Need advice re new dog - Dog not yet here.

Factual Questions
1

Clan Attack is considering getting a new dog. It would be a gift from Attackinlaw, and will likely be a standard poodle (without going into too much detail, the poodle related answers are: allergies, waterdog, very low inbreeding, good breeder-guy). Yes, I’m not much of a poodle guy generally, but there you go.*

The questions are:
What is the best method to train a new pup?
How do you make the transition home easy for everyone?
Where should he sleep?

*It turns out John Steinbeck, Winston Churchill, Alice B. Toklas, James Thurber and George Washington had poodles, and they were all pretty manly types.

2

We’re on our second standard poodle, and as long as you stay away from that stupid haircut, they actually are great guy dogs. They need a lot more exercise than you think they would with all that poofy hair, though.

Poodles are smart – repetition and positive reinforcement go a long way in training. For housebreaking, find a spot for the dog to do his business and take him out every couple of hours. Housebreaking the dogs was a lot easier than housebreaking our kids.

We had absolutely no problems with the dogs moving in. One day, no dog, the next day, dog. It was that simple. Put your shoes away where they can’t be chewed, however.

I recommend getting a crate for the dog and getting it familiar and comfortable with the crate. That said, all of our dogs have always slept in the bedroom with us.

3

From raising four guide dog puppies - 2 Labs and 2 Goldens.

Crate training is good, especially for a puppy. After he grows, you can decide where he sleeps. We have easy to wash dog beds we put down in our bedroom, and both dogs know to go there to sleep. An advantage is that you can send the bed with the dog if you need to board him.

For housebreaking, I agree that bringing him out is good. Choose if you want him to go on grass or on concrete. For guide dogs we also used a sound cue, “do your business” every time a puppy went. Before long they associate it with going, and you can get them to go on command, say before you go in a car. Our last dog now lives with us as a breeder, and it isn’t as important, but you can see how it is a valuable skill for a working dog.

There are three ways of training. We trained ours on voice command only, with success being rewarded by “good dog” and a pat. Our Guide dog center is moving to clicker training, where you start by associating a click and a reward, and then go to the clicker only. Training with food is faster, but can lead to a fat dog. After our guide became a breeder we used food to train her to come, but that isn’t necessary any more.

We haven’t done a lot of commands, but sit, stay, come, down, and off are pretty necessary. We started stay and come training with a long leash - do a stay, back away, then call for him to come.
Something I learned from a book - if you want to get close to your dog, don’t run to him, since he’ll think it is a game and run away. Back away, or turn your back and walk away, and the dog will probably come to you.

Get a book. One I read mentioned that primates and dogs are very different, and that repeating commands may be confusing to a dog. Be consistent. However, some dogs are smarter than others about understanding you. Our pet dog is half border collie, with a large vocabulary, and violates a lot of the rules in the books.

Don’t overfeed him, and give him plenty of exercise.

4

So are dog owners in general in favour of crating?

Any particular books to recommend?

5

Regarding housebreaking, I would recommend you go overboard with praise at first. When the puppy pees outside, your reaction should be approximately the same as if he had written the next international best-seller, negotiated peace in the Middle East and eradicated measles all in one afternoon. If you don’t feel a little silly with the “GOOD JOB! GOOD BOY/GIRL! WHOOOOOZEAGOODPUPPY YOOOOOU’REAGOOODPUPPY”, ramp it up a notch. :slight_smile:

Also, a pretty good rule of thumb is that a puppy can hold it in for approximately one hour per month of age. An eight-week-old puppy can be expected to want to pee approximately every two hours. When housebreaking our current dog, we used the rule “whenever she’s just woken up, whenever she’s just eaten or whenever she stops playing, take her outside”. Since Bea followed a regimen of mostly eating, sleeping, and playing in two-hour increments, this worked quite well. Your dog may vary.

6

For what it’s worth, here is the website of the breeder:

http://www.parispoodles.com/index.html

7

Check Amazon for books by Richard (?) Wolters (that is correct spelling of last name). The one you want is called, I think, “Family Dog”. He was into Labs, but I’ve used his techniques with great success on our terrier cross. The photos in the book are 1950s-60s , but dogs haven’t changed much.

8

I don’t get the crate training. My puppy sleeps in a corner of the bedroom floor on a blanket that was there when we got him. He picked it and seems comfortable there. Nordberg sleeps on the foot of the bed.
Training pups is more work than I remembered. The energy level of a puppy is boundless and they want to explore everything at once. You have to follow them about and catch them doing wrong stuff in order to set the rules. It takes several times. My puppy was poop broken in 2 days. Peeing took a week.

9

Whenever I read your username, I visualize Gonzo from the Muppet show. Now I see Gonzo training a puppy, which is pretty funny.

10

I have a standard poodle (and two dobies, an alaskan malamute, an english setter and a woflhound mix) and she’s a great dog. I didn’t want a poodle, but I fell in love with this dog when I first saw her. I went with a co-worker to the breeder to get her. I was pushing for the co-worker to get a doberman, since i knew from the beginning she wasn’t going to be a dog person.

Maggie is smart, loving and enthusiastic. Easy to housetrain, once she understood what you wanted. I did use crate training, but only until she got the idea that when she went outside she got lots of praise. That’s all it took - she wants to make you happy. Since I have a small farm, I just trim her down every so often with my horse clippers. She’s no frou-frou dog, she’s farm dog.

