DOGS

The first days…

It is very important in the first days to give our dog time to acclimatize.

Give him space, let him approach you. Do not chase him to hug and caress him believing that this will help him relax. Do not invade his personal space. When he is ready he will meet you. Do not bring friends to meet him yet.

If you have children, explain to them that it takes time for them to feel safe and able to play with them. Try to provide him with a quiet and calm environment in the first days.

The walks should be in places and hours with very few stimuli. Avoid going to places with lots of people and dogs. All this will be done but later. Find a quiet route to take your walk the first time.

Children and dog

Dogs with children usually become inseparable friends. However, children are usually the age group that receives the most bites. This is because children often seem unpredictable. They think that the dog is a toy and they do not understand that it can hurt him, they are intense in their movements, they like to communicate their love with tight hugs and others that a dog can perceive as a threat and consider that it must defend itself. .

If we set some rules and teach our children to follow them there will be greater security. So it is very important for children to understand that .we never tease the dog when he eats. When he sleeps. When he has retired to his cage. We do not hug him and kiss him on the muzzle. .we are polite to him, we do not pull his ears and tail .we caress him calmly and gently when he comes to us. we leave them on the ground (it will help to build a good relationship with the children the feeding) And for the parents we never leave children and dog unattended because the children can do something bad to the dog but even during the game it can be done an accident.

Punishment and reward

Dogs that come from shelters are usually dogs that have already gone through a lot. Abandonment, survival on the road, abuse. What they need is security and respect to heal their wounds physically and mentally.

Any form of physical or verbal violence can only harm our relationship with the dog but especially with the dog itself. We generally avoid punishment. With punishment the dog does not learn anything we just suppress behaviors. We need to think about what we want our dog to do and not what we do not want him to do. For example, if I do not want him to jump on me, I will have to focus on what I want him to do and work on this piece. So if instead of arguing with him every time he jumps on me I give him a treat every time he sits I will have this behavior.

All research shows that they learn better through reward than punishment. Punishment causes anxiety and fear about it and reduces a behavior. Out of fear of an unpleasant consequence. When there is fear the learning process is blocked. It is no coincidence that even in guide dogs, which are one of the most difficult things a dog can do, we now use rewards instead of corrections and punishment. This started after it was found that in this way a larger number of dogs manage to complete this demanding training. If we can teach a dog to safely drive a blind man into a city environment by rewarding, crossing streets, boulevards, avoiding obstacles, finding entrances, stairs, elevators and much more it is ridiculous to use punishments for simple behaviors like pulling on the leash or how to learn to be calm at home.

Games

All dogs need objects that can chew.It is a normal behavior (especially for puppies) that we can not suppress. But we can direct it. To teach them what they can and cannot chew. Chewing something helps a lot in dealing with stress, while dogs that stay alone for many hours have something to do and fight their boredom. Also dogs that are not given enough relaxation benefit from such items. A very good solution is Kong, but we need to teach our dog how to play with it. Because if we make it very difficult for him from the beginning and he can not get the food out of it, he will soon get tired and will give up. It's like children if a game is difficult and they do not win, they do not like it and they stop playing. In the beginning we want to build a good relationship with kong.

So for a while we just put very good delicacies in such a size that they can easily come out from inside. Once they are finished, we just pick it up and do not let it get bored. In dogs that have a guard we take it when it is in another room. Then after we have built a good relationship and a reward history from Kong we slowly start to make it difficult. To put bigger delicacies so that they come out a little harder, to put something thick like yogurt or liquid cheese together with croquettes. Again they can take them out but it takes them a little longer. Then we can put it in the fridge to make the mixture a little more solid and therefore a little harder.

Next step to put it in the freezer to freeze and give them. They can eat their food all over Kong. Other items they can have for chewing are calcium bones (be careful because in pet shops they give something else that melts and is eaten)

How we prepare the space

It is very important to have prepared in advance the place where our dog will live. We need to design the room so that there are no objects that he can chew on. We pay special attention to cables. Items that a dog can chew either out of stress or out of boredom or just because he is weird are usually chairs, sofas, pillows, rugs, shoes, slippers, clothes, magazines, books, remote controls, cd. We make sure that we have collected what we can from them and that we have enriched the space with objects that can be chewed (mentioned earlier). crate)

The cage especially is a very useful tool and is necessary regardless of whether we have shaped the space or not.

