Your expertise on puppy training please!

[Penguin_Toes]

Hello everyone

We are getting on really well with our whippet puppy, we are so pleased with him!

There are a few things I want to nail with him in the next few months and I would really appreciate knowing what your approaches would be as experienced dog owners

1. I've been working hard on his recall and it is completely consistent IF there is no other dog around, which is no good to anyone. How do I go about making it stronger, so that it can overcome exciting situations? I save gammon especially for recall training! Thank god he hasn't hassled any other dogs yet, but I'm worried about when he's older and bolder. I've been told I'll never get there with a whippet, perhaps that's right.

2. Jumping up at people. I think we are getting there, he is only doing this when is is completely overcome with excitement, but again that's no good to anyone really!

3. Turning himself inside out on the lead when another dog walks past. Many people and their dogs give us a smile and continue past us when walking and I keep him on a lead close well out of their way but he kind of leaps about and spins and throttles himself a bit when this happens.

He is 14 weeks so really young and I know Rome wasn't built in a day but I just want to be guiding him in the right direction in the right way.

Perhaps it just takes time and I'm worrying about nothing - I just want to do right by him. He's off to doggy day care for a day this week and perhaps puppy classes in January if you think that's a good idea?

Also, when he gets the zoomies in the evening he is flying around the house jumping off the sofa onto the hard floors and bounding up and down the stairs at full speed. It is hilarious but makes me wonder for his joints. I don't see how I could stop it though, I've put cushions down but he flies over them!

Photos for getting this far and thank you

 

[Morwenna]

My puppy (now 7 months old) is the same at jumping up and turning herself inside out to meet other people. I take her to the local duck pond or park at quieter times and sit or stand back. When people are around she initially pulls to them and so I click and treat every time she turns to look at me. Eventually we get to her in a loose lead and focussing on me and glancing at other people rather than the other way round and then we go home. She is learning that keeping her attention on me is rewarding and lunging to other people is boring. I do a similar thing with jumping up. She only gets treats, fuss etc. if she has all 4 feet on the floor. I do the same with visitors and other people occasionally out and about (she doesn’t get to say hello to everyone we meet).

 

[SaddlePsych'D]

I have no puppy training expertise (sorry!) but just had to say good lord he is cute!

I have been working on recall with our Greyhound and found the book 'Total Recall' very helpful. Not sure I would ever trust our recall 100% as she did train and run races, so I'll always be cautious in managing where she goes off lead but the book helped me understand things like proofing and using long lines. A long line (used with harness not collar) could be useful for your pup in high temptation areas such as with lots of other dogs around.

 

[Annette4]

One thing that made a massive difference with Fizz (who has good recall) and which we didn't do with Dobby (who has naff recall) was making it a game. You need to be more interesting than the environment and we did lots of restrained recall between us. You may find that a fluffy tuggy works better than food, Dobby isn't bothered about food but loves his tuggy and chasing things.

 

[CorvusCorax]

Engagement with you before everything else.
Engagement Engagement Engagement.

Then start training the other things. If you don't have Engagement you don't have anything.

Build food and toy drive so that he understands that all the good stuff comes from you and that you only provide those things when he is paying attention to you.
Introduce marker words so he knows 'yes this is what they want and there's a reward coming/this is unwanted behaviour and nothing good will happen'
Puppies need to learn how to learn before they learn whole exercises.

Start with no distractions then add them incrementally. Keep him on a line so that he cannot self reward.

Keep sessions short, exciting and with lots of reward. You can feed a puppy a whole ration of his normal daily food in one training session of five minutes.

Make sure everyone is on the same page training wise and don't be afraid to tell strangers 'he's in training not to jump up if you can turn your back on him/not encourage him up, please'.

If you are working on keeping him calm/recalling him away from other dogs, sorry to be a negative nelly but doggy daycare, if he is running around with others dogs, probably won't help.

 

[bonny]

Time is what helps, he will grow up and stop thinking everything in the world is one big game. I think it’s unnecessary to spend much time training a puppy who is really just acting like a puppy who is finding everything exciting. A bit like expectingyoung children to just walk quietly next to you, it will happen as they grow up without endless correcting them.
Obviously you need to stop jumping up, particularly of strangers but most people are tolerant of puppies and again the day will come when your dog doesn’t find other people very interesting anyway.
My latest dog is now 18 months old, he’s not perfect but he ignores other people and dogs unless they have a ball and is generally nice to have around.
Your dog is lovely and very cute and you’ll get there.

