Puppy training can be challenging on its own,
but when you include other distractions like other dogs, friends, and family,
maybe it's even other pets in your house for these kinds of distractions,
you need to have a plan in this video.
Kayl's going to talk about dealing with distractions in your household,
like other dogs or other pets.
She's also going to give you a plan so that your entire family is giving your
puppy the best information.
Now, today we're using Freya. She is a six month old Golden Retriever,
and she just came home to her new family about two weeks ago.
And she's just in the process of learning about how to deal with all those
distractions.
So let's get to training. I'm Ken Steepe, I'm Kayl McCann and this is Freya.
Welcome back to McCann Dogs.
Years ago, I made the crazy decision to get two puppies at the same time,
they were both so cute. And I figured I was already training one.
I might as well train both at the same time.
And I learned really quickly that it was double the work and it's not something
that I would ever do again.
Now I'm very used to having a multiple dog household. We've always had three,
four or five dogs at a time. And I've learned that when you have a younger dog,
there are certain things that you need to do in the house to make sure that
they're not picking up bad habits from the older dogs.
And that also they're getting the training and the amount of attention that they
deserve. Just like all of the dogs before they would have had with you.
Believe it or not, the best thing that you can do with a young puppy.
When you have older dogs is separate them as much as possible.
And this is something that I've learned to do with my own dogs,
having multiple dogs in the house over the last couple of years.
So if I'm doing puppy training,
I will isolate the older dog so that the puppy has little distraction.
The focus is all about me. And then if I'm going to let the other dogs,
you know, do their normal thing in the house,
I'll actually put the puppy in their crate where I know they're not going to be
bothering the older dogs or learning bad habits or getting into mischief because
I'm not paying attention.
So isolating them is going to be a really important staff to make sure that the
training process is going to be an easier one.
And that you can focus on the bond that you have between you and the puppy.
And it's not getting interrupted by the older dogs.
Now let's talk about a few management tools that you can use in the house to
help control your young dog and lower the distractions. Number one,
I would highly suggest you get some type of house line or leash,
something cheap that you can cut the handle off so that it can slip and slide
around the house more easily.
That way you can grab a hold of it to control your dog when needed.
The other thing that's really helpful.
If you have other dogs or kids or other busy-ness in your house is get yourself
a baby gate or some type of ex pen, and then you can barricade it off that way.
You know, my older dog can have freedom in the other room,
but he can just wander in here and she can't wander out whenever they want.
And that helps me to supervise my young dog a little bit more easily without
distractions constantly coming in until she has a bit more immediate skills that
we can start to integrate everybody together.
I can use these types of things to control my environment and set her up to make
better choices.
So I'm going to do a little bit of a training with the younger dog. Now,
now I have her on a leash so that I can control her around the distraction.
And I might even just start off by teaching her to the dog in the crate alone.
Yes. I might need some cookies. Just lured her away. Good girl. Good.
Yeah. So again, I'm not just expecting that she listens. I mean,
to take the time to teach her that focusing on me around those distractions is a
really good thing. Yes. Good girl.
This would be a good opportunity to work on some sits and some downs,
something to get her mind focused on me and being obedient and calm.
Good girl down as well. Done. Big.
Okay. Okay. Good girl. Maybe we'll go a little closer.
Oh, look at that decision. Yes. Good girl.
I wouldn't allow her to go and be constantly sniffing the dog in the crate.
You know, if he's in there, that's his time,
that's his space to chill out and be calm.
I need to make sure that the young dogs not being a brat and irritating him in
the crate, he needs to have his space,
but I'm going to make sure that I'm controlling the situation by having her on
leash.
And I would be supervising her when she's out and free so that I can help her to
make really good choices.
You also want to keep in mind that your older dogs or your other dogs didn't
necessarily get a vote in the fact that you're getting a new puppy.
And in some cases, you know,
the older dogs and the puppies can be the best of friends and get along
wonderfully.
But there are some cases where the puppy can be a bit of a pest to the older
dogs.
And if you're constantly allowing your puppy to bother the older dog or jump on
them or follow them around everywhere,
sometimes the older dogs can be pretty annoyed by that,
and that can sometimes hurt their relationships.
So you want to make sure that you're being a good advocate for your older dog
and making sure that you're supervising the interactions and you're giving that
older dog some time off.
And it's also going to be important to make sure that you isolate them and
instill, spend some nice one-on-one time with them.
Just like they're used to before that new dog arrived. So people often ask us,
you know, what do I do with my young dog and training?