Toilet

The issue of the toilet while it is very simple concerns and makes it very difficult for people. It is very easy to teach our dog not only to do it where we want but to do it when we ask him. The secret of success is constant supervision. But let's start from the beginning. We have our dog in the car and we go to his new house for the first time. This whole process involves a lot of stress for our dog. Removal from familiar environment, new people, driving, smells, new environment.

Most likely he will be ready to do them as soon as he gets out of the car (if he has not done them inside). As soon as we get home, we immediately take our dog out with the leash and direct him to the predetermined point where we want him to get dirty. We make sure to give him enough time to be in the mood so that he feels comfortable and can be relieved. We can also give him water to drink to help him. As soon as he does, we reward him very happily verbally and give him a very good treat.

Congratulations we have just taken the first and most important step.

Then we take him to his place to explore and get to know him and leave him there to relax. All we have to do afterwards is make sure to give him the opportunity regularly by going to the predetermined point. Always having a good treat with us. Dogs usually get dirty. as soon as they wake up. shortly after eating and drinking water. after intense play. when people come At these moments we put his strap on him and take him to the place we want him to get dirty. At the time when he starts to do them, we say a word like do or that it suits us sweetly and calmly so that we do not cut him and as soon as he is done we say well done and give him a treat. In time he will associate the word with this energy and the delicacy and when we tell him do it he will understand what we ask of him and if he really wants to do his need he will do it. We will always have our mind on the dog the first time for any indications that he wants to go to the toilet.

Most dogs when it is toilet time start smelling the ground and making circles. If you see such behavior, speak to him immediately so that you can distract him but without scaring him and take him as fast as you can to the predetermined place. There is always the possibility that the dog may not be able to act in the first hours or even the first couple of days due to the stress of change.

So if he does not do it as soon as he gets out of the car or in the next few hours we continue to take him out every 2-3 hours and watch while he is inside for any signs that he wants to go to the toilet (smell around, whining). It is very possible to have accidents in the beginning, especially if they had been in a cage for a long time and learned to do it where they lived. In no case do we quarrel with our dog if there is an accident in the house.

anxiety

It is one of the most difficult problems to deal with. That is why prevention is so important. Dogs that come from shelters usually due to the difficult situations they have gone through tend to cling to the people who care for them and panic as soon as they are left alone for a while.

Shelter dogs are somehow already accustomed to spending some hours without human presence. All we have to do is not break this routine. It is vital from the first day we bring our dog home to learn to be alone.

Even when we are at home. He should spend some time alone when we are at home. Being confined to his space (park, cage) for a while the dog does not have the ability to follow us throughout the house where we go like our shadow and learns to manage to be alone and deal with toys (Kong, calcium - deer bones etc) of.

While we can take advantage and do some work that we could not do if it was outside. It is important not to bend even if he complains. It is for his own good, dogs that have separation anxiety really suffer. Be careful not to overdo it though and always leave the dog alone !!! We talk for half an hour at most when we are home.

It will take time for the dog to feel safe and see his true character. It is an opportunity in the first time that he is cautious and will give us many good behaviors to strengthen them so that we do not find ourselves surprised later. Most of us have a laid back attitude when it comes to painting a picture about ourselves. While we give him huge attention whenever he does something we do not want.

Our attention is a huge reward for a dog. Even the negative. The only thing we can do in this way is to strengthen habits that we do not want. All we have to do is when we see him quiet or playing with his toys we say a lot of bravos to him and give him a lot of delicacies.

Every time he sits lying down and looks at us we can leave him a treat. Every time he plays with a toy he does the same. If we strengthen such habits from the beginning, we will not face any problem with it. Whichever house you go to has a dog, whatever the dog does, whether it is constantly barking, jumping on us, biting us, demanding attention, stealing objects, or being prudent and behaving calmly are all behaviors that we have strengthened.