May 19, 2016 • 23 mins
Want your puppy to grow up to be a fearful, aggressive dog that is out of control? Here's how! Of course, no one starts out WANTING to mess up a puppy. But these common mistakes happen time and again. So make sure you're not on the path to ruining your puppy. (And if you know of someone about to get a puppy, make sure they listen to this show first!)
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Questions or Comments? Email Teoti at teoti@petliferadio.com
More details on this episode MP3 Podcast - 5 Ways to Ruin a Puppy on Pet Life Radio
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
You're listening to petlifradio dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
You're listening to get positive results on pet life Radio.
I'm your host, Tyodi Anderson. Yes that Tyodi Anderson. I'm back.
I hope you missed me. I hope you waited. Thank
you to everyone who wrote and asked how I was
doing after my move to Florida. Those of you asked
when are you going to have a new show. We
can't wait to hear you. That was awesome. Thank you
(00:42):
so much. I really appreciate that I moved to Florida
January first, and if you can imagine living in a
place for fifteen years, packing that up, moving the whole thing,
transitioning your life. If any of you have experienced that,
then you know exactly what I've been doing and why
I haven't been on radio for quite some time. It's
been quite the transition, but Sawyer and Finnian, my dogs
(01:05):
now have a blended family with my fiancee. We have
Rosy the Yorkie and Biscuit, the cat, who has joined us.
I am working full time in my fiance's company, a
dog's best friend, and just having a blast. It's been
a wonderful transition. Although I'm completely dependent upon GPS, and
I still make wrong turns at least once or twice
a week, which is better than when I first started here,
(01:26):
so I think that's optimistic. One of the things I'm
doing now that i'm training full time is I'm back
to teaching puppy kindergarten. I taught it for many years
and then couldn't get enough puppies to populate the classes
in South Carolina, but here it's a little bit more
prevalent with puppies. So we teach puppy Kindergarten in several
different locations, and a Dog's Best Friend also does a
boarding training program where people send us their dogs. We
(01:49):
work on training the dogs to do lots of family
manner behaviors, and then we transition them to their owners.
We teach the owners how to work the dogs. Once
the dogs have learned to work for us and the
dogs are successful at home. Most of the time, we
get really young puppies in this program, which is great.
It's really fantastic, especially if they've only been with their folks,
(02:10):
you know, a couple of nights, like a month, they
come to us. It's great because we get them when
they're young and we're able to make these huge impression
during this critical development period. We still can take adult dogs,
and we take lots of those as well, but a
lot of times after a dog has gone through months
of living with someone that hasn't trained them, or years
(02:32):
with someone who hasn't trained them, it's a lot more challenging.
The dog may have habits that are bad now that
we need to fix, or may have fears that could
have been prevented that haven't been prevented because they weren't
addressed during that critical development period. So, because I'm working
so much with puppies these days, and because you know
how much puppies mean to me, two of my books
(02:52):
were about puppies, I've decided to dedicate this first showback
to five sure Fireways to ruin a puppy. So if
you don't want to ruin a puppy, or if you
have a friend who's about to get a puppy and
you want to make sure they don't ruin a puppy,
this is definitely the show for you. So when we
come back, I'm going to tell you five surefireways on
(03:13):
how to ruin a puppy. Here on get positive results
on pet Life Radio.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
We'll be right back right after these messages. Stay tuned.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Take a bite out of your competition. Advertise your business
with an ad in pet Life Radio podcasts and radio shows.
There is no other pet related media that is as
large and reaches more pet parents and pet lovers than
pet Life Radio with over seven million monthly listeners. Pet
Life Radio podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms,
(03:46):
and our live radio stream goes out to over two
hundred and fifty million subscribers on iHeartRadio, Odyssey, tune In,
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visit petlifradio dot com slash advertised Today.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Let's talk pets on Petlife Radio dot com.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
This is Tood Anderson and you're listening to get positive
results on pet Life Radio today. I'm talking about five
surefireaways on how to ruin a puppy. Oh my gosh,
Unfortunately I see it all too often. It definitely keeps
us dog trainers in business. Don't get me wrong, that's
a great thing, but I would so much rather these
puppies have the right foundation so they don't need me
(04:41):
as much as they do. I know that's probably not
a good business person in me to say that, but
it's true. A lot of the problems that you see
in adult dogs could totally have been prevented in puppyhood.
