VC Dog Training - A Puppys Tail: A Survival Guide to the First Year of your Puppys Life

A PUPPYS TAIL

A Survival Guide to the First Year of your Puppys Life

VC Dog Training

First published in 2016 by

AG Books

www.agbooks.co.uk

Digital edition converted and distributed by

Andrews UK Limited

www.andrewsuk.com

Copyright 2016 VC Dog Training

The rights of VC Dog Training to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any person who does so may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The views and opinions expressed herein belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect those of AG Books or Andrews UK Limited.

About the Authors

The authors of this book have quite a number of years experience of training dogs. We have trained breeds that are not usually worked in obedience competition, such as Pomeranians and Rough Collies. We are at the moment training Shelties and BSD Groenendaels. Because the breeds we train can be difficult, it means we have had to find solutions to problems that may not occur in the usual working breeds. This has helped us gain a lot of knowledge regarding the training of dogs.

We have tried to give you an overall picture of what life may be like with a young puppy. We hope that if you read this little book before you buy your puppy, it will help you decide if living with a young dog is really what you want. It can be a very rewarding experience for some people, but for others can be the stuff of nightmares. Usually people only find this out after they have acquired their puppy.

We hope you will give a lot of thought to your decision, and if you do decide to go ahead and buy your puppy, we hope you will have a long and happy relationship with your chosen dog. If you decide not to go ahead because you now feel you may not be able for a young puppy, then well done on making a very responsible decision. Many rescue centres will thank you for that.

Foreword

Deciding to bring a puppy into your life should be one of the most rewarding experiences anyone can have, but for many, and that includes the puppy, the experience can often be disastrous. Its for this reason, that we have written this book. We hope to give the prospective owner a genuine idea of what its really like to own a young puppy, or an older dog. We will tell it like it is, no holds barred.

Many books are written for the owner who already has a puppy, and may be experiencing problems, while others are there to help with training or even perhaps problem solving. What we hope to achieve with this book, is to help people who are thinking about a dog, but actually havent yet gone down the road of owning one. We hope to give prospective owners an idea of where to buy their puppy, the difficulties of house training, and how to go about basic training.

We explain how dogs think, and we have simplified training in order to help the new owner understand their puppys needs. Our training methods are reward based and genuinely kind. If the new owner spends a couple minutes every day putting these methods into practice, we are confident that they will have a long and happy relationship with their puppy. We hope they will avoid the many problems others with little or no knowledge of owning a puppy, experience. This book is the first in a series of two, with each one detailing the different problems that can occur during your dogs lifetime, ranging from puppy to senior dog.

One of the most important things you can do before you buy your puppy, is to research the many different breeds. Its also a good idea to locate your nearest dog training class, because meeting other dog owners can be of great support to the new owner, even if you havent yet got your puppy. Owners love to talk about their dogs and how they solve different problems. Many dog classes are social and people often make lifelong friends at these classes, as well as perhaps finding a new hobby connected with dogs.

Enjoy your training

VC Dog Training

History of the Dog

Over the centuries there has been much debate regarding the origins of our domestic dog, but researchers now believe that our dogs are probably descended from the Grey Wolf. About twelve thousand years ago, for whatever reason, some wolves threw their lot in with early man. Why they did this is difficult to know, but some believe its because there was easy food around the camps, while others think it may have been a form of wolf puppy rescue.

Early humans were hunter gatherers, and perhaps while out hunting they may have found abandoned wolf pups and took them back to their camps. These pups would have grown into maturity around humans, and would have helped them hunt, and protect the camps from other wild animals. If this is their history, then it has huge implications for our domestic dogs of today, and also for how we go about training them. It would also explain why our dogs are pack animals, and why they have the instinct of the pack, which in their eyes is the family they live with.

If we go back to the wolf pack and look at how they live and survive, we find a unique system of leadership and organization. This sophisticated system has never changed over thousands of years. The core of the pack is the Alpha male and female, and each wolf below the Alphas has its own place within the pack. It never changes unless there is a death or a challenge. What this means for our pet dogs is that because they still retain the instinct of the pack, they will actively seek a leader. If none comes forward, they will feel it is their duty to take on the leadership and protect the pack, because it is so important to them that the pack has a leader. This is natural for them, and we must accept this.

If it happens that your dog takes over leadership, he may not be capable of carrying out the job and it will change his personality. He may become aggressive towards other dogs, and even towards people. In order to prevent these problems, its important that the new owner establishes leadership from the moment they bring their puppy home.

Again we must look to the wolf pack and study their ways. When we do, we discover that it is the Alphas responsibility to initiate the hunt, and when they have caught their prey, the Alphas eat first, while the rest of the pack waits for their turn. This ritual is important, especially when it comes to training our dogs.

If we want our new puppy to accept us as leader of the pack, then we must replicate the ritual of the food. Their instinct will tell them that their leader will eat first. The simplest way to do this is to let your puppy see you eating before he does. You can do this by letting him see you prepare his food, and then have your own biscuit ready and basically let him think you are taking it from his dish of food. Nature will tell him that his leader is eating the prey first and he will get his turn next.

You can now see how important it is to have as much information as possible before you buy your puppy. It can save you a lot of heartache and of course money, if you can deal with problems before they become a crisis. There is a fine line between our domestic dogs of today and that of their wild cousins. We must always remember that twelve thousand years is nothing in the great scheme of things.

Buying Your Puppy

Ok, now the hard part begins. Youve made the decision that you want a puppy, and youve looked at the reasons why. Now you have to ask yourself what type of puppy are you going to bring into your life? It sounds easy, but believe it or not, this is often the part where people fail. There are so many breeds of dogs available, and each breed has a specific purpose, so it is really of benefit to read up on as many breeds as possible. These days its very easy to find out about any particular breed and what their function is, thanks to the internet.