How Do I Stop My Dog From Jumping Up?
To stop your dog from jumping up, it's really quite easy. The most effective technique that I found is when your dog does jump up to grab on to his or her front paws then hold on to them. I want you to continue holding on to them until the dog becomes uncomfortable and then continue to hold on to them. Sometimes your dog might try to nibble on your hand a little bit to get you to release their paw. What you can do in this case is to put their paw towards their mouth so they don't want to do that again. If you do this several times, half the time that your dog is comfortable on this position that usually will stop jumping up completely. If you have a particular boisterous dog, what you can do to add to this is while you are holding their paws is to go ahead and apply a light pressure to their hind paws that are still on the ground with your toe.
How Do I Housebreak My Dog?
The best way to housebreak your dog in my opinion is to start with crap training. Most dogs readily accept being put in the crap because it's got a den like atmosphere and it makes them feel very comfortable. What you want to do is have the dog in its crap whenever you cannot physically watch it. That means eyes on it all time. So if you are distracted in anyway, the dog should either be in his crap or in an outside enclosure where it's okay for the dog to go to the bathroom.
Dogs that are very young will need to go out more frequently than older dogs. Another thing that you can do well to crap train your dog if you still want to have your dog with you, but may be you are distracted by reading or some other activity. You can actually tether the dog to you. What you can do is take your leash and put it around your waist and then attach it to your dog's collar. That way your dog can only get several feet away from you at any given time and you would easily be aware if anytime your dog might start to go to the bathroom.
While you watch your dog, if you do catch them "in the act" it's best to make a noise like ah, ah or clap your hands loudly to distract your dog and most of time that will get your dog to stop going to the bathroom. You can pick them up and carry them outside to the spot that you want them to go and then praise them lavishly when they go.
Another thing that I do with my dogs is to train them to go to the bathroom on command, this is very convenient if you are taking a trip or if you are in a hurry to go somewhere. Basically, like bathroom training every time your dog goes to the bathroom, say a word. I like to use, go potty. So each time, my dogs go to the bathroom, I actually say go potty and they connect that word with the act of going to the bathroom. Overtime, it's very easy to start saying that word when you need your dog to go in a hurry and most of the times they are able to respond in kind.
I know one time I had a dog that was very sick and the vet asked for a sample of my dog's urine and they gave me a little bowl and I went outside and my dog went to the bathroom and I came back in within about a minute and the veterinary technician was surprised and said, "How did your dog go to the bathroom? Most people out there for an hour waiting for their dog to go to the bathroom." I said, "Well, my dog has been trained to go to the bathroom on command and I just told her to go and she of course went right way." So it was very convenient when my dog was sick.
What Can I Do When My Dog Is Whining?
The best thing to do when your dog is whining is to ignore it. It's difficult as that might be. Generally, dogs whine because they want something closer to them. Generally, it's you or the little titbit of food that you happen to have at the time. So if you completely ignore them every time they whine, they will learn that it doesn't get them any kind of attention from you at all. If you do give them attention for whining, often times that encourages them to whine more. So it's best to never start this habit with your dog.
How Much Time Should I Spend Training My Dog?
When training your dog, if you use the passive training techniques that I have suggested as well as the jump start, you are training and working with your dog every time you are spending time with him or her. If you would like to add more training time, I would recommend starting with two or three minutes a day, several times each day. You might want a specifically practice the look command and the sit command. Sometimes it's easier to combine two different commands when training so that you have something else to do instead of repeatedly asking your dog to sit or look at you. You can alternate the two.
