Hi All,

I hope someone can help. We pick up our new girl on Saturday and I'm advised that she's not paper trained so I've read up about the methods for house training and I'm a little confused.

She's 12 weeks, has had her first set of vaccinations but not her second. Do I paper train her and keep her inside until her second set of jabs, or can I start teaching her to use outside (our back garden) straight away? I moved into my new house about 2.5 months ago so I can't be sure of whether or not there were any dogs around the back of the house (I know the previous lady only had a cat). I suppose I'm also asking is it neccessary to paper train prior to training her to use outside.

Also, we know a very boistiorous 8 month old Lab who's owners (very annoyingly) haven't managed to teach the basic commands very successfully.. He bites (he bruised us all last week) and  I feel I should keep her right away from him (obviously after her second set of jabs) as she's such a little thing. I think I'd rather take her to puppy classes and let her get used to other puppies and perhaps dogs who aren't going to be as  rough. Am I being a bit over cautious/protective?

Thanks in advance.

KAren

Hi Karen

I house trained all three of my dogs with the following method and never had any accidents!.... As soon as they wake up, finish feeding or drinking I immediately took them outside (onto an area of the garden that I wanted them to use as a toilet!) Once they had done a wee or a number two I made a huge fuss of them and gave a small treat. Its just a case of letting them out often but in particular the times mentioned above. I used to have paper down next to their beds at night just incase. I also think your garden should be fine but maybe a good idea just to phone your vet and ask, all being well I would start the outside training straight away so the pup gets used to it.

I dont think you are being over protective at all about the Lab as he would probably scare her maybe even hurt her as he has you already, his owners need to get him trained immediately before the problems get worse. I took all of mine to puppy classes and it's a great way to socialise them and let them have fun with the other pups.

Hope this has helped

Don't waste your time paper-training her - she'll be much happier and much less confused if you take her (don't just let her out; go with her) into the garden straight away. Then every time she performs outside you can praise her.

Hi Karen

Please don't paper train - this only confuses the puppy, because it trains the puppy to toilet inside (what you don't want) and then you need to start all over again and train them to go outside.  It is much faster to just train them to go outside from the beginning.  Give them a treat every time they toilet outside in the right place, and they will soon want to go out there, just so they get a treat.

Your back garden is fine for your puppy to go outside in any time - many breeders let their pups go out into their gardens from 4 weeks on, for socialisation reasons.  So no problem re the jabs.

No, you are not being over-cautious or protective, you are being very sensible in thinking about the kind of dogs you let your pup play with.  

Remember that dogs learn a lot from each other about how to play.  It is best to keep play sessions short, perhaps only a few minutes long - then pick your pups up and give them a break for a while.  Then let them have another little play, and pick them up again.  That way you will interrupt the play before it gets too rough.  Lots of short sessions are better than one long one.

This is a tricky subject though, because it is largely believed that the window for socialisation closes at 16-18wks old, and your pup will already be 12wks old when you pick her up.  (I'm assuming she's a small breed because this is quite old - most medium and large breed pups go at 7-8wks?). 

I would strongly advise you to be extra organised with your socialisation plan, because you are going to have 5 weeks less time than most other new puppy owners to fit all your socialisation in. 

I'd advise you to: Find out from your breeder what the name and make of the jab is that she's been given, because your vet will need to give the same brand as a 2nd vaccination.  So you may need to start phoning round some vets to find one which uses the same vaccine manufacturer as your breeder's vet. 

If you don't do this, and your vet uses a different make of vaccine, you will have to start the process of vaccination again from the beginning (ie 1st jab).  This might mean that you run out of time in terms of socialisation, which could be a disaster. 

When you've found a vet that uses the same vaccine, book her in for the 2nd jab as soon as possible.  Personally, I take mine out from straight after the 2nd jab and have never had any problems.

Where abouts do you live?  Someone here might know of a good puppy class near you.  Otherwise check out www.apdt.co.uk   The sooner you can book her into a puppy class, the better.

Congrats on getting a new pup! But don't worry about paper training her since paper training inevitably means you have to housetrain twice as well as paper seeming to feel very similar to carpet. Plus a pup trained to go on newspaper has a nasty habit of going on the one you were planning to read!

Start by getting her straight outside - your garden is perfectly safe as long as it isn't visited by unvaccinated dogs - and take her outside every 20/30 minutes plus immediately after meals. Stay with her at all times and choose a command you don't feel daft about the neighbours hearing - "be quick" or "get busy", say - and give her loads and loads of praise every time she performs. Never punish her for accidents which, with respect, are the fault of the owner for not picking up the signs that a pup needs to go!

As for the larger bouncy dog only you can judge whether he's a threat but certainly you would want to supervise any time together very carefully and you are not being over-cautious.  However, pups do need to learn "doggy body language" as soon as possible and at 12 weeks, the prime socialisation window won't be open for much longer so even before she's had her second jabs you ought to be taking her out and about with you. As soon as she's finished her jabs then let her mix with as many dogs as possible.

Karen - I would forget the paper training and use the garden immediately. If you paper train indoors, you are only teaching the pup that it is OK to go indoors and then when you want it to perform outside this can be a little confusing for him/her ;)

I have trained all of my dogs outside in my garden from day one without any health problems whatsoever.

I don't think you are being cautious or overprotective re the Lab, just using common sense. you don't want that first experience with another dog to be a traumatic one for her. This could cause issues with her when teaching her doggy etiquette later on. :D I've had a dog that was "set upon" in rough play when she was young and it took her a good while to learn to trust her own species after that.

Puppy classes are a great idea. Remember to go to a few without your pup first of all so that you are comfortable, know what to expect, like the training methods, etc :)

Oh, finally, good luck, bet you can't wait :)

Edited to say: posting the same time as Roz :)

Karen -

I forgot to say, here is an excellent article about socialisation - have a read of it - loads of useful stuff in there:

http://www.deesdogs.com/documents/dogsocialization.pdf