And we've talked a little bit about these things before
in previous shows, but I decided to summarize it into
five surefireways how puppies get ruined because I see it
(05:02):
a lot, and I don't want you to be one
of those people that ruins your puppy. I know you
never mean to. And that's the point. Nobody ever starts
out going, Whoo, this puppy is so cute. I can't
wait to bring it into my life. I can't wait
to ruin it. People don't think that that is not
the goal at all, but they accidentally do it simply
(05:22):
from a lack of education, lack of knowledge, or misguided
information that they get, and therefore the puppy gets ruined
and they're stuck with the results, or they get rid
of the results and then do it again with the
next puppy, not realizing that they're to blame. So this
is going to set all of you straight on how
not to ruin a puppy because I don't want you
to do any of those things. So let's start with
(05:44):
first one one. Keep your puppy inside until it's had
all it shots. Yes, I said it. I know that
people have told you you can't take your puppy out
until it's had all it shots. Oh my gosh, it
will die terrible diseases in the plague and locusts. Well
come not really. You probably heard this from a variety
of sources, and I'm sure they all seem to be
(06:05):
fairly reliable. However, here's the thing. Your puppy needs to
have socialization, proper socialization, before the ages of between twelve
and sixteen weeks. That number varies, but I think most
people at least decide that sixteen is the maximum twelve
to sixteen weeks. If not, then your puppy could suffer
(06:27):
from a lot of serious behavioral problems later. Now, when
do puppies complete their shots? Wohoo, about sixteen weeks. So
a lot of people will tell you don't take them anywhere,
don't let them touch anything, don't let them look at anything.
You can't keep your puppy in this little porcelain box
for the first months of his life because you're gonna
pay the price. We see it all the time. Some
(06:49):
folks want to do our boarding training program and they
bring us the puppy too late. They bring it it's
eighteen weeks, nineteen weeks, twenty weeks, and by then we
can already see that some of these puppies are already
terrified of the world around them. And it's because they
never set foot outside the apartment or outside the house
for the first months of their lives. Now, it is
(07:09):
true that your puppy could risk getting sick. That is
absolutely true. That is not a myth. There's parvo, there's distemper,
there's some terrible diseases out there. But there are things
that you can do to help prevent that, working closely
with your veterinarian, and there are things that you can
do to adequately socialize your puppy without putting it necessarily
(07:29):
at risk. Doctor R. K. Anderson a wonderful, wonderful veterinarian.
He was a Diplomat of the American College of Veterinary
Preventive Medicine, Diplomat of American College of Veterinary Behaviorists. We
lost him way too soon. He passed away several years
ago he was a dear colleague of mine. He wrote
an open letter to veterinarians explaining the importance of puppy
(07:49):
kindergarten and getting puppies properly socialized. He wrote, experience and
epidemiologic Oh my gosh, that was hard to say. Data
support the relative safety and lack of transmission of disease
in these puppy socialization classes over the past ten years
and many parts of the United States. In fact, the
risk of a dog dying because of infection with distemper
(08:11):
or parvo disease is far less than the much higher
risk of a dog dying euthanasia because of a behavior problem.
Many veterinarians are now offering new puppy owners puppy socialization
classes in their hospitals or nearby training facilities in conjunction
with trainers and behaviorists, because they want socialization and training
to be very important parts of a wellness plan for
(08:32):
every puppy. We need to recognize that this special, sensitive
period for learning is the best opportunity we have to
influence behavior for dogs and the most important and the
longest lasting part of a total wellness plan. That is
a quote from doctor R. K. Anderson, a veterinarian, and
an open letter to his colleagues explaining the dangers of
(08:52):
keeping these puppies secluded and preventing them from getting all
the foundation core socialization that they needed. So what can
you do? You certainly want to be safe. You don't
want to expose your puppy to areas that infected dogs
may have gone. So I don't encourage you to take
a very young puppy out for walk in your neighborhood.
(09:13):
If you do carry the puppy, carry the puppy. If
you do have a very large puppy that you need
to put on the ground and you do want to
take it out, wipe their feet regularly when they come
back home. Use baby wipes, hypoallergenic baby wipes. Make sure
that if you do take your puppy to a friend's house,
that their dog existing dog, is fully vaccinated and there
(09:33):
has not been any history of disease that can be
contagious in their backyard. You don't want you yardia. You
don't want parvo. Certainly, that stuff is terrible to get
rid of once it's been infected into a yard. You
want to be safe about it. You can also bring
the puppy parties to your house. Great excuse for entertaining.
Instead of taking your puppy places, bring the places to
(09:54):
your puppy. You definitely need to do this because if
you don't, that puppy could develop some severe problems later.
So the one first surefire away to ruin a puppy
is to just keep it inside until it's had all
its shots. I promise you you will regret doing that.
Number two, wait to set boundaries when it's older. Oh
that's a good one. A lot of people think the
(10:16):
puppies are so cute and they're so fluffy, and they
let it on the furniture and they let it jump
all over them and it let it just chew things
up because it's so honorable. Look, he ate my shoe.
All Look, let's take pictures and put them on Facebook
and Instagram. And then that gets old as the first
couple of weeks and the first several pairs of shoes,
and people decide, you know, I don't want the puppy
(10:37):
on the furniture. After all, he's getting to be heavy
and it's interrupting me while watching TV. So today I'm
just gonna side no puppies on the furniture, and today
I want to decide don't chew on my shoes. And
today today is a little late because you've already established
with your puppy that all these things were allowed, and
(11:00):
now you've suddenly changed the rules. Now you own that house,
it is your prerogative to change the rules. There's nothing
wrong with you deciding one day that you want to
do things differently. However, the consequences of that are inescapable.