When my house is busy and I have other dogs and we highly recommend you using a
crate.
Now I'm going to do a little bit of training with slam right now because what I
want my young dog to learn is how to be calm and quiet.
Even with a house where there's stuff going on.
And you can actually take a few minutes to train this every day.
Now you can even make it easier by isolating your,
your dog in a crate and putting it in a different room to begin with.
So the distractions aren't as high,
but eventually you want to move the man a little bit closer to have her
understand that even though there's stuff going on out here,
you need to be calm and relaxed in your kennel.
Now I'm actually going to do a little bit of playing stuff with slam,
just to make it a little bit more exciting,
but my focus is going to be on Freya. I'm going to yes.
And reward her how she remains calm and quiet in here. Right.
So I have some cookies in my pocket. Okay, good. Yes. Good. Quiet.
I can throw a couple of treats into her crane as long as she's being relaxed.
Goop boy Slam. Good. Yes. Good girl.
Way to go babe good.
So she needs to understand that even though there's busy stuff going on,
she needs to be calm and relaxed. What a good girl? Here babe? Yes. Quiet.
Well done. And then as she relaxes,
I can start to space out the rewards. So I have,
I don't need to be connected quite so much with her.
I can focus more on this dog. I also want her to learn that, you know,
even if there's not much going on, I'm like,
I'm good that she can just start to chill out.
She doesn't have to be in the action all of the time,
but she does need to learn that if you're isolated,
you're not going to go in there and bark and cause a fuss you're going to go in
and just hang out. And eventually it will be your turn. Now,
one of the biggest things you need to watch out for when you have multiple dogs,
whether it's an older dog and a puppy or two puppies is how quickly and easily
they bond to one, another dogs, bond with other dogs,
much faster and more easily than they do with humans.
And the issue with that is that if your puppy thinks that hanging out with the
other dog is the most important thing in their life,
it then makes it difficult to establish a bond between you and them.
And that can inhibit your ability to train your dog.
It can prevent them from listening to you. You know, some people will just say,
Oh, the puppy will learn it from the other dog. But in some cases,
some good manners can transfer over. But unfortunately in a lot of cases,
your young dog can pick up bad habits from the older dog.
If they're constantly spending time together,
we've talked a lot about controlling your dog with other dogs in the house as a
distraction. But what happens if you have other pets, you know, such as a cat,
for example, we get asked a lot. How do I get my puppy to stop chasing my cat?
And there's a couple of things that you're going to want to do. Number one,
if you have the line on the dog,
you're able to control you have your barricades, your baby gates,
things like that in place that can be really helpful.
And something that's important to keep in mind is you always want to give the
cat an out, you know,
they didn't sign up to get a puppy and some dogs can be great with cats and vice
versa, but sometimes that can be really stressful for the cats.
You want to make sure that they have an opportunity to have an exit strategy
wherever they are. The other thing that can be helpful is, you know,
when you have your puppy out and you're doing some training, plus a cat away,
put them in a bedroom or isolate them to make the distractions a little bit more
easy, but when they are out, you know,
it's important that they learn to co-exist.
They don't necessarily have to be friends.
Sometimes it turns out that way sometimes not be want to make sure that you give
the cat the option of being able to, to, you know, go and do their own thing.
So it's our job to make sure that we're controlling the puppy,
having the line on, being able to redirect, you know, teach her to be calm and,
and to listen around the cat is going to be really, really important too.
But that's going to take me some time to create those obedience skills.
So in the process of training,
I need to make sure I'm controlling that situation by isolating.
And then of course, using the leash.
One important thing that we need to talk about is family members.
And if you have a busy household with, you know, a lot of people,
it can be really difficult for the dog,
especially if everybody's on a different page in terms of the rules and the
structure and that kind of thing.
But it's really a different situation in our household because we're both
professional dog trainers,
but we've dealt with so many students who struggle with a specific behavior.
And I'm thinking immediately,
if something like jumping up where one member of the household,
it allows the dog to jump up on them.
And the person who's coming to class is desperately trying to fix that behavior,
but it creates so much confusion in your dog's mind when there are different
rules for different family members.
Yeah. So what you want to do is sit down as a family and decide, you know,
what you want your dog to be like, what are the rules?
And then try to get everybody on board. If people can be consistent about rules,
about commands, about hand signals, all that stuff, it actually is going to,
fast-track your dog's learning because they want something that's black and
white as well.
So you want to get everybody on the right page so that just things are smoother
and a little less hectic in the house.
