This post is for Heather who said that Koty must be keeping us very busy because I haven't posted in a while. All I have to say is that he's extremely cute... when he's sleeping. When he's awake he is a terror. Dave and I were just reading a dog training thing on line and discovered that we have reinforced some bad behaviors since we got him a week and a half ago, so now we need to reteach him the right way. His biting was very gentle when we got him (for the most part) and when it was too rough we would yipe which really seemed to work at first. As time has gone on he has become more aggressive with his biting and we have responded by either holding his mouth shut when he didn't respond to "NO", or today I gave him a shove and knocked him down when he kept coming at me...he came back with a vengeance. The training thing says that what we did was give him reinforcement by giving him attention for doing it. We should have put him in his crate for a minute "time out" when he didn't respond to the "NO" command. If he continues the bad behavior when he's released, he again gets a "time out" for a minute and this time when he's released we should ignore him for a couple minutes. It should take about 3 weeks to completely correct the behavior. I'm feeling like a brand new parent with a strong willed child. Hopefully we don't ruin him too bad. I'm going to start him in a puppy socialization class soon, which hopefully will benefit him. Today I took him to work to show my coworkers who had asked that I bring him, and he wriggled and squirmed when they held him until he was back in MY arms. That made me feel good, like he feels some sort of attachment to me already. He wanted to get back into the arms of "the lady who lets me be naughty". Haha, just kidding. We are lacking sleep as well, since we need to get up around 3:00am every day to avoid him pooping in his crate...then it's up again around 6:30am to feed him and take him out again.
I thought that it might be fun to have a 3rd child, but this has completely gotten that out of my system. This "child" will grow up a lot faster!
9 comments:
Ohhh, :( so sorry, puppy life is hard. Best of luck with training your "willfull child".
He's just a baby and I don't think you could ruin him in just a week and a half. Maybe you could get some puppy training tips from Adam and Bethany. Molly seems pretty well behaved.
You didn't ruin him. This brings back memories of Sherman.
He does look extremely cute though!!
"Puppy training tips from Adam and Bethany" ??? Molly's a wimpy dog, that's why she is so well behaved. She's too chicken to try anything rash.
By the way, he is sooo cute.
Thank you for the post, Rachel! I am very glad to hear your puppy news. We got our puppy in May and you brought back many memories. It is such a good thing they are so stinkin' cute. Koty is adorable and I am sure it is hard to discipline him at all. I did try doing the "time out" with our puppy Rocky and it seemed to work pretty good.
OOph! I know what this is like...
watch cesar milan or get his book.. exellent trainer great with puppies...i have a 12 week old napolitan mastive and we are 6 weeks in to puppie training..it works..keep it up..remember you are the pack leader...there ae a few key things you should do for your puppy....good luck have fun
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