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Old 12-14-2006, 05:44 PM   #6 (permalink)
shakran
Tone.
 
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First you must realize that you were given the dogs WAY too early. The breeder should have held on to them until 12 weeks to let them finish socializing with their littermates and mother. Because of this you may face some greater challenges, especially regarding the going outside early in the morning bit.

Do not get up before they do and get them to go outside - you're right, this will become routine, and they'll never grow out of it. Let them make the noise - -the whole household wanted the dogs, the whole household needs to understand that dogs are not stuffed animals and sometimes they require things that inconvenience us.

If you've already got them going outside instead of all over the house, you're well ahead of the game. Look at it that way.

Will has a good idea as far as advancing the times you let them out, but I wouldn't be quite so aggressive as his schedule with young dogs. Remember, they're puppies. Their bladders are tiny and their bladder control is tenuous at best. They do honestly need to go out a lot more often than once every 8 hours.


As for the fighting, 99% of the time it's just play. I have a dog that sounds like he's starting world war 3 when he plays with his brother, but it's all in fun. Obviously if they're starting to latch on to throats or draw blood you need to step in but otherwise, what you think is overly violent probably isn't.

Nipping your hand is something that should NEVER be allowed. If he does it while you're playing, immediately stop, get up, and walk away. Eventually he'll learn to associate hand-nipping with attention loss, and no dog wants that. When you're playing and he bites the toy without biting your hand, praise him lavishly. Have small broken up bits of treats to give him while training - -dogs respond very well to food rewards.

I will have to disagree with Elph about reducing the water intake at night. Don't do this - it can be detrimental to the dog's health, and can cause the dog to drink way too much water when you make it freely available again. Look at it this way - Do we stop giving babies milk because we don't want to change their diaper? Dogs are just little kids with lots of fur, but the good news is they don't grow up to be teenagers
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