Oh, my gosh. She's so soft. Now,
if you've watched any of our videos before that, you know,
that we like to use treats in our puppy training,
it's a common currency for something that can really help dogs be successful
quite early.
One of the things that McKenzie's owners told me is that she hasn't really
figured out what food works for McKenzie and that McKenzie doesn't really know
how to take treats from her hand.
So we're gonna work on that a little bit right now.
I've got a range of treats up here and I'm gonna see if I can just teach
Mackenzie how to take some treats. Oh, come on over here, buddy.
So I've got several things lined up here.
I've got some of her actual food and that's sort of where I start is her actual
food that I'm gonna feed her anyway and just getting her comfortable. Yes,
there's a good girl. Excellent.
A job taking some time to understand that she can actually take the
treat from my hand and eat it.
Now you noticed an interesting thing happened there. Good girl. Excellent.
Very nice. So she actually took it in her mouth and then she spat it out.
That's a pretty common thing for puppies to do because they don't know that
they're allowed to take it from my hand.
So I'm just gonna see what she does with this.
But what I can can tell you is this,
isn't the treat that's gonna work to help train her.
It's not valuable enough to her. So let's see what else we got.
She's actually playing with it right now. Girly. I'm gonna move up a step.
I've got some other things.
And these were some that the owner had sent with her.
Let's just see if I can find one. That's a little bit more interesting to her.
So a little bit different smell.
You can see that she is interested in following it,
but we'll just see if she eats this one. Good girl.
So she's quite happy to take it in, but she's struggling to eat it.
So why am I spending so much time figuring out a treat that she'll eat? Well,
I hear all the time. My puppy's not food motivated.
My puppy won't work for food.
And I can tell you that sometimes that's just not true.
It's just that we haven't tried enough different things.
Your puppy is going to tell you what food is gonna work for them.
Now we've done a couple of things strategically.
I asked Mackenzie's owner not to feed her a full breakfast this morning.
It's early here in the morning.
So I don't want her coming with a full belly and being tired and working on that
digestion.
We're gonna work on training her when she's hungry to help
keep that food motivation up on our two. We put new content out every week,
telling you what you should teach your puppy and what they need to learn.
But in today's video,
I'm gonna talk about the things that you can't let your puppy learn in that
first week home I'm instructor. Steve. This is McKenzie.
Welcome back to McCann Dogs.
So what's the first thing I'm gonna teach McKenzie. Well,
I'm gonna teach now that it's valuable for me to take a hold of her collar
puppies. Don't often want to give up the ability to move wherever they want to.
They don't wanna give up that control.
And I don't wanna make that control a bad thing.
How many times have you either reached for a dog or seen people reach for a dog
reach for that collar? What's the first thing the dog does. They move away.
They jump away. They play a game.
I want to change that game completely and have your dog understand that all the
good things happen when you take their collar. So I've got my line on here.
So McKenzie can't move away.
I've got the great treats that we figured out are gonna work.
Now I am not gonna just reach out and take a hold of her collar.
I'm actually gonna use that food to bring her into me.
And I'm gonna start to reward her. Now,
as she's gleefully snacking on these treats,
my hand is gonna come quietly up underneath her chin and take a hold of her
collar. I've got good firm hold of it.
And she is just snacking away on those treats.
She's started to sort of pair it together. The stimulus,
feeling of my hand and her collar with all these good treats. Yes. Good girly,
good job. And before I run outta treats, I'm simply gonna let go of the collar.
Good girl. Excellent. Oh, you dropped one. There's one right there. Good.
And I gotta practice this several times. Good. I can let her move away now.
An interesting thing's happening here that I wanna point out because she's
getting all these great reward.
I'm trying to fix them up off the crown that she dropped.
She doesn't wanna move away from me. She's staying nice and close. Good girly.
Excellent, good job. If I don't have this great reward,
she may just decide to wander off and I don't want her to do that.
I want her to think all the best things happen.
A when she's close to me and B when I take a hold of her collar. So again,
I can try it again. She's got a little distracted now, so I'm gonna, oh,
she flopped over. So I'm gonna take that food.
I'm gonna lure her in nice and close. Good girly. Yes.
Take a hold of her collar and I'm gonna reward her and reward her and reward her
now. Interesting thing as I did this a second time,
she decided to sit that tells me she's getting super comfortable in the position
with me holding her collar. Good girl. Good. Very nice. Good.
