This article I am writing from personal experience. My wife and I were both working when we got Buddy who was 10 weeks at the time. We rescued him from the shelter after he had been to another family for only a week. He came with a certificate to Obedience school as he qualified for training based on the experience the previous family had with him. We successfully trained Buddy to be a perfect dog in all situations. This is written based on my experience and tips that helped us succeed and that will hopefully help you as well.
Puppy Training When Working Full-Time
Since you are reading this article you’ve already come to the realization that you need to train your dog. It is never too late to train your dog, it may just take longer to break old habits the older they are. You probably also work enough hours a week to make this task seem impossible but it is not. My wife and I were able to do it and so can you.
Beginings
The first week we got Buddy we were on vacation so we did have a leg up on crate training and house breaking over those that can not take the time off. If you are able to take a week off for the first week you have your new dog it will be invaluable in the long run. In this first week you’ll want to house train them and start crate training. These two go hand in hand as you will discover further in the article. Ideally you should be able to take your dog out in regular intervals while you are house training them but because of work schedules we know this can be a daunting task. I’ll discuss some alternatives you can use while at work.
As a puppy take them out every 30 minutes when you are home to “do their business”.
When you are bringing them out mark the task at hand. Take them outside on a leash to a part of your yard (or where every they will be permitted to go to the bathroom). Mark the behaviour by saying “Do your business” in a calm but firm voice. Once they relieve themselves give them praise and say “Good Boy or Good Girl” in a praising voice.
Clean up any poop as a responsible dog owner. Once inside you may give them a treat on occasion. You shouldn’t be using treats to get them to go to the bathroom where you want them too. Increase the time between bathroom outings while you are home until they can go for at least a couple hours.
At night limit their water – remove it at night an hour before they will go out for the last time during the night
And only leave a small bowl during the day if any. This will lessen the need to go to the bathroom. Make sure though when you are home they get plenty of water. Also limit treats at night before they go to bed if you can. Think like you – if you drink a lot of water or eat foods right before bed you will most likely be waking up to go to the bathroom. The dog will behave the same at night and during the day.
Larger dogs will be able to hold it for up to 10 hours while smaller dogs usually can only hold it four. When an accident does happen don’t scold them, just take them right outside when you notice the mistake. If you find yourself needing to be gone longer than they can hold it find someone to take them out.
There are plenty of dog walkers around that will charge a small fee to walk your dog on a daily basis. There are other aids such as indoor dog training pads where you can train your dog to use that pad for relieving themselves. They are designed to collect the waste for you to throw out. (‘Iris FT-650 Medium Floor Protection Tray for Pet Training Pads’ by IRIS http://amzn.to/aaqwV9 )
However be warned using these could train your dog that they don’t have to wait to go outside. Resort to these only in extreme cases.
Most important, crate train your dog
This is easy to do while you are working during the day. Put your dog in a properly sized crate during the day and at night when you sleep. The crate must be sized so that your dog can comfortably move around but not so much room that they can create a bathroom space in it.
Dogs are clean animals and will do whatever they can to not soil the space they live in. If the crate is too large the dog can use a corner of it just to go to the bathroom where he won’t have to lay in it.
Your dog will make strange noises and barks to try to get out of the crate, and by try to get out I mean guilt you into letting them out. You can train this out of them by waiting for them to be quiet for 10 seconds – once they are let them out. Praise them say “Good Quiet” and after a short time put them back in the crate. Now wait 20 seconds and do the same thing. Keep doubling this in the same training period until they no longer cry to get out.
You can do this in sessions – where you set goals, 1 minute for the first training session and maybe 3 minutes for the second training session. You should be able to use your crate to put your dog in a safe place during emergencies or when you can’t be constantly watching them.
You can find more indepth articles on crate training that will explain this further. Never use a shock collar! And never yell at them while they are being training. Yelling just tells the dog that they can make more noise and is counter productive.
These two training techniques will be the key to being able to train your puppy while working full time. Training other behaviors is less time intensive and can be accomplished by attending a local Dog Obedience school. So lets discuss that part of training your dog while still working full time.
There are two avenues, getting do it yourself dog training books and videos or going to a dog training class. I suggest going to a dog training class that fits in your schedule. Usually they are on weekends or after work and occur once or twice a week. The class will be training you as well and this is why I recommend doing a class and not a do it yourself book.
After work each day spend 30 minutes reinforcing that weeks training techniques using a quality treat that your dog doesn’t get any other time but loves. I used hot dog pieces which I found worked really well. These are the same treats that you use in your training classes.
Your instructor should open the class with a discussion on the importance of praise and treats during training. The use of positive reinforcement training is the only way there is. Any other training technique is counterproductive.
You have to be consistent
Use the same words when training your dog at all times and also use the same tone. Speaking a command over and over again is training your dog to wait for the command to be said four times to do what you ask. Your instructor should go over this. Also you shouldn’t need to raise your voice.
If there are two of you training your dog use the same commands as well. You should have one “master” in the household. If the dog sees that there is a power struggle between the two of you he or she will think that they have an opportunity to become the alpha dog in the pack.
I only touched briefly upon that techniques that worked for us with emphasis on the crate and house training as those are the two most important trainings to get down first while training your dog and working full time. In fact any dog should be trained those two things first no matter what the household situation is.
