Puppy training advice, multiple puppies, pics included.

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hi all, I figured I would try here since I know there are a ton of animal lovers. I searched the forum and came up with a bunch of good stuff, but nothing on multiple puppies.

A little background:

I’ll try and keep it short, but it won’t be. I’ve always had a dog, that is until I was 27 and moved about 2500 miles from home. So about a year and half ago, I picked up a chocolate lab, she pretty much trained herself, I could take her to work so that helped, unfortunately, she got parvo and after an expensive stay at the vet, ended up slightly dead, pics of her in the link below. Recently my landlord (I basically live in the middle of a barn yard) had some pups, boxer/lab mix. His wife told him to get rid of some animals so he was taking the pups to the pound, he came knocking on my door and asked if I really did want one(imagine that a landlord that wants you to have a dog), I had half an hour. I grabbed a female. Good little pup, no huge problems, I won’t take her to work because of the Parvo thing and we have 2 dogs at work and I don’t really trust one of them.

Anyways, to the mildly amusing part about why I now have 2 puppies. I came home from work yesterday and the puppy didn’t come running up to me as usual, wierd. Didn’t seem to know what going inside was and seemed scared of the stairs, I was a bit scared, the parvo thing, that she was sick. She came in sniffed at the cat and laid down under my computer chair as normal and fell asleep. About 2 hours later I was about to head off to bed so I got down on the floor to give the dog a good rub and a little play time, and while rubbing her belly, I felt something that shouldn’t have been there, it might have been, oh lets say a penis??? :eek: Being slightly confused and incredibly tired and about 4 beers in, I started to question my exhistance. Pulled up one of the pics in the link below and compared white spots and I didn’t have the same dog as I had in the morning. Put on some pants and shoes and wandered over to the landlords house and asked his wife why I didn’t have the same dog, unless it underwent a sex change and fur transplant. Turns out their 4 year old was out playing with their chosen of the litter and thought my pup would like to play with his pup, and brought the wrong one back home, no harm, no foul, kind of funny, and it turns out that when she told the landlord to get rid of some animals she did NOT mean the puppies but the various ducks, chickens, pigs, horses, and goats, so they still had puppies.

Got my pup back home, and she seemed happy to be over here, but seemed a bit depressed that she was all alone except for the cat. She had spent most of the day with the other pups and seemed a bit bummed out. So this afternoon after a quick day at work, I grabbed the other female, also a co-worker drove out and picked up a male, so there is only one left to go to a good home.

Now here are my questions that I haven’t found answers to yet. I have a cat, pics in the link below, and she is pretty much top dog. I really don’t want her to feel threatened or left out, she has been with me a long time and is an absolute sweety. Very personable and gentle. Loves kids, lets them pull her tail and tweak her ears and purrs the whole time. When I’m feeling down she’ll sit on my chest or shoulder and rub my cheek with her paw, kind of like grandma except for the sitting part. Very cool cat, the kind of cat you would run into once in while and wish you had, when I brought home that chocolate lab, it came in the door and went to sleep immediatly, the cat (her name is Lucy) walked over to it and put her paw up to smack it(Lucy has had some bad dog expieriences) and when it didn’t move, looked over at me, then looked at the dog, waved her paw, dog didn’t move, looked back at me, shook her head and walked off. This trip around, she has been really good, when I brought home the first pup, she rolled over on her back and let the pup sniff her belly. She hangs around the pup/pups and will whack them only when she is threatened by clumsy puppy paws and only claws when she is really threatened. The second night the first pup was here, it wanted on the bed, as far as I’m concerned, dog on the floor, cat on the bed. I must have pushed that pup away 15 times DOWN. I think the cat got sick of hearing me, so she comes over and the next time the pup puts its head up WUMP(no claws), pup puts its head up again, WUMP. That was it, now the dog knows, floor only. So how do I make sure the cat is still OK? she seems OK, she can get to higher places to interact with me easier(keyboard comes to mind) and she gets the bed. Should I worry?