 

[Penguin_Toes]

My puppy (now 7 months old) is the same at jumping up and turning herself inside out to meet other people. I take her to the local duck pond or park at quieter times and sit or stand back. When people are around she initially pulls to them and so I click and treat every time she turns to look at me. Eventually we get to her in a loose lead and focussing on me and glancing at other people rather than the other way round and then we go home. She is learning that keeping her attention on me is rewarding and lunging to other people is boring. I do a similar thing with jumping up. She only gets treats, fuss etc. if she has all 4 feet on the floor. I do the same with visitors and other people occasionally out and about (she doesn’t get to say hello to everyone we meet).

Thank you for taking the time to reply!

That is a really good idea, going somewhere and working on watching quietly. Now that I think about it I have only walked him, so people and dogs appear round corners all of a sudden which is very exciting indeed

 

[Penguin_Toes]

I have no puppy training expertise (sorry!) but just had to say good lord he is cute!

I have been working on recall with our Greyhound and found the book 'Total Recall' very helpful. Not sure I would ever trust our recall 100% as she did train and run races, so I'll always be cautious in managing where she goes off lead but the book helped me understand things like proofing and using long lines. A long line (used with harness not collar) could be useful for your pup in high temptation areas such as with lots of other dogs around.

Thank you very much! He is cute when he's not eating my pansies

Thank you for the book recommendation, I'm off to do some googling. A long line is also a great idea, I have a lunge line I could dig out and try using this afternoon!

 

[ycbm]

I haven't got a clue about training puppies but he's a gorgeous little fellow!
.

 

[Penguin_Toes]

One thing that made a massive difference with Fizz (who has good recall) and which we didn't do with Dobby (who has naff recall) was making it a game. You need to be more interesting than the environment and we did lots of restrained recall between us. You may find that a fluffy tuggy works better than food, Dobby isn't bothered about food but loves his tuggy and chasing things.

Ohhh ok, interesting, I haven't tried using a toy or anything like that. Thank you very much for the suggestion.

I don't think he adores any of his toys but he loves to chase things we throw, whatever it may be. How might one go about using chasing to help with recall because I think he might really enjoy that

 

[Penguin_Toes]

Engagement with you before everything else.
Engagement Engagement Engagement.

Then start training the other things. If you don't have Engagement you don't have anything.

Build food and toy drive so that he understands that all the good stuff comes from you and that you only provide those things when he is paying attention to you.
Introduce marker words so he knows 'yes this is what they want and there's a reward coming/this is unwanted behaviour and nothing good will happen'
Puppies need to learn how to learn before they learn whole exercises.

Start with no distractions then add them incrementally. Keep him on a line so that he cannot self reward.

Keep sessions short, exciting and with lots of reward. You can feed a puppy a whole ration of his normal daily food in one training session of five minutes.

Make sure everyone is on the same page training wise and don't be afraid to tell strangers 'he's in training not to jump up if you can turn your back on him/not encourage him up, please'.

If you are working on keeping him calm/recalling him away from other dogs, sorry to be a negative nelly but doggy daycare, if he is running around with others dogs, probably won't help.

This is so helpful, thank you. I never even thought about self rewarding, that is so true.

Interesting about doggy daycare. I thought it might help because he isn't meeting that many dogs, I thought it might desensitise him a bit to the excitement. I can see how it could make things worse though. I don't actually need to use doggy day care, it was just a thought in my head that it might help

 

[Penguin_Toes]

Time is what helps, he will grow up and stop thinking everything in the world is one big game. I think it’s unnecessary to spend much time training a puppy who is really just acting like a puppy who is finding everything exciting. A bit like expectingyoung children to just walk quietly next to you, it will happen as they grow up without endless correcting them.
Obviously you need to stop jumping up, particularly of strangers but most people are tolerant of puppies and again the day will come when your dog doesn’t find other people very interesting anyway.
My latest dog is now 18 months old, he’s not perfect but he ignores other people and dogs unless they have a ball and is generally nice to have around.
Your dog is lovely and very cute and you’ll get there.

Thank you so much. It is great it hear that time helps, that puts my mind at rest.

I think I'm just worrying because I'm in the suburbs and some of the dogs round here are so naughty, I've been bitten and my little boy knocked over. I'm just really anxious not to end up with 'one if them'

People are very lovely and tolerant, Althea ugh most think he is a grown up Italian greyhound rather than a whippet puppy!

 

[Penguin_Toes]

I haven't got a clue about training puppies but he's a gorgeous little fellow!
.

Thank you very much! I must admit I am a cat (and horse) person, this was my husband's doing, but he's pleasantly surprised me (the dog not the husband )

 

[conkers]

People are very lovely and tolerant, Althea ugh most think he is a grown up Italian greyhound rather than a whippet puppy!

Someone once asked me if my Whippet puppy was a Daschund.

