Hi
We've got a 12 week old Whippet pup who is absolutely fantastic I know its early days but we do feel really lucky so far, what we want to know is we are doing simple training and he will sit,stay,lie down and walk to heel around the house, but as soon as he is in the garden or has found something interesting in the house all his training goes out of the window and he pulls on his lead won't sit in fact he tends to ignore us completly.
Next week he would have had his second jab and we can finally take him out for walks (hurray), are we deluding ourselves by thinking once he's been out in the great outdoors he might calm down and not find everything quite so interesting and actually start listening to us.If we are what next ? Is training him a case of just more of the same until it's second nature to him ,sorry if I'm going on a bit but the trouble is it's our first dog and we've got nothing to make comparisons to so we don't know at what stage his training should be at ,it's just learning from playing at the moment which we are both enjoying.There is only 1 obedience school in the area and when we visited the man was screaming at a dalmation pup while holding him by his ear ,so we want nothing to do with them to be honest but it just seems we are not moving forward with our methods alone should we just persevere as he obviously has taken in the comands just chooses to ignore them sometimes anyway this was meant to be about 3 lines long so I'll shutup now.
Cheers
Steve

Hi

Congrats on getting him to do all that at a young age your doing something right, what I do is when my puppy is on the lead and pulling just stand still he will soon learn that if he pulls the walk stops then when hes calm take him to see what it is. As he is young everything will interest him but he will soon be a lot calmer when it isnt so new anymore. Its a pity about the class but I wouldnt go there either if that happened.

Nikki

Hi, you are doing well with your pup,:) but dont expect too much too soon. Dogs cant transfer skills from one situation to another so you need to train in all situations for him/her to understand. Get Gwen Baileys The Perfect Puppy for ideas on making training fun. Getting out into the world and meeting other dogs/people and having good experiences is training at this stage. Looking forward to hearing more about yur pup.:)

Sounds like you've got a normal pup. At the moment he's learned what the training means inside the house, now you need to start applying it in new situations so that he learns it means the same thing no matter what. You've done really well - it is a matter of repetition over time and this will happen over the next few months

You should be aware that whippets are sighthounds and have a strong prey drive based on sight. Do not ever trust your whippet off lead unless you are in a safe place - either enclosed or WELL away from roads. He will not be trustworthy on recall if he sees anything and even a leaf or a bag blowing across the street is enough to set him in motion and he will go deaf to anything you say to him.

Whippets are amazing!! Welcome to a whole new world:)

Wendy

Thanks very much everyone it's nice to be reasured, he's our first dog and none of our friends have dogs ,in fact they all thought we we're a bit mad getting one. So we were starting to feel a bit isolated, hence the real disapointment in the training class, anyway we're hoping once we start taking him on walks we will make lots of new doggy friends so thanks again for making a couple of newbies if thats a real word feel better.

Cheers everyone
Steve

Sounds as if you are doing really well so far :)

You were right to avoid that class, it sounds dreadful.

Do get a copy of "The Perfect Puppy", it is so good and leads you into adolescence and beyond.

Good luck

Lindsay