or "Flash, heel!".
As soon as the dog goes a few yards without tugging, give it a
stroke.
Advice
A tight leash is a
transmission line for emotions and may trigger undesirable reactions,
such as aggressiveness towards other dogs.
Taking your dog
out
- While taking all
necessary precautions not to expose it to pointless risks (places
soiled by animals you do not know and contact with unvaccinated
animals), do walk your dog as soon as possible. In all likelihood,
it is going to be spending its daily life in a completely different
environment from that in which it was born and spent the first
few weeks. To be truly at ease in its world, the puppy needs to
encounter it regularly by its 13th week (i.e., its 3 months).
- By walking your
dog, you thus let it avoid falling victim to the "deprivation
syndrome". This all too common behavioural affliction consists
in severe difficulty in adapting to urban life and intense fear
when in contact with strangers.
- Should your dog
seem unduly afraid when you first take it out, do not stroke it
for reassurance: you would be rewarding, and so reinforcing, its
fear! Just act as though nothing is wrong and start a game with
it by way of distraction. If this is just too hard and your puppy
is unable to respond to you in this way, do not hesitate to talk
things over with the Vet.
 Boundary
Vet Clinic 2004-2006
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KEEPING
PETS
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