The main advise I can give is to keep your eyes open. My 2 whippets have fairly good recall but I am constantly on the look out for anything that I think they may find more interesting than myself. In which case, they are called back and put straight back on the lead.
Re jumping up. It definately reduces as they get older but I find treats help a lot in deflecting the need to jump up. They can then get the fuss they crave whilst being sensible.

 

[Cortez]

My whippet is fairly good at recall - for a whippet. She's 7 and it's taken most of those years to achieve. I'm no dog trainer, but constant repetition is the way; I don't do food rewards. If there's a squirrel involved though, forget it. You're doing nothing for my puppy resistance with those pictures! More please....

 

[Penguin_Toes]

Someone once asked me if my Whippet puppy was a Daschund.

The main advise I can give is to keep your eyes open. My 2 whippets have fairly good recall but I am constantly on the look out for anything that I think they may find more interesting than myself. In which case, they are called back and put straight back on the lead.
Re jumping up. It definately reduces as they get older but I find treats help a lot in deflecting the need to jump up. They can then get the fuss they crave whilst being sensible.

Ha! That is funny

I wasn't judging them for thinking that, that came out wrong! He looks exactly like a full grown Italian greyhound so I was just thinking people might expect him to act more like an adult dog.

My worst nightmare would be him clocking a cat. I think a long line is the way to go, or maybe a retractable one that I would use responsibly.

I will buy a pack of treats for by the front door, thank you for your reply

 

[Penguin_Toes]

My whippet is fairly good at recall - for a whippet. She's 7 and it's taken most of those years to achieve. I'm no dog trainer, but constant repetition is the way; I don't do food rewards. If there's a squirrel involved though, forget it. You're doing nothing for my puppy resistance with those pictures! More please....

No problem!

 

[Cortez]

No problem!

He's so goddammit cute! (Sorry, went all American there).

 

[Christmascinnamoncookie]

We spent weeks and weeks with longlines ignoring other dogs. They were very keen to meet other dogs, the puppy pandemic group were very helpful in that they were always in the park and usually ignored. Now, they’re very rarely on the lead and will meet other dogs in passing nice and calmly, but go straight past if I don’t stop to chat. We only go to an area renowned for off lead dogs, we don’t see lots of other/s. Being banned from ever saying hello might just make him frustrated and more desperate to greet.

Re dogs going past, can you make him sit down to greet new dogs? I asked people if it was ok and did lots of calm greetings. There was no running up to meet others (bar one early error where another spaniel pinned one of mine, never again)

Persistence is key, it can seem that they’ll never get it.

I‘d block off a room or put a stair gate up, going up and down stairs is extremely bad for him at that age. Mine weren’t really allowed near stairs til they were almost a year.

 

[Annette4]

Ohhh ok, interesting, I haven't tried using a toy or anything like that. Thank you very much for the suggestion.

I don't think he adores any of his toys but he loves to chase things we throw, whatever it may be. How might one go about using chasing to help with recall because I think he might really enjoy that

We built from restrained recalls so one holds pup and the other runs away dragging tuggy so they chase you to catch up and 'catch' their tug. We then built onto that so gave them their recall cue then running away being very exciting with tuggy on view so again, they play the game and eventually reduced the running away. I will also just randomly throughout a walk start playing different games with them or start offering to play tuggy.....I want to be more exciting than everything else and just plodding along mine all find really boring.

I do lots of the sitting and watching the world go by stuff to, rewarding them for disengaging and focusing on me or being calm.

I'm very selective about the dogs mine meet, walks are not about playing with anyone but me. They don't go to day care as they teach them the opposite of what I want to teach them. They work and train around other dogs and play with selected friends in selected situations but never strange dogs and never a free for all.

 

[dottylottie]

i’m only speaking from experience of my current puppy (mini poodle) but recall wise he is the exact same, comes back every time unless there’s other dogs about!

personally, i took him to a dog meet - informal on a field nearby, but it allowed me to work on his recall whilst knowing all the dogs around weren’t going to eat him haha. it’s still a work in progress because other family members walk him when i’m working and don’t bother with what i’m trying to do, but i reward any engagement with me. every time he looks back at me instead of at the dogs, reward.

same with walking past dogs! he stands up on his back legs leaping about to say hello, so i walk him to the side of the path etc, and reward him for looking at me. ask him to do his other tricks because it distracts him, and keep his attention on me until they’ve gone past.

i think the main thing is being one step ahead of them! spot the dog before they do, recall and reward, put him back on the lead and keep his attention on me until either they’ve gotten far enough away or we walk a different way. i’ve found if he spots them way in the distance, me (and the treats) are closer than dogs so he comes back haha.

i made a rod for my own back when i first got him, because i wanted him to socialise with other dogs so he wouldn’t be reactive etc, but i failed in setting boundaries ie making it on my terms, not his. taking him to the dog meet every week meant we could train in a safe environment, and the novelty has worn off a bit because he regularly gets to play, as opposed to if his only opportunity was on walks. i do think he’s grown out of it as he’s got older too!