And then the game I like to play then is take one of these treats and I'll see
if she can move away and get it. Cuz what I want her to think is okay,
I'm free now.
What happens when I move away and I want to come back in,
will she come back in a little more willingly now I've got my line here.
So she can't go too far away because I need to make sure I have direct control
of her. Yes. Good girl. Excellent. Girly.
What a good job. So I've got a hold of her collar over here.
You may not be able to see it, but that time just a little noise. And she went,
oh yeah. Going to my person and having that here, being hilarious right now.
Her tongue just flicked a chicken weiner towards my lap there. Good.
Girly having all these good happens. Things happen when she's close by is super,
super important. Good girly. Okay.
Now the food is working to get her attention a little bit.
One of the things that I wanna make sure is I don't give my dog the opportunity
to ignore me.
I want to explore anything I can to make myself more valuable to her.
So I've got a toy out here,
one of our little puppy tugs and I to see if that can get her interest as well,
get that thing, girl, get that thing. Oh,
she says I'm distracted by all the other things,
but trying different types of rewards and finding not only just one thing that
works, but as many things as you possibly can,
can really help with your PS learnings using toys and your training does take a
little patience in little practice.
Some people just sort of put the toys out and the dog doesn't with it.
And they say, well, my dog's not toy motivated.
I wanna make sure my puppies know that the toy is about the toy in me,
not just the toy itself. So I'm making it super fun. There she goes,
get that thing. I'm making it super fun for her. I'm putting it on the ground.
I'm making it like something she can chase and grab onto.
I'm not shoving it in her face and having her try and bite it.
I'm making it more like something that she can chase and jump onto.
And I can have fun with her now while she's doing that, I'm talking to you guys,
but my voice is exciting. My voice is animated.
My voice is super fun and she's learning that toy is a really,
really good thing. So again,
let's take a little persistence in a little patience,
but spending time teaching your dog,
that toys and you are valuable is such an important thing right off the bat.
Now here's my little trick. When it comes to toys,
she is very much interested in this toy right now.
And I wanna maintain that interest.
So before we get too far and before she gets tired, I'm gonna take that.
Totally wait. I'm gonna hide it.
And I'm gonna make sure that it only comes out when we're having fun.
And when they know she's gonna be engaged,
often the most important things that we need to teach them is what not to do.
And that can be a little against of what our usual thought process is.
So sometimes we think about teach them to sit, teach 'em respond to their name,
but oftentimes puppies nature.
What over here is to do things that are naturally valuable to them.
And some of those things that are valuable can be simply climbing on me like she
is. She's thinking in this moment, oh my gosh, I kind of like this person.
I just met this person. And when they climb up on us, our natural instinct,
because it's a cute puppy is to give 'em a pet and give 'em a love and all those
kinds of things. But in that moment that puppy's learning, paws on people,
both means good things happen.
So instead of giving that dog that nice little massage at that moment,
just take a second to redirect those paws down to the ground.
That puppy's then gonna learn that only the good things happen when they have
four paws on the ground. And it seems like a really little thing right now,
but I need to think about this six months from now and 60 pounds from now,
what do those paws look like, on me?
And every time little McKenzie hear us put her paw on me,
I've just shifted them off. Once the pause are on the ground,
then all the good stuff happens and we can have all this snuggles cuz oh my
gosh, she is just a gorgeous little thing.
Now I've found a few things that McKenzie finds rewarding.
And one of the things that I wanna make sure that happens anytime I bring that
puppy home, especially in that first week,
is that I control all those rewarding things. Puppies find lots of things.
Naturally rewarding and dogs will also do what is naturally rewarding to them.
And oftentimes those rewarding things are far away from us.
They could be chewing on the couch around the corner or running to that back
bedroom or that living room with the vacuum marks on the carpet that nobody goes
into. You know, all of those places are great places for,
but we need to make sure that we are either giving permission or supervising
when they are in those areas. If they find that chewing,
that couch is very valuable,
it will be something that they continue to do over and over and over again.
This not only speaks to things like chewing,
but it also speaks to things like house training.
I want to have eyes on this puppy 100% of the time so that if I hard to see any
inclination of her need to go to the bathroom, I can scoop her up,
take her outside, give her a chance to go outside, praise her when she does.