The consequences of that are that your puppy is now
very confused and it may get worse with his behavior
before he gets better because he doesn't understand what you
(11:22):
just did. He doesn't understand why he could jump all
over you yesterday, but today it's a problem. So when
you bring that puppy home, as adorable as they are,
and you can still post tons of pictures on Instagram
and Facebook, you want to make sure that whatever rules
you want for the house are put in place from
day one. Number two was waiting to set boundaries when
(11:42):
the puppy is older. Here's number three, skipping socialization altogether.
Assuming that if you have lots of people in your
house and you have existing dogs, then that's enough for
your puppy. Oops, no, it's not. We will get a
puppy in for boarding training, and when it sees one
of our dogs, it starts growling, backing up under a chair.
And my question would be, has your dog always been
(12:04):
this concern or this nervous around other dogs? Are like, No,
he loves other dogs. How many dogs has he met?
We have three other dogs at home. Has he ever
met dogs outside your home?
Speaker 1 (12:15):
No?
Speaker 2 (12:15):
It's different. If your puppy is raised with other dogs
in your home, that's great. You'll get to know your dogs.
He'll get to love your dogs or family. But he
doesn't understand there's other things out there. There's other animals
out there. So if he's not exposed to dogs outside
the home, again, there's a way to do it safely,
he may develop aggression problems and fear problems towards other
dogs later. I see this a lot in puppy kindergarten,
(12:37):
where people have existing dogs because you know, you can't
just have one, can you. They're like potato chips. So
we collect dogs and they bring the puppy to class,
and the puppies hiding and they're so confused because they're
convinced that the puppy loves other dogs because they have
them at home, or maybe they have a friend who
brings their dog over and the dog loves their friend's dog,
but they don't understand why the puppy is suddenly scared
(12:58):
of all the puppies that are our in the kindergarten class.
It's because they've never been exposed to many dogs outside
their own families. So you need to make sure that
you pick a safe partner for your puppy, a dog
that has experience with other puppies. Not every adult dog
likes puppies. We've talked about that before, So you want
(13:19):
to make sure that they have safe encounters and positive
encounters with other dogs outside your home. This does not
mean taking them to the dog park. Oh my gosh,
I should be number six. I don't have that on
my list, but maybe that should be number six. Here's
a bonus, you get another one. Taking your puppy to
the dog park. It's one of the worst things you
(13:39):
can do. You can't control anything in that dog park.
The only thing you can control is yourself, and you
could be setting your puppy up for so much failure.
It's not even funny. Dog parks are fine for socializing
later in adolescence, they are not appropriate for socialization. There
is a huge, huge difference. The other thing about socialization is,
(14:01):
of course people. If you have a steady stream of
kids coming in your house of all different ethnicities, if
you have different age people coming in, that is awesome
because that's going to help your puppy. Doctor Ian Dunbar
the founder of the Association of Professional Dog Trainers, that's
an association that I'm past president of. He said that
puppies should meet one hundred different strangers before they finish
(14:23):
their critical socialization period. That's at first twelve to sixteen weeks.
It's really hard to do in a lot of cases,
but it is really important. They need to meet all
sorts of different people. You also want to get them
on different floorings. We have puppies that can't walk on tile.
They've never had slippery surfaces beneath their feet. We've had
(14:43):
puppies come in that are terrified of vacuum cleaners and
hair dryers and rolling carts. Here's the thing about puppies.
They can be fine in many different areas and fool
you into thinking that they're perfectly fine, never going to
be a p and all of a sudden something will
make them wofull wolf and bark and get scared. Most
(15:05):
of that barking, most of that growling, aggressive response, is
due to fear. You never want to force a puppy
to confront its fear. You've heard me say that before too.
You want to coach them through it and help them
realize that it's a good place and it's a positive place,
and lots of hot dogs appear when the vacuum cleaner appears,
and the hair dryer runs, and your suitcase on wheels
(15:27):
comes out, lots of positive experiences. Socialization also doesn't just
end at that sixteen week period. If you are so good,
such a good student, and you socialize and socialize that
puppy and then at sixteen weeks you go, ah, mate,
it awesome, and then slack off, and then like six
months later, take your dog somewhere and he freaks out.
(15:49):
You do have to continue it, not but the intensity
that you do during those first sixteen weeks, But you
still have to keep it up because just like us,
they forget, you know, if they haven't been exposed to
things in a while. So you definitely need to keep up,
So don't ever skip socialization. It's a surefire. Probably the
most worst thing, terrible, terrible thing you can do to
(16:09):
ruin a puppy is just not socialize it. It's a
surefire recipe for disaster. Some puppies do make it through,
that is true. There's always an exception, but for the
most part, it's going to do some damage. All Right,
we've covered a few surefire ways how to ruin a puppy.
I'm going to share the rest of you when we
get back on Get Positive Results pet Life Radio.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
We'll be right back right after these messages. Stay tuned.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
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Speaker 1 (17:00):
Let's Talk past pet Life Radio, Petline Radio.
Speaker 5 (17:04):
Pet Life Radio dot Com.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
This is Tidy Anderson and you're listening to Get Positive
Results on pet Life Radio. We are covering five sure
fire aways to ruin a puppy. So I'm going to
continue with my list right now. Number four I have
is focusing on obedience exercises overcore foundation critical behaviors during
(17:35):
that critical socialization period. I have a lot of people
that come to me and they're very what's the word
I'm looking for, They're very eager excited about teaching their
dog banners. It's one of my favorite things to do.
