We all know that good leadership is really important in puppy training.
But what does that mean for small breed dogs?
What does good leadership mean when your puppy is this cute and this tiny in
today's video instructor,
Lauren's going to tell you about the five steps to good leadership with your
small breed puppy training. I'm Ken Steepe. This is instructor Lauren and this,
is Shark Bait. Welcome back to McCann Dogs.
Today we're going to talk about five steps for good leadership with your small
breed puppy. First of all,
what we're going to talk about with good leadership is supervision.
Supervision is crucial when it comes to any dog for that matter of any age.
And supervision doesn't just mean in the same room with your dog.
It means eyes on. So when my puppy is out,
I always have some sort of leash or line on them.
That way I can manage their behavior as well. And I'm in the same room.
That leash might even be in my hand and I am watching every move that my puppy
makes so that I can give her that good feedback of whether she's doing something
good or whether she's doing something bad.
And that's really important for her learning that she is getting that constant
feedback. And it's not just letting her get up to bad behavior.
The second thing you want to consider for good leadership with your little dog
is prevention. And with prevention,
that means that if I'm not able to supervise 100% that I am not letting bad
behaviors happen.
So I am putting her in a crate if she's not ready for a nap,
which you know, isn't always the best time. Then I can stuff a Kong,
I can give her a Nylabone,
give her something to do in her crate so that she is occupied,
but she is in a safe place. I know she's not getting into trouble. And that way,
if I need to cook dinner, if I need to fold the laundry,
if I need to do something with the kids outside,
then she's not chewing my house up inside.
She is secure and I'm preventing those bad behaviors from happening.
So on the topic of prevention, I get a lot of students that you know, say to me,
well, you know, I would love to prevent and put my puppy in the crate,
but they hate being in their crate. They go crazy.
So my answer to that is work a couple of crate games.
The first one that I really like to do with my puppies is having them offer
going in the crate. I don't want to shove my puppy in.
That's not a fun experience for them.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to get myself ready with some treats.
I'm going to be close to the crate and any interaction at first that she gives
to the crate, I'm going to yes. And reward her at the crate door. So again,
I'm adding value to going into that crate, so we'll see what she does at first.
She just looks at it. I'm going to yes, and reward her.
Yes. Good girl. So she took a couple steps. Yes. Good girl.
Then I reward her at the door and then she decided to venture in. Yes.
Good girl. So I'm going to jackpot her by throwing those rewards in the back.
I always want to make sure that she's being reinforced for being completely in
there.
I don't want to emphasize the door from the inside because then she's going to
want to barge out all of the time.
So I throw those cookies right in the back and then I also give her the
opportunity to come out. Did you get them all? Okay. Okay.
Good girl. So that she doesn't feel trapped in there. It's not,
you know a trick to lock her in. Yes. Good girl.
Notice that she's offering to go all the way in. All by herself there. Okay.
Oh, she doesn't want to come out. Good girl. We'll reward you again in there.
Good girl.
The other question that I get about crate training is size and what size is
appropriate for your dog. Typically we say that they need to be able to stand,
lie down and turn around. So you can see this crate here.
It's probably one of the smallest on the markets. This is a puppy crate.
And I have a small breed puppy, so this is a perfect size for her.
She's able to do all of those things, stand up inside, turn around, lie down,
she can even stretch out a little bit. But what I don't want is too much room.
If I have too much room,
often what happens is the puppies create a little on sweet and half of the crate
and then their bedroom and the other half and it can really wreak havoc on your
house training.
So you want to make sure that you do have a nice small crate one,
again suitable for your dog so that it is just a bed and not an on suite as
well. The next thing for good leadership is management and with management.
A lot of the times that just means directing your puppy into certain things.
And this really comes into play when we talk about house training. You know,
with this young puppy,
I typically know the times of days that she needs to have a pee.
She needs to have a poo and I can be proactive with that. So I can tell,
you know what's first thing in the morning, she needs to pee right away.
So I don't wait too long when she wakes up in the morning because I know she's
going to have an accident. So I make sure that I go downstairs,
let her out first thing, and she can be successful that way.