Here is the link, there are a few pics, the cat, the chocolate that I had, and these two new ones.
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/bobw93/album?.dir=/5c2b

As for training, one pup isn’t that bad, but with two, how do you teach them their own individual names? BTW they don’t have names so any suggestions would be helpful, I’m awful at naming animals. How do you divide the attention? It seems that one wants it more than the other, is it intimidation by the other dog or do they really just not care as much? As for the basic sit/stay/ rollover type of thing, I’m assuming I need to seperate them and work with them individually. I think I’m at an advantage since these two seem very lab like in demeanor, very mild and reasonably calm for puppies. Any advice would be appreciated, sites or books would be good too. Thanx

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Oh, right up my alley. I’m a dog geek, sometime trainer and compete in obedience and agility. I’ve also written a very succesful dog book (on nutrition, not training.) Just to spout a few credentials. :slight_smile:
Congratulations on your new puppies and that is a hilarious story of how you wound up with two!
I could go on and on because you raise so many questions, but I’ll try to keep it succinct.
Lucy. It sounds like she already has excellent dog skills and will teach the puppies respect and boundaries. Keep giving her regular loving, it sounds like she will be fine. I have two Rottweilers and a cat who get along very well, as you can see from this recent photo.
Lucy is gorgeous, I love the pic of her in the sink!
Names. There’s lots of sites with puppy names, just google dog names or something. Good dog names are fairly short. I’d make sure your pups have very different sounding names; they’ll differentiate better. My dogs are Cooper and Daphne, the cat is Elvis.
Look your pups in the eye, hand them a treat while saying their name. Ditto when teaching them commands, they can start learning them now. Practice “Come!” using their names.
Books. The Dummies series is excellent. Puppies for Dummies, you should find it at any book store, probably PetsMart too. Anything by Ian Dunbar, Jean Donaldson, Pat Miller, to name a few good ones. Cooper and I are pictured in Pat Miller’s “Positive Perspectives” demonstrating “leave it.” :slight_smile:
Training. You are on the right track with seperate time with each pup. Use the same words every time to accompany actions, starting now. Outside, in the house, sit, down, eat, come, fetch, etc. You’ll be amazed how quickly they’ll start learning a big vocabulary, plus they will be learning how to respond and learn from you.
Oh, I’d use “off” instead of “down.” You don’t want to confuse them; use different words. Once they understand a word, don’t repeat it a lot of times. Don’t say “Sit. Sit. Sit! Sit you little turd! Sit!” Otherwise you’ll be teaching them to comply after about ten requests, and you eventually want them to comply on the first.
Reward good behaviour with praise or treats, nicely correct and redirect naughty behaviour.
You have some challenges coming your way with housetraing and teething! DDFL has a bunch of very good tips and articles.
You will want to find a safe way to contain them. I am not a huge fan of crating - at least for long stretches of time. I’d invest in an x-pen, give them plenty of good chewies. Stuffed Kongs are excellent. Don’t let them get fat. Feed a good diet.
Remember two puppies can egg each other on with naughtiness. Also they’re a mix of two high-energy dogs and will likely be hyper until maybe two years old. Early training is essential, otherwise you’ll wind up with two hyper, untrained teenage dogs and they won’t be nearly as cute. Many, many dogs wind up at the pound between 1-2 years old because they stop being cute and start being teenagers.
Get them to the vet as soon as you can for general wellness check and puppy vaccinations. Like tomorrow. You didn’t say how old they are - 8 weeks at most from the photo? Natural immunity will be wearing off. The parvo virus can linger long after the afflicted animal is gone - I am sorry about your other lab. Make sure the vet knows about it. Your puppies may be exposed to parvo right now.
That’s all for now, I have to take mine for a morning run!

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I’ve been having trouble with the name thing, too. I have three dogs. The oldest was nine years old when I got my first puppy, Polaris. Then, about eight months later, I got Sirius. (Hadn’t planned on getting another puppy, but you know how these things happen.)

I would strongly suggest you pick two names which are WAY different. Polaris and Sirius both come when I call one of their names and Sirius cowers (he was abused) when I say “Polaris, No!” I’m thinking it’s the “ss” sound which confuses them, so I’ve taken to calling them “Lari” and “Sir”-- maybe that might help.

Anyway, to avoid confusion, make sure the names are very distinct. (As in, call one “Bob” and the other “Sue”-- completely different sounds.) Dogs don’t understand particular words, so to speak-- they react more to sounds and tones.