Maybe you're struggling with nipping and biting it.
After we ask a few questions of the family,
we discovered that one of the members is rough housing with the dog and
encouraging that kind of behavior.
And that really creates a lot of confusion and makes the training even more
challenging.
Yeah.
It's really important that if you're trying to eliminate a certain behavior from
your puppy or your dogs you know, daily activity,
try to make sure that you're not enforcing it or reinforcing it even by accident
in other areas.
Sometimes the best thing to do is just to have cut and dry rules.
So it's just not something that you're rehearsing at all until you have some
training underneath your belt.
And then if you want to integrate some of that stuff back into your puppy's
lifestyle, once they understand, you know,
about not putting their mouth on your teeth or clothes or not jumping up on the
people or the furniture, whatever it is, you can start to loosen the rules,
but we need to make sure that we start off in the beginning.
It's really obvious what they are allowed to and what they're not allowed to do.
Now, when it comes to family challenges,
one of the biggest challenges of family can have is kids.
And there needs to be some kid training that happens alongside the puppy
training. Let's talk about how that might work out for a family with kids.
Yeah, we definitely need to train the puppy,
but there's a few things that your kids need to know to begin with number one,
we want to be really strict about what the kids are allowed to do around the
puppies, because sometimes they can, you know, be a little bit, you know,
energetic or be kids! Yeah, they squeak and squawk,
they run their hands fly and that can sort of look like a live tug toy for a lot
of puppies. So teaching your kids to be, you know,
as calm around the dog as possible, be careful that you're not allowing them,
you know,
to be hitting the dog or to be hugging the dog that can really you know,
set, set things up to be not such a great situation.
What's best though is because we want the dogs and the kids to be able to,
to get along is think of ways that you can incorporate the kid into your
training. You know,
they can help with all kinds of daily activities with the dogs that will allow
you to you know,
have more control such things as maybe have them help with feeding time.
You can teach them how to do some hand feeding.
Having the kids help teach the puppy some tricks, things that are really easy.
You can start off by teaching them how to feed the puppies properly so that the
puppies are learning to be calm.
But most importantly is when you have young dogs and kids together,
you need to have control of the dog.
And if the dog is completely under control and the kids are moving all around,
it's just a recipe for a disaster.
So throwing back to some of those things that we talked about before,
such as the long lines and the crates and those types of things,
you're going to want to utilize those tools to help you to control the dog
around those kids.
When we talk a little bit of we're using a house line,
a house line is dependent on supervision.
And that's exactly the same as when you have kids in the room.
When the kids are interacting with the dogs, supervision is critical.
We can talk about a couple of ideas, you know,
for things where you might be overseeing with the kid and the dog into.
Yeah. So you don't just throw the house on, on,
and think that that's magically going to train the dog.
You want to use it to prevent your dog from jumping on the kids or from jumping
up on the counter or the table and stealing the kid's food, things like that.
So if I'm supervising and I can anticipate my puppy making a poor choice,
I can step in and I can redirect the dog using the house line and teach her what
she should be doing differently. And at the end of the day,
if you have a busy household and you have homework and you have dinner and you
have like bathing and all of these things, you need to do put puppy and crate,
they don't have to be free every single second of the day,
when you have lots of stuff going on,
as long as they're getting adequate exercise training,
there is nothing wrong with them,
just chilling out in their crate for a few hours while you're busy being a
parent. And then when you're ready to conquer everything at once,
then get the dog up.
Keep in mind when your puppy is in there,
create the kids need to understand that that is the puppy's quiet spot.
So they shouldn't be sticking their fingers in the crate, banging on the crate,
the crate isn't a toy.
And that is where the puppy should know that they can feel safe and comfortable
without too much distraction or interaction from the kids.
Yeah. You can control that by putting the crate in a different room,
or you can even put a baby gate and an pen around the perimeter of the crate,
just make sure that they have some space.
Another really great trick to do is if you have a crate that is plastic,
you can actually cover the crate with a blanket or a towel and just, you know,
give the dog a separation and some quiet from things that are going on around
them.
Well, we've talked a lot in this video about every day,
having new distractions and what it might be like in a multiple dog household
and all kinds of distractions in your house.
So if you'd like to check out a video where we talked about what 24 hours looks
like with puppy training in our household, click that video right there.
If you're looking for a structure program and access to our instructors to ask
questions on a regular basis,
make sure you check out our Puppy Essentials online program.
The link is in the description below on that note. I'm Kayl, I'm Ken.
This is Freya, happy training.