This is a fantastic book that offers lots of practical advice and solutions to help prevent and deal with a wide variety of puppy problems. The book covers topics from selecting the right puppy, from the right breeder to toilet training, mouthing and everything in between. It is essential reading for all new puppy owners :) Also check out www.dogstardaily.com Ian Dunbar’s fantastic website crammed full of information.

2. Book a Puppy Socialisation Course:

As soon as your Veterinarian gives you the go ahead, your puppy should start a puppy socialisation course, with qualified, certified and experienced pet dog trainers before your puppy is 16 weeks of age, the earlier the better! This will be the most important course of your puppies’ life and you should choose your trainer carefully. The right puppy course should have a mix of off-lead play, obedience exercises, owner education to help ensure the maximum benefit for all. Look for certifications such as the APDT UK, CCPDT, APBC and evidence of study, assessment and experience from your puppy trainer

 3. Crate Train your Puppy:

 This helps to toilet train and chew train your puppy as well as helping to build some independence and help your puppy deal with frustration and self control. Dogs or puppies should not be left in their crate for more than a couple of hours during the day and very young puppies will need to be taken out at least once during the night for toilets. Puppies and dogs like to keep their bed clean and should not toilet in their crate unless the crate is too big, they are unwell or they have come from an impoverished environment where they have lost this natural ability. Puppies and dogs love their crate especially when it has lots of comfy blankets and is covered over at night time. It becomes their safe place.

 4. Chew Toy Train your Puppy:

 Ban the bowl in favour of Kong toys, treat balls, tug-a-jugs and any other interactive toys you can find for your puppy. A Kong is the world’s best dog toy and will become a saviour when you have a young pup or active dog. Invest in some appropriate size and chew level for your pup, put a small bit of cheese spread pate, sardines or similar around the inside of the Kong, stuff the Kong with their kibble as tight as you can (I find a rubber glove works great), give this to your puppy in replace of feeding from their dish especially when you have to go out for a while. If your puppy is busy chewing their Kong, they will never learn that chewing your kitchen table legs and skirting boards is fun, they will also have a job and something to keep them busy so they won’t be barking and disturbing neighbours. Over time you can make the Kong more difficult lots of people pour a small bit of stock cube over their Kong and freeze them, helps with puppy teething too!

5. Ensure your puppy has 100 positive experiences with 100 different people:

 Research suggests that the socialisation period of puppies is up until 16 weeks of age and that in this time they should have 100 positive experiences with new people of different ages, sizes, wearing different clothes, carrying different items and so on. This includes children of all ages and sizes too. Bring tasty treats out on walks and ask different people and children to help you achieve this goal, ask them to feed your puppy to help create that positive experience, never pull or drag your pup over to something they are frightened of, this will make them more frightened and may create some problems when they are matured.

6. Ensure your puppy has 100 positive experiences with 100 new dogs before 16 weeks of age:

 This is the same as number 5, except with dogs! This is where enrolling in a puppy socialisation course will help.

7. Don’t put your puppies nose in their toilets or smack them on the nose:

 If your puppy makes mistakes it’s not his fault, he is only very young and you need to train him. Don’t let an untrained puppy have free run around the house he will just go to the toilet as he needs to, instead bring him out to the garden every hour and wait and reward him when he gets it right. If you find an accident it’s the person who was meant to be watching the puppy that should be in trouble – not the pup! Puppies that have their nose put in their toilets will often eat their toilets or go behind the sofa or under the bed because they want to hide it from you, not a very nice thought. Puppies that are smacked on the nose often become hand shy and once they mature often become snappy and unhappy about being approached – not a problem any owner wants to be dealing with.

8. Teach your puppy Bite Inhibition:

 Probably the most important thing you will teach your puppy.  Puppies bite and its great that they do because this is how we teach them human skin is super sensitive.  You don’t need to hurt your puppy to let them know they’ve hurt you but once they bite down hard you can simply say OUCH and remove yourself or your puppy from the situation for a few seconds.  After some practice your puppy will start to inhibite their bite and be a lot more gentle.  Then you can let on it still hurts until they stop putting any pressure down at all and their biting will decrease until its just licking!  Off lead play with other puppies and well socialised dogs is also good for teaching bite inhibtion and should be covered in puppy classes.

9. Teach your puppy to be comfortable with being handled by you and different people:

 This will make vet and grooming visits a breeze for you and your pup. It will help remove any stress for you and your dog too. It will also be sure to save you money because you won’t need to have your dog sedated for things like having a bandage applied, stitches removed or a groom! Sit down every evening with your dogs dinner and touch their paw and give them some kibble, touch their ears and give them some kibble, look at their teeth, give them some kibble and so on….