I’d happily get another standard poodle if I wasn’t maxed out on dogs right now.

StG

11

I have 7 and never crated any of them. OK, we tried but they really made a mess in them and hated them.

I do provide doggy doors and a fenced yard with plenty of chew toys.

and they sleep in the bedroom.

12

Crate training doesn’t determine where a dog sleeps when the humans are home, just where a dog stays when there’s no one present to let him or her out to pee. The crate simulates natural denning, psychologically; if you don’t use it for punishment the dog probably will not come to fear or dislike it.

Our Simone is crated when we’re not home, initially for housetraining, but entirely for her own safety now. The other (larger) dog has occasionally been a bit too forceful in asserting dominance over Simone, and Simone can get rowdy when she plays. But it is probably an overabundance of precaution on our part.

As soon as we are home Simone is out of the crate. She gets peanut butter on a toy every afternoon to entertain her when she’s in there. Both dogs sleep in dog beds beside our bed.

13

I should also warn the OP that poodles need to be trained and handled just as if they were “manly” dogs, not given no direction because they look poofy and have French names.

One of my sister’s minature Poodles is registered as a dangerous dog after an incident involving a jogger. I am sure this incident was overblown by the jogger in question, for money.

But the ironic the fact remains that my American Pit Bull Terrier and my AmStaff mix go out in public all the time and love everyone they meet, and yet my sister’s miniature Poodle is registered as a dangerous dog.

14

Veterinary staff in general is; owners are more of a mixed bag. Some feel it’s cruel or too restrictive or is “doggy jail.” But I can always tell the difference between boarders and patients who have been crate trained and those who haven’t, because of the massive differences in stress level, noise, and general cleanliness. You don’t always have to use the crate, but it does typically speed up potty training and reign in house destruction while you’re gone or asleep, and if your pet is ever sick or injured or needs to board or be hospitalized they’re already used to being confined and it’s far less stressful for them.

Because most people aren’t home and awake to monitor puppy behavior 24/7. And if you give them the run of a large space and no supervision, they’ll piss and shit in one corner and sleep in the opposite one. But in a kennel, they have less room to get away from the mess and more incentive to hold it as best they can. Plus, you don’t have to worry about them getting into anything dangerous or destroying anything.

We don’t use the crate regularly, haven’t needed to for years, but when the older dog was younger and chewier, it saved a lot of hassle. And when we got the younger dog, it gave them a chance to get used to each other without any danger of a scuffle breaking out. When we all visit my parents and their dogs, it allows us to separate any grouping of dogs who isn’t getting along. And it was absolute godsend when the younger dog needed orthopedic surgery a few years ago–she was in hospital several days all told, and then had to be on pretty strict cage rest for weeks after. If she hadn’t already been well used to the crate, she’d have been freaking out and at high risk for hurting herself and damaging her implants trying to escape.

I don’t find that ironic at all. Pitties and AmStaffs are usually great dogs, whereas toy breeds are frequently unsocialized petty tyrants who freak out over new people and new situations and try to rule the people they do know with an iron paw. Little dogs are way more likely to try to bite than big ones, because people actually make some effort to work with the big “dangerous” ones.

ALL dogs need discipline, training, and socialization, including being handled by people other than the owner/immediate family. All of them. Doing anything less is doing a grave disservice to your pet.

Get your puppy used to being handled with a capital H. Get him used to having fingers in his ears, having his mouth opened, having his feet and toes handled, having his tail lifted. Doing this while he’s a baby will make your life infinitely easier when you need to trim his nails, or clean his ears, or check his anal glands, or clean poop out of his butt fur, or give him pills. Most, if not all, of those things will need to happen at some point in his life. I promise you. If you can’t manage to do these things with him, the staff at your vet clinic will do them for you. But it will mount up to a fair lot of money, and they’ll snicker at you behind your back. Especially if you’re having to come in every day for 2 weeks because you can’t give medicine or apply ear drops.

The other thing I highly recommend teaching all puppies is “drop it.” If they ever get hold of something that’s dangerous to them, or that you just don’t want them to have, you need to be able to get it away from them quickly and safely.

15

I’m sick of little dogs. We need more big old floppy dogs in the world. The kind you can play with and wrestle around with. :slight_smile:

16

My dogs both get crated while we are not home. It’s not just for accidents in the house but pitts are known for being power chewers and it helps keep my house in one piece. I also believe it to be safer for the dog as they can’t swallow anything dangerous or get themselves into bad situations. Both dogs go to the kennel and climb in with the command “go to bed” and a couple treats. They also go in at bed time on their own.

BTW there is nothing unmanly about a full sized poodle. In my experience they are labs with a goofier hair cut and very smart dogs. I find the concept of judging people based on their dogs ridiculous anyway.

17

No health testing on these dogs (OFA, CERF).

No guarantee that they’ll take the dog back should it not work out with you or your family.

No spay or neuter contract.

No titles on these dogs for either conformation (and these dogs are a huge miss conformation-wise) or for performance (agility, hunting, protection, tracking etc.)

No point in these dogs being bred. Good breeders only breed exceptional dogs. With so many dogs out there needing homes, responsible breeders should only breed the best of the best.

I love poodles. For fifteen years, I had the most awesome poodle known to this planet. It’s been two years since she died and I still miss her. I would not support a glorified puppy mill/backyard breeder operation like this.

18

Thanks for your thoughts. That is part of the reason I posted the website - to get reactions from dog owners. I appreciate it.