That's one of the reasons why I love my group
classes is because I love to help people teach their
(17:56):
dog banners. But there's a time and place for that.
I can teach an eleven year old dog. I can
teach a twelve year old dog to lie down. It's
much more difficult to teach a puppy other things, which
is why puppy kindergarten, a quality puppy kindergarten, is not
just a dumb down obedience class. Sometimes I see puppy
kindergartens and it's like, we're gonna teach down, it's it
(18:17):
and calm and heal. I'm like, why why would you
waste this time? You can teach that anytime. What I
can't teach later is good bite inhibition. I can't teach
good husbandry, good handling. Those are the things that frighten
me with people that they don't do them with their puppies.
So weigh on the down weiit on the formal heel,
weigh on all these exciting family banners behaviors. You can
(18:40):
get to them. You should get to them. You could
purchase one of my books to help you get to them,
but don't be in an off fire rush for that,
because you can teach those at any time. What you
cannot teach is some of these other things. Common problem
I see is lack of handling. Lack of proper handling.
So your puppy is healthy, which is awesome. You never
have a problem have to give a pills or anything.
(19:01):
You get through the critical development period. You sail through
the first couple months, maybe the puppies. Let's say seven
months old, puppy gets a hold of something, has a reaction.
You've got to take something out of its mouth, or
the vet says, you know, got a little less skin
infection here, Maybe have to give it antibiotics. That's when
you learn that you never did any handling exercises with
(19:22):
your puppy and so he hates you touching his mouth. Great, awesome.
Now you have a much larger dog that doesn't like
you touching him. Puppies normally have one sensitive area. Some
of them have multiples, especially if you've never handled your puppy.
But it's going to be either the ears, the paws,
the tail or the mouth. And when I teach my
(19:44):
puppy kindergarten classes, we go through these exercises where you
gently touch one pole, get a cookie, Gently touch the
other pole, get a cookie, lift one lip, get a cookie,
lift the other lip. So by the time these exercises
are done, day in, day out, the puppies like, you
can touch me any where you want. Life is good.
I'm getting cookies. Go ahead, stick your hand out my
(20:05):
throat wooo. Massage between my toes, to file my nails.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Yay, I love you.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
It's great. If you don't do that as a puppy,
it is much harder. With an adult dog can be done.
It's just harder husbandry. How to take care of your puppy,
how to do its nails so that it loves having
its nails done. It looks forward to a MANI petty
day loves having a bath, doesn't flinch at you when
you pull out the brush. All these things are so
(20:32):
much easier to teach when they're babies than when they're older.
When they're three years old and already hate the brush,
so when you pull out the brush, they go run
and hide from you. So husbandry behaviors, handling behaviors, bite prevention,
don't bite down on me, your little needle teeth are evil.
That is so much easier to teach when they're puppies.
(20:53):
So focusing on obedience and manners is a great goal.
Put it off until you teach these other things, or
do them at the same time, because these other things
you're gonna need them throughout your dog's life. Number five,
which was my last one till I gave you that
bonus one, was assuming problems will go away on their own.
(21:13):
We get this a lot too, is that the puppy
has been fearful and started growling and then snapping and
then biting. And I always ask what I'm doing a
case history? Why did you call me today? What happened
today for you to call Because your puppy has been
doing this. It sounds like for like a year. Your
dog's been doing this for three years, but today was
the day. Well, usually because the dog has bitten the
wrong person or they have a child in their life
(21:36):
now and the dog has gone after the child, or
something happened, something happened to finally trigger it. And sometimes
it's denial. Sometimes the people didn't want to admit that
the dog had an issue. But I do believe in
the good of people, and a lot of people just say,
you know, we thought he'd outgrow it. Well, they won't
outgrow it. If your dog is chewing on things inappropriately,
if you have a young puppy chewing up your couch,
(21:56):
chewing up your shoes, they won't outgrow it. You have
to train them. They won't outgrow fear, they won't outgrow aggression.
It won't go away on its own. It will get worse.
And if you don't address it, you were going to
have so much bigger problem. Because now this dog not
only has the problem that it started with, but it's headlocks.
(22:17):
It's a time to practice it. So we all know
practice makes perfect, and these are skills you do not
want your dog to get perfect at. You don't want
them to get really good at shredding your shoes. You
don't want them to get really good at chewing on
the neighborhood children. Because he doesn't like them, so don't
ever assume that problems will go away. Get professional help.
(22:38):
So that's my list, along with a bonus one. I
hope you enjoyed it. I hope that you don't do
any of those things so that all the puppies that
end up in your wonderful homes turn out to be confident, social,
happy adult dogs. Thanks again for waiting for me. It
is so good to be back. This has been Tood
Anderson on Get Positive Results on pet Life Radio. If
(22:59):
you want to reach me, you are welcome to email me.