You can find more information on the training techniques on my blog or the internet. If you have questions feel free to contact me through my blog in the link below.
We went through three training classes; “Beginner Obedience”,”Intermediate Obedience” and “Come when called”. The latter we decided to go to because Buddy wasn’t coming when called. He is a perfectly behaved dog now and we love him very much.
This is a wonderful article on training. I’m thinking of getting a puppy soon and will definitely be back to reference this!
Great post! Thanks for the info, definitely good to have as I get into training my dog. Keep the blogging coming!
You need to be very careful with the advice you are giving. I know that you love dogs and your heart is in the right place, but you are giving dog training advice after having gone to a couple of classes. That’s like operating on someone because you’ve watched a couple of medical documentaries.
Advising people to limit their dog’s water intake as a way to get them potty trained is a bad idea. And writing that a large dog can hold their bladder for 10 hours is just patently untrue. SOME large dogs can do this. But other dogs will end up having an accident, or possible developing a bladder infection or even stones from routinely holding a full bladder.
Please be careful. Just because you have trained your own dog, that doesn’t qualify you to advise others.
Hello,
I have a really hard time as my 10 week old puppy whines to no end when we don’t give him attention, even if I leave the room for a few minutes. What should I do?
Hello everyone, it’s my first pay a quick visit at this site, and piece of
writing is genuinely fruitful in support of me, keep up posting these types of posts.
For an awesome review please view this web-site natural bodybuilding supplements
Hey there! Do you know if they make any plugins to safeguard
against hackers? I’m kinda paranoid about losing everything I’ve worked hard on. Any tips?
I do not even understand how I finished up right
here, but I believed this put up was good. I do not recognize who you might be but certainly you are
going to a well-known blogger should you are not already.
Cheers!
The Tiny Wings for PC, as per the mutants genetic gladiators cheats given guidelines.
Getting used to the barrage of high-end mutants genetic gladiators cheats handsets are available in the UK the real possibilities and
age pupils. This is easily available on Facebook. Individually,
a combination of a cell phone developed to make mistakes.
Oftentimes, you will be built on makes it one of the
original review last year!
my web site: Mutants genetic gladiators hack android
Good web site you have here.. It’s hard to find quality writing like yours these days.
I really appreciate people like you! Take care!!
At this moment I am going to do my breakfast, later than having my breakfast coming again to read further news.
It’s difficult to find educated people about this subject, however, you seem
like you know what you’re talking about! Thanks
Hi there! Do you know if they make any plugins to help with Search Engine Optimization? I’m trying to get my blog
to rank for some targeted keywords but I’m not seeing very good gains.
If you know of any please share. Appreciate it!
But your job is to act as a middle man between the
lenders and the borrowers. All your financial questions in relation to your bank can be best answered by them.
Mortgage brokers have connection with multiple financial institutions and lending resources as your
representative, trying to get the lowest rate mortgage
to meet your requirements.
I really have found out something from this article, your site it’s really fascinating and catchy. You have gained a lifetime visitor with this article only!
Nice post. I learn something totally new and challenging
on blogs I stumbleupon everyday. It’s always helpful to read through content
from other authors and practice a little something from their websites.
Wonderful blog! Do you have any tips and hints for aspiring writers?
I’m planning to start my own site soon but I’m a little lost on everything.
Would you recommend starting with a free platform like WordPress or go for
a paid option? There are so many options out there that I’m completely overwhelmed ..
Any recommendations? Kudos!
It is in point of fact a nice and useful piece of information. I’m satisfied that you shared this helpful
information with us. Please stay us up to date like this.
Thank you for sharing.
Excellent article. I definitely appreciate this site.
Thanks!
Thanks for one’s marvelous posting! I certainly enjoyed reading it,
you will be a great author. I will remember
to bookmark your blog and will often come back in the future.
I want to encourage you to continue your great work, have
a nice evening!
Hi there to every one, the contents existing at this web page are in fact awesome for people knowledge,
well, keep up the good work fellows.
I’m not sure exactly why but this blog is loading extremely slow for me.
Is anyone else having this issue or is it a issue on my end?
I’ll check back later and see if the problem still exists.
I’m really loving the theme/design of your blog. Do you ever run into
any internet browser compatibility issues? A few of my blog readers have complained about my website not working correctly in Explorer but looks great in Safari.
Do you have any ideas to help fix this issue?
This excellent website really has all of the info I needed
about this subject and didn’t know who to ask.
Sweet blog! I found it while surfing around on Yahoo News.
Do you have any tips on how to get listed in Yahoo News? I’ve been trying
for a while but I never seem to get there! Cheers
Hello There. I discovered your blog the usage of msn. That is a really smartly written article.
I’ll make sure to bookmark it and return to learn extra of your useful information. Thanks for the post.
I’ll certainly return.
Wow that was strange. I just wrote an very long comment but after I clicked submit my comment didn’t
appear. Grrrr… well I’m not writing all that over again. Regardless, just wanted
to say fantastic blog!
Aw, this was an exceptionally good post. Taking a few
minutes and actual effort to make a very good article… but what can I say… I procrastinate a whole lot and don’t
seem to get anything done.