Set aside time each evening for one-on-one training. It’s almost impossible to train a puppy if the other is frisking around them, distracting them. Take one puppy into another room and spend time training their commands.

As they’re so young, start very simply, and don’t get frustrated if they don’t catch on right away. Some dogs do better with hand signals than commands. I always train with a combination of the two.

For “sit” I make an “okay” sign, turn my hand upside down, and raise it. Start training this command by putting a treat between your thumb and forefinger. Hold it above the puppy’s head and say the command very clearly. Then, move your hand backwards, behind his head. Most puppies, trying to follow your hand, will lose their balance and automatically sit. When they do so, praise the bejeezus out of them, saying, “Good SIT! Good SIT!” Lather, rinse, repeat.

For “down” I always use a flat palm hand signal, and lower it to the floor. Start out by putting a treat between your fingers right in front of the puppy, and lowering your hand to the floor, drawing slightly outwards. The puppy should lie down to follow your hand.

For “come,” use the same hand signal you would use if you were gesturing a human to come to you. This is one of the most important commands you can teach your dog-- one which may save its life, so make it the most rewarding when obeyed. Lure the puppy to you with the treat and then praise, praise, praise. Use extra-yummy treats for this, like bits of cooked chicken. During the day, call them at random times, while they’re playing, or while they’re chewing on a favorite toy. Never call the puppy to you for punishment.

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I hate to nag if you’ve already done it, but since you’ve lost animals to parvo, get those pups their vaccinations. Of course, they need the vacs even if you didn’t have parvo, but I’m just saying - a few ounces of prevention is worth several hundred pounds of cure (or no cure).

StG

5

Good advice,

The parvo thing, the shots are in the frig and a friend is coming over to shoot them up in a few minutes. After the first dog died, the yard was burned and bleached and the house was bleached top to bottom as was the interior of my truck, I rebleached before these guys got here, and don’t plan on them leaving the yard for at least 6 weeks. Tons of dogs get parvo out here, it sucks.

As for the names I guess Lucy, Juicy and Goosey would be very bad choices, I’m just really bad at it, I’ll figure out something though, with one pup Comehere was a good name, but that isn’t going to work with 2.

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I had a friend who named his dog Dammit because he was always hollering “Damn it, don’t chew on that! Damn it, stop doing that!” :smiley:

We named Polaris because of the white spot on her head that looked like the North Star. Sirius got his name because we already had one dog named after a star and figured that calling him after the Dog Star would be fitting.

Chose a name that means something to you-- a favorite author, or a favorite TV character can work. (I was seriously tempted to name Sirius “Titus” after one of my favorite characters: Titus Pullo from Rome.) Mythology names always sound cool, but keep it two syllables or less.

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since the training and the medical stuff has already been taken care of…by the way, very cute puppies…and there’s a website that gets referenced frequently www.catsinsinks.com

it’s self explanatory.
anyways, for names, i like frederick and walter.

…unless they’re female…then i like dorothy and selma.
yeah, i just come up with these things off the top of my head. i always get ignored when it comes to naming animals…says the guy whose beagles are named “quincy” and “nordberg”, has had a cat named “spaulding”, “triskadekaphobia”, “14”, and who has two turtles named “sherman” and “gordon”.

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Lissa & Bonobo and all, great tips. I’ve bookmarked the DFL site and have been reading all the puppy PDFs. Good stuff, thank you.

Obligatory puppy picture.

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Triskadekaphobia? Was he?

I had an old Golden Retriever once I called Eleventh, because I found him on 11th Ave. I never did find his owner so he kept the name. Same with another I found and kept, her name was “The Red Dog” and she was Red Dog her whole life.
Also a cat named Elsie (LC= Little Cat) and Darryl.
Once I picked up a car-hit cat on the freeway. I called her Freeway. When she was in vet hospital for her injuries, someone brought in two tiny orphaned kittens. Freeway had been nursing (sad, she had kittens somewhere :frowning: ) and she nursed the orphanss. Who I named Onramp and Offramp, of course. :smiley:
Then I decided to work through the alphabet (I cheated and had two Ds though.) My next pet, if male, will be Fabio.