You can find me at TYO D T E O
T I at petlife radio dot com. You can also
visit my website at tyod Anderson dot com. And I
am going to sign off from the new sunny state
of Florida and I'll talk to you soon. Thanks again
for listening to Get Positive Results.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Let's Talk Pets every week on demand only on Petlife
Radio dot com.
You're listening to petlifradio dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
You're listening to get positive results on pet life Radio.
I'm your host, Tyodi Anderson. Yes that Tyodi Anderson. I'm back.
I hope you missed me. I hope you waited. Thank
you to everyone who wrote and asked how I was
doing after my move to Florida. Those of you asked
when are you going to have a new show. We
can't wait to hear you. That was awesome. Thank you
(00:42):
so much. I really appreciate that I moved to Florida
January first, and if you can imagine living in a
place for fifteen years, packing that up, moving the whole thing,
transitioning your life. If any of you have experienced that,
then you know exactly what I've been doing and why
I haven't been on radio for quite some time. It's
been quite the transition, but Sawyer and Finnian, my dogs
(01:05):
now have a blended family with my fiancee. We have
Rosy the Yorkie and Biscuit, the cat, who has joined us.
I am working full time in my fiance's company, a
dog's best friend, and just having a blast. It's been
a wonderful transition. Although I'm completely dependent upon GPS, and
I still make wrong turns at least once or twice
a week, which is better than when I first started here,
(01:26):
so I think that's optimistic. One of the things I'm
doing now that i'm training full time is I'm back
to teaching puppy kindergarten. I taught it for many years
and then couldn't get enough puppies to populate the classes
in South Carolina, but here it's a little bit more
prevalent with puppies. So we teach puppy Kindergarten in several
different locations, and a Dog's Best Friend also does a
boarding training program where people send us their dogs. We
(01:49):
work on training the dogs to do lots of family
manner behaviors, and then we transition them to their owners.
We teach the owners how to work the dogs. Once
the dogs have learned to work for us and the
dogs are successful at home. Most of the time, we
get really young puppies in this program, which is great.
It's really fantastic, especially if they've only been with their folks,
(02:10):
you know, a couple of nights, like a month, they
come to us. It's great because we get them when
they're young and we're able to make these huge impression
during this critical development period. We still can take adult dogs,
and we take lots of those as well, but a
lot of times after a dog has gone through months
of living with someone that hasn't trained them, or years
(02:32):
with someone who hasn't trained them, it's a lot more challenging.
The dog may have habits that are bad now that
we need to fix, or may have fears that could
have been prevented that haven't been prevented because they weren't
addressed during that critical development period. So, because I'm working
so much with puppies these days, and because you know
how much puppies mean to me, two of my books
(02:52):
were about puppies, I've decided to dedicate this first showback
to five sure Fireways to ruin a puppy. So if
you don't want to ruin a puppy, or if you
have a friend who's about to get a puppy and
you want to make sure they don't ruin a puppy,
this is definitely the show for you. So when we
come back, I'm going to tell you five surefireways on
(03:13):
how to ruin a puppy. Here on get positive results
on pet Life Radio.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
We'll be right back right after these messages. Stay tuned.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Take a bite out of your competition. Advertise your business
with an ad in pet Life Radio podcasts and radio shows.
There is no other pet related media that is as
large and reaches more pet parents and pet lovers than
pet Life Radio with over seven million monthly listeners. Pet
Life Radio podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms,
(03:46):
and our live radio stream goes out to over two
hundred and fifty million subscribers on iHeartRadio, Odyssey, tune In,
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Speaker 1 (04:07):
Let's talk pets on Petlife Radio dot com.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
This is Tood Anderson and you're listening to get positive
results on pet Life Radio today. I'm talking about five
surefireaways on how to ruin a puppy. Oh my gosh,
Unfortunately I see it all too often. It definitely keeps
us dog trainers in business. Don't get me wrong, that's
a great thing, but I would so much rather these
puppies have the right foundation so they don't need me
(04:41):
as much as they do. I know that's probably not
a good business person in me to say that, but
it's true. A lot of the problems that you see
in adult dogs could totally have been prevented in puppyhood.
And we've talked a little bit about these things before
in previous shows, but I decided to summarize it into
five surefireways how puppies get ruined because I see it
(05:02):
a lot, and I don't want you to be one
of those people that ruins your puppy. I know you
never mean to. And that's the point. Nobody ever starts
out going, Whoo, this puppy is so cute. I can't
wait to bring it into my life. I can't wait
to ruin it. People don't think that that is not
the goal at all, but they accidentally do it simply
(05:22):
from a lack of education, lack of knowledge, or misguided
information that they get, and therefore the puppy gets ruined
and they're stuck with the results, or they get rid
of the results and then do it again with the
next puppy, not realizing that they're to blame. So this
is going to set all of you straight on how
not to ruin a puppy because I don't want you
to do any of those things. So let's start with
(05:44):
first one one. Keep your puppy inside until it's had
all it shots. Yes, I said it. I know that
people have told you you can't take your puppy out
until it's had all it shots. Oh my gosh, it
will die terrible diseases in the plague and locusts. Well
come not really. You probably heard this from a variety
of sources, and I'm sure they all seem to be
(06:05):
fairly reliable. However, here's the thing. Your puppy needs to
have socialization, proper socialization, before the ages of between twelve
and sixteen weeks. That number varies, but I think most
people at least decide that sixteen is the maximum twelve
to sixteen weeks. If not, then your puppy could suffer
(06:27):
from a lot of serious behavioral problems later. Now, when
do puppies complete their shots? Wohoo, about sixteen weeks. So
a lot of people will tell you don't take them anywhere,
don't let them touch anything, don't let them look at anything.
