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Digital Dog Training Textbook

Dogs will be dogs. They are guaranteed to pee, poop, chew, dig, bark and bite. So if you invite a dog to live in your home, it is up to you to teach them where, when and how.

Raising a puppy can be a wonderfully enjoyable, or horribly frustrating experience, depending on what you know. We believe that proper dog training information is so important that it should be freely available to all, with the hope that dogs (and their humans) will be happier and healthier because of it. This is why we have created the:

The Dog Star Daily Online Digital Dog Training Textbook

It is our hope that many owners will read this information before they get their puppy, so that they will be fully prepared when they bring their pup home. If you are thinking about getting a puppy, we suggest starting at the beginning with Chapter One: BEFORE You Get Your Puppy.

However, if you already have a puppy or dog, you can go immediately to the age-relevant section for your pet. If you not only have a dog, but also have a specific behavior problem, you can go immediately to Chapter Six: Dog Behavior Problems for help.

Every page of the Training Textbook has a “Related Videos” section in the right hand column, which will display videos relevant to the section.

If you have a question about our site or your dog, please contact us.

Whether you live with a Chihuahua or a German Shepherd, a Rottweiler or a Dachshund, a Golden Retriever or a Labrador Retriever, an English Bulldog or a French Bulldog, a Beagle or a Boxer, a Yorkie, a Poodle or a Shih Tzu, all dogs need to be trained.

Whether you live with a puppy, an adolescent, an adult, or a geriatric, all dogs need to be trained. And if you are living with a puppy or an adolescent dog, your dog’s socialization and training are both essential and extremely urgent.

There is simply no excuse to deny your dog an education. By following my advice and watching the many free videos in this section, you will find that dog training is not only quick and easy, but also lots and lots of fun. I have only recommended dog-friendly training techniques that may be easily mastered by all family members, especially including children.

For easy access, I have organized the socialization and training tips chronologically, according to the age of your puppy/dog. Obviously, it is essential to learn how to choose and raise and train a dog before bringing one home. Socialization and training have many crucial deadlines, especially during the first few weeks and months after your puppy comes home. Your puppy needs to be errorlessly housetrained and chewtoy-trained within the first week at home (if not before), socialized by three months of age, and develop bite inhibition by five months.

Puppy classes are absolutely essential for your dog to learn bite inhibition and develop a soft mouth. Doggy adolescence is a turbulent time and you will have to be extra especially vigilant to make sure that your dog’s manners, behavior and temperament do not regress.

Once your dog matures, at about two years of age for small breeds but not until three years of age for large breeds, temperament and habits will become more resistant to change.

If you have followed the puppy training advice above, you will now be happy to know that your dog’s well-established good habits are just as hard to break as bad habits. If on the other hand, your adult dog has developed some behavior, temperament or training problems, retraining is still possible, but it will take much more time than preventative puppy training and, you’ll have to use different training techniques (all-or-none reward training) than the lure/reward training techniques that worked so well with your puppy.

Additionally, I have included special sections on behavior problems, dog behavior and dog-dog play, and having fun playing games with your dog.

Before You Get Your Puppy ›
 

Articles in this Chapter:

Before You Get Your Puppy

Congratulations on beginning your search for a puppy. Please take your time making your decision. Your puppy’s quality of life as an adult dog pretty much depends on his socialization and training during his first few weeks in your home.

 

Raising A Puppy

From the very first day your puppy comes home the clock is ticking. All aspects of puppy training and behavior modification will only get harder as time goes by, so don’t wait, start training today!

The first item on the agenda is errorless housetraining and chewtoy-training. You can’t expect your new pup to magically know where to pee and poop, what to chew, or when to bark. Instead, you need to teach her. Additionally, you will need to teach your pup that these rules still apply when she is home alone, and that there’s no need to be anxious in your absence. All of this is easy with a doggy den and puppy playpen: short- and long-term confinement areas for your puppy that will help her learn to have free reign of the house.

 

Basic Manners & Obedience

Even if you only manage to teach your puppy/dog to sit on cue, you will have solved countless behavior problems. Sitting promptly and reliably whenever asked prevents your dog from performing a limitless list of inappropriate and unacceptable behaviors, because sitting and most problem behaviors are mutually exclusive, i.e., your dog cannot sit and misbehave at the same time. So, at least teach your dog to sit when requested.

However, since off-leash, lure/reward training techniques are so amazingly simple and effective, you’ll no doubt want to expand your dog’s vocabulary and teach your dog to come when called, lie down, stand, stay, and to follow and heel as well.

 

Puppy Training (12-18 weeks)

The most urgent priority is to continue socializing your puppy to a wide variety of people, especially children, men, and strangers. Well-socialized puppies grow up to be wonderful companions, whereas antisocial dogs are difficult, time-consuming, and potentially dangerous. Your puppy needs to learn to enjoy the company of all people and to enjoy being handled by all people, especially children and strangers.

 

 

Adolescent Dog Training (18 weeks - 2 years)

By now you're probably quite exhausted by your puppy-raising efforts. Hopefully, though, you are justifiably proud of your well-mannered, well-behaved, highly socialized dog with dependable bite inhibition. However...

Adolescence is a time of change.

To ensure that your attentive, mannerly and friendly puppy remains attentive, mannerly and friendly throughout adulthood, you need to accelerate socialization and training. Do not take your puppy’s stellar qualities for granted. Make a point always to praise your dog when he acts appropriately and to reward him whenever he is exceptionally well behaved.

 

Adult Dog Training (2 years+)

As dogs mature, they develop many doggy interests that may compete with dog training. For example, dogs may find that sniffing the grass, playing with other dogs and chasing squirrels are all much more exciting than listening to their owners and following repetitive instructions — come, sit, down, heel, sit, heel, sit, etc. Puppy training techniques begin to fail, environmental stimulation causes sensory overload and many dogs become hyperactive or reactive to other dogs and people. Owners become frustrated by the dog’s hyperactivity and inattentiveness and the relationship starts to go downhill.

 

Behavior Problems

Why do dogs misbehave? Or, perhaps we should ask, do dogs misbehave? Certainly, dogs are dogs, and unless given appropriate guidance, puppies will grow up to behave like dogs. However, most behavior problems that irritate owners are, in fact, perfectly normal, natural and necessary canine behaviors.

 

Dog Behavior

Dog behavior is a hugely fascinating yet widely misunderstood topic. All too often, normal play behavior and communication is misinterpreted as aggression and all too often, a myopic “understanding” of dog social behavior is used as an excuse for people to use aggression when training dogs.

In Chapter Seven: Dog Behavior & Play
The Alpha Fallacy
Dog Play
Dog Communication

 

K9 Games®

— The Ultimate Dog Show —
Over the past few years, television has gone to the dogs! Dogs have become more and more prominent in the media, movies and sitcoms. Puppy dogs have a proven “Ahhhhh!-factor” and are used to advertise numerous products from cars to beer. In England dogs even advertise toilet tissue! Dogs have everything. The time has come for dogs to advertise themselves!

Twenty years ago, I predicted, that dog events (especially Dog Dancing) would become the next big-money TV sport, in much the same way that Figure Skating (skating repetitive figures) has evolved into Ice Dancing. It is just begging to happen.