 

[Esmae]

Lots of good advice here and if he becomes impossible then can I have him please? He's gorgeous.

 

[babymare]

I want him! ??

 

[oldie48]

My advice is that once they are well trained with good recall you still need to keep reinforcing the training.I do use treats with my BT, he knows they are in my right hand pocket and when he is off lead I only have to put my right hand near the pocket and I have his attention. He's also quite clever at manipulating me as I've done a lot of sit and recall work with him, if he's off lead and near to home he will sit (without me asking)and watch me walk away but won't come to me unless he thinks I have a treat for him. Unintended consequences but he's a terrier so he's forgiven.

 

[Penguin_Toes]

We spent weeks and weeks with longlines ignoring other dogs. They were very keen to meet other dogs, the puppy pandemic group were very helpful in that they were always in the park and usually ignored. Now, they’re very rarely on the lead and will meet other dogs in passing nice and calmly, but go straight past if I don’t stop to chat. We only go to an area renowned for off lead dogs, we don’t see lots of other/s. Being banned from ever saying hello might just make him frustrated and more desperate to greet.

Re dogs going past, can you make him sit down to greet new dogs? I asked people if it was ok and did lots of calm greetings. There was no running up to meet others (bar one early error where another spaniel pinned one of mine, never again)

Persistence is key, it can seem that they’ll never get it.

I‘d block off a room or put a stair gate up, going up and down stairs is extremely bad for him at that age. Mine weren’t really allowed near stairs til they were almost a year.

Thank you, it puts my mind at rest that it suddenly clicks one day! I love the advice to just take my time, maybe I'll sit on a bench with him and watch the world go by a bit more

 

[Penguin_Toes]

We built from restrained recalls so one holds pup and the other runs away dragging tuggy so they chase you to catch up and 'catch' their tug. We then built onto that so gave them their recall cue then running away being very exciting with tuggy on view so again, they play the game and eventually reduced the running away. I will also just randomly throughout a walk start playing different games with them or start offering to play tuggy.....I want to be more exciting than everything else and just plodding along mine all find really boring.

I do lots of the sitting and watching the world go by stuff to, rewarding them for disengaging and focusing on me or being calm.

I'm very selective about the dogs mine meet, walks are not about playing with anyone but me. They don't go to day care as they teach them the opposite of what I want to teach them. They work and train around other dogs and play with selected friends in selected situations but never strange dogs and never a free for all.

This is so helpful, thank you so much. I'm going to start doing this, I didn't know anything about restrained recalls but I think he'll love doing that!

 

[Penguin_Toes]

i’m only speaking from experience of my current puppy (mini poodle) but recall wise he is the exact same, comes back every time unless there’s other dogs about!

personally, i took him to a dog meet - informal on a field nearby, but it allowed me to work on his recall whilst knowing all the dogs around weren’t going to eat him haha. it’s still a work in progress because other family members walk him when i’m working and don’t bother with what i’m trying to do, but i reward any engagement with me. every time he looks back at me instead of at the dogs, reward.

same with walking past dogs! he stands up on his back legs leaping about to say hello, so i walk him to the side of the path etc, and reward him for looking at me. ask him to do his other tricks because it distracts him, and keep his attention on me until they’ve gone past.

i think the main thing is being one step ahead of them! spot the dog before they do, recall and reward, put him back on the lead and keep his attention on me until either they’ve gotten far enough away or we walk a different way. i’ve found if he spots them way in the distance, me (and the treats) are closer than dogs so he comes back haha.

i made a rod for my own back when i first got him, because i wanted him to socialise with other dogs so he wouldn’t be reactive etc, but i failed in setting boundaries ie making it on my terms, not his. taking him to the dog meet every week meant we could train in a safe environment, and the novelty has worn off a bit because he regularly gets to play, as opposed to if his only opportunity was on walks. i do think he’s grown out of it as he’s got older too!

This is so reassuring, thank you, especially the bit about growing out of it

 

[Penguin_Toes]

Lots of good advice here and if he becomes impossible then can I have him please? He's gorgeous.

I will hold you to that!!!

 

[Penguin_Toes]

I want him! ??

Aw thank you, he's not bad at all

 

[Esmae]

I will hold you to that!!!

Oh please do.......my 3 would love another playmate.