You can't keep your puppy in this little porcelain box
for the first months of his life because you're gonna
pay the price. We see it all the time. Some
(06:49):
folks want to do our boarding training program and they
bring us the puppy too late. They bring it it's
eighteen weeks, nineteen weeks, twenty weeks, and by then we
can already see that some of these puppies are already
terrified of the world around them. And it's because they
never set foot outside the apartment or outside the house
for the first months of their lives. Now, it is
(07:09):
true that your puppy could risk getting sick. That is
absolutely true. That is not a myth. There's parvo, there's distemper,
there's some terrible diseases out there. But there are things
that you can do to help prevent that, working closely
with your veterinarian, and there are things that you can
do to adequately socialize your puppy without putting it necessarily
(07:29):
at risk. Doctor R. K. Anderson a wonderful, wonderful veterinarian.
He was a Diplomat of the American College of Veterinary
Preventive Medicine, Diplomat of American College of Veterinary Behaviorists. We
lost him way too soon. He passed away several years
ago he was a dear colleague of mine. He wrote
an open letter to veterinarians explaining the importance of puppy
(07:49):
kindergarten and getting puppies properly socialized. He wrote, experience and
epidemiologic Oh my gosh, that was hard to say. Data
support the relative safety and lack of transmission of disease
in these puppy socialization classes over the past ten years
and many parts of the United States. In fact, the
risk of a dog dying because of infection with distemper
(08:11):
or parvo disease is far less than the much higher
risk of a dog dying euthanasia because of a behavior problem.
Many veterinarians are now offering new puppy owners puppy socialization
classes in their hospitals or nearby training facilities in conjunction
with trainers and behaviorists, because they want socialization and training
to be very important parts of a wellness plan for
(08:32):
every puppy. We need to recognize that this special, sensitive
period for learning is the best opportunity we have to
influence behavior for dogs and the most important and the
longest lasting part of a total wellness plan. That is
a quote from doctor R. K. Anderson, a veterinarian, and
an open letter to his colleagues explaining the dangers of
(08:52):
keeping these puppies secluded and preventing them from getting all
the foundation core socialization that they needed. So what can
you do? You certainly want to be safe. You don't
want to expose your puppy to areas that infected dogs
may have gone. So I don't encourage you to take
a very young puppy out for walk in your neighborhood.
(09:13):
If you do carry the puppy, carry the puppy. If
you do have a very large puppy that you need
to put on the ground and you do want to
take it out, wipe their feet regularly when they come
back home. Use baby wipes, hypoallergenic baby wipes. Make sure
that if you do take your puppy to a friend's house,
that their dog existing dog, is fully vaccinated and there
(09:33):
has not been any history of disease that can be
contagious in their backyard. You don't want you yardia. You
don't want parvo. Certainly, that stuff is terrible to get
rid of once it's been infected into a yard. You
want to be safe about it. You can also bring
the puppy parties to your house. Great excuse for entertaining.
Instead of taking your puppy places, bring the places to
(09:54):
your puppy. You definitely need to do this because if
you don't, that puppy could develop some severe problems later.
So the one first surefire away to ruin a puppy
is to just keep it inside until it's had all
its shots. I promise you you will regret doing that.
Number two, wait to set boundaries when it's older. Oh
that's a good one. A lot of people think the
(10:16):
puppies are so cute and they're so fluffy, and they
let it on the furniture and they let it jump
all over them and it let it just chew things
up because it's so honorable. Look, he ate my shoe.
All Look, let's take pictures and put them on Facebook
and Instagram. And then that gets old as the first
couple of weeks and the first several pairs of shoes,
and people decide, you know, I don't want the puppy
(10:37):
on the furniture. After all, he's getting to be heavy
and it's interrupting me while watching TV. So today I'm
just gonna side no puppies on the furniture, and today
I want to decide don't chew on my shoes. And
today today is a little late because you've already established
with your puppy that all these things were allowed, and
(11:00):
now you've suddenly changed the rules. Now you own that house,
it is your prerogative to change the rules. There's nothing
wrong with you deciding one day that you want to
do things differently. However, the consequences of that are inescapable.
The consequences of that are that your puppy is now
very confused and it may get worse with his behavior
before he gets better because he doesn't understand what you
(11:22):
just did. He doesn't understand why he could jump all
over you yesterday, but today it's a problem. So when
you bring that puppy home, as adorable as they are,
and you can still post tons of pictures on Instagram
and Facebook, you want to make sure that whatever rules
you want for the house are put in place from
day one. Number two was waiting to set boundaries when
(11:42):
the puppy is older. Here's number three, skipping socialization altogether.