10. It’s never too early to start your training!

You’ll make mistakes, your puppy will make mistakes, try harder, find out what they love, motivate them, be patient, be kind, most importantly enjoy them and have fun!

http://www.creedonsdoggiedaycare.com/

We offer a variety of dog training classes here at Creedons Doggie Daycare, both in the evenings and weekends. Classes will vary from basic beginners puppy classes, to advanced agility and everything in between.

We put information about our classes on our home pages as they become available, so please check back there constantly. In the meantime, if there are any training classes that you would like us to hold, please email your request to info@creedonsdoggiedaycare.com and we will do our best to facilitate you!!

Please contact Creedons directly for more info.

7 Bord na Mona
Ballivor
Co. Meath
Tel: 0469567482/
Mobile: 0868765267
Email: info@petcentral.ie
Web: http://www.petcentral.ie
blog: http://petcentraldogtraining.blogspot.com/

Tel: 086 8200010.
Email: mobyrne@utvinternet.com
www.dogsbehavingbadly.ie

www.citizencanineireland.com

Contact No: 0857697274

12 Dogs booked onto the course. Blenheims, Black and Tan, Ruby and Tri’s.

And what a pleasure it is to work with these wonderful little dogs. Their owners should be very proud.

It is important that everyone who owns a Cavalier King Charles is aware of the various medical issues that these dogs suffer from.

For Everything Cavalier log onto www.cavaliertalk.com

Photos of this class will be uploaded soon!

It is very important that you pick the right person or company to work with your dog. One slip up and you could be in for a bumpy ride trying to fix the problems caused by an inexperienced dog walker. These problems can range from pulling on the lead to serious behavioural issues.

Insurance
Reputable Dog Walkers will have adequate insurance. Generally a single dog walker can only walk a maximum of 3 dogs. This is because walking anymore than 3 dogs is dangerous from a health and safety point of view.Take your Dog Walkers Insurance Details. Make sure your dog is walked with other social dogs. Check if you are liable if your dog damages another dog or person while in the company of the dog walker.

Equipment
Make sure your dog walker does not use choke chains, prong collars or harnesses that employ P+ or punishment (pain, fear, water squirt, interactive punishment) if your dog pulls or does something wrong.

Training
Make sure your dog walker understands how to teach a dog ‘loose lead’ walking. Every dog walker should have a basic understanding of canine behaviour. They should know how to build confidence in shy or fearful dogs and teach self control to more bouncy dogs.
If they are trained then from where and is it recognised or simply an online course?

Canine First Aid
Is your dog walker certified in Canine First Aid? Do they know what to do in the event of an emergency or dog fight?
If they are certified then from where? And is their cert up to date?

Transport
Is the vehicle used to transport the dogs safe (crates with soft bedding), clean, temperature controlled (cool in summer, warm in winter), insured and appropriate?

The Law
Is the dog walker aware of the control of dogs act? Will they be letting your dog offlead? Remember you are still liable for any damage that your dog may cause whether they are with you or the walker.

This area is NOT REGULATED. There are no laws or recommendations for dog walkers so the advice from us is Buyer Beware.

Some companies who tick all the boxes are as follows:
www.doggienannywalks.com
www.dogtiredwalks.com

Bev Truss has 20 yrs experience nursing in veterinary practice is a qualified Pet Health Counsellor, Veterinary Healthcare Advisor. She also holds an Advanced Diploma in Pet Behaviour Therapy and Training.

www.petproblems.net

DogStarDaily.com is a free website for dog lovers — a daily magazine with news, blogs and articles about dog behavior; a comprehensive digital dog training textbook, with everything you need to know about raising or training your puppy or dog and especially, how to prevent or fix most common behavior problems; plus a place to share photos and videos of your favorite canine companions. We so strongly believe that puppy husbandry and 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. dogstardaily.com is growing everyday, with new content and features added on a regular basis.

As many of you are aware at Dog Training Ireland are APDT certified. This means that our certification was gained from the APDT in the UK. We were assessed by an APDT assessor and gained our certification. Our registered certified numbers are 00853 and 00854. To be a member of the APDT in the UK one must keep up with training and personal development. The certification is renewed yearly and all trainers must abide by the APDT code of ethics.

One can also gain certification by paying on the internet to the APDT in the USA www.apdt.com
There is no assessment criteria for this as it is simply membership of a group. While this is benefitial from a learning point of view it bears no reflection on the trainers ability and many training companies use with without displaying their number.

So when you are looking for an APDT trainer you must be sure that they display their membership number as MAPDT and that they are listed here www.apdt.co.uk/trainers_area.asp?area=Ireland%20-%20Southern

Also the black and white registered LOGO for the UK APDT is displayed on their website www.apdt.co.uk.

Irish Registered UK APDT Members are:
Tara Choules
Lisa Whelan
Maureen Byrne
Nicola Barrick
Alison Bush
Julie Holmes
Mary Owens
Mairead Raleigh
Denis McKeon