I don't want her having mistake after mistake in the house and rehearsing that
bad behavior. So again, just being proactive,
managing her day and making sure I'm setting her up for success.
The next thing would be a socialization.
And a lot of people think socialization is dogs playing and wrestling together.
And that's really not the case. Socialization should equal experience.
So I want this puppy to see the world.
I want her to see cars going by and not be panicked by that.
I want her to feel different textures under her feet and again,
not be worried by that. So socialization is just taking her out,
getting her on some different equipment or just different surfaces under her
feet and allowing her to experience those things.
And helping her to build the confidence with those items.
So when it comes to building confidence,
basically what I do with my little dogs is I,
my goal everyday is to make sure that they have lots of fun.
That nothing really scary happens to them. Now, yes,
there are times where they make poor choices and they use their teeth or they do
something like that,
that I may have to get after them and tell them that that is not appropriate.
But for the most part,
I want them to be confident enough to try those things and explore around new
things when I'm trying to make sure that my puppy is having nice positive
experiences to build confidence throughout the day.
I really need to hyper aware of my environment and make sure that there's
nothing that my puppy might be worried or what may cause her to be worried.
So for example, I said earlier, socialization equals experience.
I want to make sure that she is not playing with a dog that may be too big and
may put a paw on her back and end up hurting her back.
And now she has no confidence to see other dogs even on the street perhaps.
So you know,
things like that can be very impactful for such a small dog versus a bigger dog.
So I'm always really aware of what am I, what situation am I putting my dog in?
Is this going to be a positive one and or is it not? If not,
then I try to avoid it.
Training is a big part of leadership as well and I try to make sure and
incorporate little bits of training throughout my day and there's some things
that'll do as well to help make that training go a lot better. First of all,
I don't always just fill a bowl full of food and put it down for my puppy to
eat. I use that kibble to my advantage.
So I might take that bowl of kibble,
put it beside me in my living room and use each kibble as a reward for her
working different exercises that might be sit down working some tricks,
whatever the case may be. But nothing really comes for free.
So she's learning that she's super keen for that food and that training is
become super keen as well. With young puppies,
their attention span is really not that long.
You can see here already she's getting bored and tries to nibble on my leash,
and my finger.
So when you're working these little training sessions throughout the day,
you really want to keep them short.
I would say anywhere from two to five minutes, five being absolute max,
if you can keep their attention for that long. But just nice, sweet short too.
You're looking for perfect training, not long durations of training.
A couple additional tips to make your training go better. First,
make sure you have treats sized appropriately for your puppy.
Now I have a really small breed dog.
She's a Jack Russell terrier and I typically use a small treat.
This is what I would give my border Collie. However, for her,
this is going to fill her tummy up quite quickly.
So I actually break this into quarters and she gets only a quarter at a time.
The other thing that I like to do is incorporate some play as well and make
training fun. So after I've done a couple of repetitions with some food rewards,
I will break it off and play a little game of tug. Again,
just keeping things interesting for her. When it comes to a small breed puppy.
There are some times where I may give special special consideration because of
her size and other times where I don't.
So for example if it was a safety issue,
of course I'm going to pick her up and make sure that she's safe and not being
harmed. But if it's a behavioral issue,
let's say she's barking at the end of her leash because another dog is walking
by. I'm not just going to pick her up cause she's little.
And that's the easiest way to deal with it.
I'm going to deal with it the way that I would deal with any sized dog really,
and try and stop her from barking.
So just because she's little doesn't mean she gets away with barking.
So another special consideration for small dogs comes down to,
and basically the things that they can put in their mouth because they are so
little,
you may not consider that really small thing that they put in their mouth could
be so detrimental to their health because they are so little,
little things that are going to cause cause blockages in their intestine.
So you really,
really need to watch what they're putting in their mouth and making sure that
they're not ingesting that.
So we talked about special consideration for a small breed puppy.
But if you feel like you need more information, click here,
you'll find another video on some more leadership tips. I'm instructor. Lauren.
This is my 14 week old Jack Russell Terrier Shark Bait.
Thanks so much for watching.