Assuming that if you have lots of people in your
house and you have existing dogs, then that's enough for
your puppy. Oops, no, it's not. We will get a
puppy in for boarding training, and when it sees one
of our dogs, it starts growling, backing up under a chair.
And my question would be, has your dog always been
(12:04):
this concern or this nervous around other dogs? Are like, No,
he loves other dogs. How many dogs has he met?
We have three other dogs at home. Has he ever
met dogs outside your home?
Speaker 1 (12:15):
No?
Speaker 2 (12:15):
It's different. If your puppy is raised with other dogs
in your home, that's great. You'll get to know your dogs.
He'll get to love your dogs or family. But he
doesn't understand there's other things out there. There's other animals
out there. So if he's not exposed to dogs outside
the home, again, there's a way to do it safely,
he may develop aggression problems and fear problems towards other
dogs later. I see this a lot in puppy kindergarten,
(12:37):
where people have existing dogs because you know, you can't
just have one, can you. They're like potato chips. So
we collect dogs and they bring the puppy to class,
and the puppies hiding and they're so confused because they're
convinced that the puppy loves other dogs because they have
them at home, or maybe they have a friend who
brings their dog over and the dog loves their friend's dog,
but they don't understand why the puppy is suddenly scared
(12:58):
of all the puppies that are our in the kindergarten class.
It's because they've never been exposed to many dogs outside
their own families. So you need to make sure that
you pick a safe partner for your puppy, a dog
that has experience with other puppies. Not every adult dog
likes puppies. We've talked about that before, So you want
(13:19):
to make sure that they have safe encounters and positive
encounters with other dogs outside your home. This does not
mean taking them to the dog park. Oh my gosh,
I should be number six. I don't have that on
my list, but maybe that should be number six. Here's
a bonus, you get another one. Taking your puppy to
the dog park. It's one of the worst things you
(13:39):
can do. You can't control anything in that dog park.
The only thing you can control is yourself, and you
could be setting your puppy up for so much failure.
It's not even funny. Dog parks are fine for socializing
later in adolescence, they are not appropriate for socialization. There
is a huge, huge difference. The other thing about socialization is,
(14:01):
of course people. If you have a steady stream of
kids coming in your house of all different ethnicities, if
you have different age people coming in, that is awesome
because that's going to help your puppy. Doctor Ian Dunbar
the founder of the Association of Professional Dog Trainers, that's
an association that I'm past president of. He said that
puppies should meet one hundred different strangers before they finish
(14:23):
their critical socialization period. That's at first twelve to sixteen weeks.
It's really hard to do in a lot of cases,
but it is really important. They need to meet all
sorts of different people. You also want to get them
on different floorings. We have puppies that can't walk on tile.
They've never had slippery surfaces beneath their feet. We've had
(14:43):
puppies come in that are terrified of vacuum cleaners and
hair dryers and rolling carts. Here's the thing about puppies.
They can be fine in many different areas and fool
you into thinking that they're perfectly fine, never going to
be a p and all of a sudden something will
make them wofull wolf and bark and get scared. Most
(15:05):
of that barking, most of that growling, aggressive response, is
due to fear. You never want to force a puppy
to confront its fear. You've heard me say that before too.
You want to coach them through it and help them
realize that it's a good place and it's a positive place,
and lots of hot dogs appear when the vacuum cleaner appears,
and the hair dryer runs, and your suitcase on wheels
(15:27):
comes out, lots of positive experiences. Socialization also doesn't just
end at that sixteen week period. If you are so good,
such a good student, and you socialize and socialize that
puppy and then at sixteen weeks you go, ah, mate,
it awesome, and then slack off, and then like six
months later, take your dog somewhere and he freaks out.
(15:49):
You do have to continue it, not but the intensity
that you do during those first sixteen weeks, But you
still have to keep it up because just like us,
they forget, you know, if they haven't been exposed to
things in a while. So you definitely need to keep up,
So don't ever skip socialization. It's a surefire. Probably the
most worst thing, terrible, terrible thing you can do to
(16:09):
ruin a puppy is just not socialize it. It's a
surefire recipe for disaster. Some puppies do make it through,
that is true. There's always an exception, but for the
most part, it's going to do some damage. All Right,
we've covered a few surefire ways how to ruin a puppy.
I'm going to share the rest of you when we
get back on Get Positive Results pet Life Radio.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
We'll be right back right after these messages. Stay tuned.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
Begging to hear more of your favorite show. A full
episodes of on our shows are available on demand. Go
to Petlife Radio dot com to fetch our entire lineup
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Speaker 1 (17:00):
Let's Talk past pet Life Radio, Petline Radio.
Speaker 5 (17:04):
Pet Life Radio dot Com.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
This is Tidy Anderson and you're listening to Get Positive
Results on pet Life Radio. We are covering five sure
fire aways to ruin a puppy. So I'm going to
continue with my list right now. Number four I have
is focusing on obedience exercises overcore foundation critical behaviors during
(17:35):
that critical socialization period. I have a lot of people
that come to me and they're very what's the word
I'm looking for, They're very eager excited about teaching their
dog banners. It's one of my favorite things to do.