And it avoids a lot of those accidents in house. Speaking of house training,
one of the things that's important to note is we've been working with this puppy
for 10 or 15 minutes now.
And puppies tend to go to the bathroom often.
I wanna make sure I'm super aware of that.
I wanna make sure I have all of my stuff ready to go.
That we can just pop right out the door.
Take advantage of the opportunity when she goes outside,
we're gonna give her a chance to go pee.
One of the first things that we can't let our puppy learn in that first week
home is that it's okay to go to the bathroom in the house.
So I'm gonna be super aware of A, how much she's been doing,
how long it's been since she's gone to the bathroom.
And I'm gonna take her out often as I can to give her as many opportunities as
she can to make the right choice. So we're outside. I've got my line on, oh,
we're in the snow. Have you seen snow girl?
We're gonna get sniffy stuff and I'm just gonna stand to be boring and supervise
and really keep an eye on. Does she actually go to the bathroom?
Sometimes we take them out. We put them down.
They don't go to the bathroom and we take them back inside and think, okay,
they must not have gone, but puppies get distracted really easily.
You can see she's looking at the road, she's checking out the snow.
She's looking at all of these things.
So I'm just gonna give her a minute or two to go to the bathroom.
Now I've got my leash in my line on so that she can't get too far away.
Good girl. And I'm just gonna keep a close eye and see what happens here.
The girl I know now I'm trying to be a little bit boring as she does this.
I'm trying not to distract her too much,
but I do kind of want to keep her moving. I want that body moving.
So she happens to remember that she does need to go pee.
So she's getting a little sniff now. So we're gonna wait. See what happens.
Come on, girl. You can do it.
But again with all the sights and smells hip puppers just over here.
So I've got that line on so she can't go too far away. Harray good girl.
And let's just see if she can go to the bathroom here. Good girl.
Go on and go pee.
So it looks like she may not have to go to the bathroom right now,
although I'm pretty sure she probably still does.
There's just too many exciting things going on,
but I can tell you one of the things that you need to keep in mind at this
point,
because one of the biggest mistakes is we go back inside and we just let the
puppy continue on with it. Stay.
That is where a lot of the house training accidents.
I love tend to happen because they don't think they need to go and puppies go
back inside. And because there's less of that distraction,
like there is out here right now, their brain goes back to you. Oh yeah.
I needed to go to the bathroom. And often when our back is turned,
that's when those accidents happen.
So I'm actually gonna take Mackenzie inside and I'm gonna pop her into her
crate. She's gonna hang out there. And then I'm gonna try again,
maybe five or 10 minutes. I just popped McKenzie into our crate.
And one of the things that we can't let our puppies learn in that first week
home, especially is that freedom is something that comes all the time.
It's important that you control their environment all the time.
When you can't have eyes on your puppy,
you need to be managing them and a crate. Hey girl, you're fine.
Is the absolute best way to do that.
We just went outside and tried to do some house training and she didn't go.
Now I don't want to come inside and give her the opportunity to make a choice
and go to the bathroom wherever she happens, to feel like it.
So you need to be specific about that and use this as a tool.
I'm gonna let her chill out there for a little bit.
Am I gonna wait five or 10 minutes?
I'm gonna take her outside and we're gonna try again.
Crates are very much a really valuable tool in helping your dogs understand what
the expectations are. 100% of the time. Now that she's had a little rest,
I'm gonna take her outside again and see if we can get her to go pee.
Yes. Good girl. Yes. Good. Go pee.
Hooray. Good girl. Good girl. Yeah, you did it.
Good love. Excellent. Girly good.
That's where using those tools can make all the difference in the world with
your house training.
Mckenzie's pretty tuckered out after a little bit of training. You know,
working through some of these things and figuring out what's gonna work for your
puppy can be challenging on your own.
So if you'd like personalized feedback for you and your puppy from me and the
other McCann Dogs instructors check out our Puppy Essentials online program for
puppies up to five months of age,
I'll put the link in the description below in this video,
I've had a line on McKenzie this entire time and a house-line is one of the
cheapest and most effective tools you can use in your puppy training.
If you'd like more information on how to use a house-line,
click that card right there, here in our training facility,
we help nearly 500 dog owners every week overcome the same training challenges
that you are having with your puppy. And here on our channel,
we produce new content every week to help you to have a well behaved four-legged
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