That's one of the reasons why I love my group
classes is because I love to help people teach their
(17:56):
dog banners. But there's a time and place for that.
I can teach an eleven year old dog. I can
teach a twelve year old dog to lie down. It's
much more difficult to teach a puppy other things, which
is why puppy kindergarten, a quality puppy kindergarten, is not
just a dumb down obedience class. Sometimes I see puppy
kindergartens and it's like, we're gonna teach down, it's it
(18:17):
and calm and heal. I'm like, why why would you
waste this time? You can teach that anytime. What I
can't teach later is good bite inhibition. I can't teach
good husbandry, good handling. Those are the things that frighten
me with people that they don't do them with their puppies.
So weigh on the down weiit on the formal heel,
weigh on all these exciting family banners behaviors. You can
(18:40):
get to them. You should get to them. You could
purchase one of my books to help you get to them,
but don't be in an off fire rush for that,
because you can teach those at any time. What you
cannot teach is some of these other things. Common problem
I see is lack of handling. Lack of proper handling.
So your puppy is healthy, which is awesome. You never
have a problem have to give a pills or anything.
(19:01):
You get through the critical development period. You sail through
the first couple months, maybe the puppies. Let's say seven
months old, puppy gets a hold of something, has a reaction.
You've got to take something out of its mouth, or
the vet says, you know, got a little less skin
infection here, Maybe have to give it antibiotics. That's when
you learn that you never did any handling exercises with
(19:22):
your puppy and so he hates you touching his mouth. Great, awesome.
Now you have a much larger dog that doesn't like
you touching him. Puppies normally have one sensitive area. Some
of them have multiples, especially if you've never handled your puppy.
But it's going to be either the ears, the paws,
the tail or the mouth. And when I teach my
(19:44):
puppy kindergarten classes, we go through these exercises where you
gently touch one pole, get a cookie, Gently touch the
other pole, get a cookie, lift one lip, get a cookie,
lift the other lip. So by the time these exercises
are done, day in, day out, the puppies like, you
can touch me any where you want. Life is good.
I'm getting cookies. Go ahead, stick your hand out my
(20:05):
throat wooo. Massage between my toes, to file my nails.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Yay, I love you.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
It's great. If you don't do that as a puppy,
it is much harder. With an adult dog can be done.
It's just harder husbandry. How to take care of your puppy,
how to do its nails so that it loves having
its nails done. It looks forward to a MANI petty
day loves having a bath, doesn't flinch at you when
you pull out the brush. All these things are so
(20:32):
much easier to teach when they're babies than when they're older.
When they're three years old and already hate the brush,
so when you pull out the brush, they go run
and hide from you. So husbandry behaviors, handling behaviors, bite prevention,
don't bite down on me, your little needle teeth are evil.
That is so much easier to teach when they're puppies.
(20:53):
So focusing on obedience and manners is a great goal.
Put it off until you teach these other things, or
do them at the same time, because these other things
you're gonna need them throughout your dog's life. Number five,
which was my last one till I gave you that
bonus one, was assuming problems will go away on their own.
(21:13):
We get this a lot too, is that the puppy
has been fearful and started growling and then snapping and
then biting. And I always ask what I'm doing a
case history? Why did you call me today? What happened
today for you to call Because your puppy has been
doing this. It sounds like for like a year. Your
dog's been doing this for three years, but today was
the day. Well, usually because the dog has bitten the
wrong person or they have a child in their life
(21:36):
now and the dog has gone after the child, or
something happened, something happened to finally trigger it. And sometimes
it's denial. Sometimes the people didn't want to admit that
the dog had an issue. But I do believe in
the good of people, and a lot of people just say,
you know, we thought he'd outgrow it. Well, they won't
outgrow it. If your dog is chewing on things inappropriately,
if you have a young puppy chewing up your couch,
(21:56):
chewing up your shoes, they won't outgrow it. You have
to train them. They won't outgrow fear, they won't outgrow aggression.
It won't go away on its own. It will get worse.
And if you don't address it, you were going to
have so much bigger problem. Because now this dog not
only has the problem that it started with, but it's headlocks.
(22:17):
It's a time to practice it. So we all know
practice makes perfect, and these are skills you do not
want your dog to get perfect at. You don't want
them to get really good at shredding your shoes. You
don't want them to get really good at chewing on
the neighborhood children. Because he doesn't like them, so don't
ever assume that problems will go away. Get professional help.
(22:38):
So that's my list, along with a bonus one. I
hope you enjoyed it. I hope that you don't do
any of those things so that all the puppies that
end up in your wonderful homes turn out to be confident, social,
happy adult dogs. Thanks again for waiting for me. It
is so good to be back. This has been Tood
Anderson on Get Positive Results on pet Life Radio. If
(22:59):
you want to reach me, you are welcome to email me.
You can find me at TYO D T E O
T I at petlife radio dot com. You can also
visit my website at tyod Anderson dot com. And I
am going to sign off from the new sunny state
of Florida and I'll talk to you soon. Thanks again
for listening to Get Positive Results.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Let's Talk Pets every week on demand only on Petlife
Radio dot com.
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