My puppy is no problem. why is that?

mikedavid00

Hi!

The post about someone wanting to adopt a herd breed in her apt. got me to thinking on this topic.

I'm attempting to help some new potential dog owners have a good experience like I am having with my new puppy. My puppy has never been on a leash, has never been outdoors for a walk, has never been groomed, or trained at all.

Basically, I have had my puppy for 6 days and would like to report that this experience has been almost 'too easy' with our malti-poo.

The puppy seems to be training himself. If anything I've been doing a poor job training the puppy as far as feeding schedule goes and such yet he's holding it in and waiting for us to go in the yard.

Here is some of the positive things the puppy does:

-UPDATE: Now is fully crate trained after only 5 days in crate!
-No biting
-No barking
-No shedding and poo and pee barely smell at all.
-Leash trained after 4 sessions with no real training from me. First day lots of jumping and whaling and he just figured it out himself.
-Amazingly knows the difference between a toy and what is not. Never chews wires, furniture, shoes, etc.
-Groom/bath trained after 2 tries. We can hold his paws, shave his face. etc.
-6-7 minutes of whining after being put in crate for night. This is with no real crate training. Simply putting him the crate downstairs. Not even near our bed or such.
-Gets along with cat. Was a bit scared at first.
-Litter trained with almost no real litter training and my shotty timings.
-Learned how to sit and stay without us actually training him how to do it.
-Not underfoot anymore. Resolved after 3 days and after mysellf and wife stepping on him by accident twice he keeps a foot away and now he will stay in a close by room himself.
-Trained himself how to walk up and down stairs. No training needed.

Basically we're having a very, very easy time with this puppy and I would like to know why this has been so easy for us, when other friends of ours are almost dying with their new puppies.

Here's how we decided to choose our puppy.

1. I chose a breed that was not geared for a specific task like hearding or had large energy requirements becuase I live in a city.
2. We wanted an intelligent breed that is easy to train (poodle).
3. We wanted a white puppy. Bichon, poodle, maltese or any mix etc. The reason is so we can ensure it has purebread lines and like the look.
4. We decided to get a male because we read several times that they are more calm with temperment than females.
5. We decided to make size a non-issue becuase we read countless people complaining about the temperments of modern toys and teacups.
6. We wanted to ask the breeder which they fealt had the best temperment rather than getting puppy love for a particular puppy or choosing based off size/sex.

I read that the best pups of the litter are often the last one that is left. That was our pup. The price was heavily reduced and we got him for $375 cash.

The breeder said that people wanted the other pup's because they were female or the smallest. We got the biggest boy and his coat is more poodlish than maltese . The breeder told us that people usually picked the most hyper, female, and smallest pups. She said that its always like that.

We gladly took our puppy for a great price and he's been NO PROBLEM. TOO EASY. I've barely been doing anything to train him. We're amazed he does so well considering it's been 6 days and he's never had even a leash on or a groom. He's like this model puppy and has been no problem at all.

I wanted to ask those experienced owners if our choosing criterea has anything to do with why it's going so well for us?

Thanks!

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FilleBelle

Er...you chose your puppy based on its behavior. Of course that has something to do with the fact that you like it's behavior.

I would say the most likely reason for the easy time you're having, though, is that you're only on day 6. You have roughly 5,475 days for things to go wrong.

Good luck!

Michiyo-Fir

Usually if the dog is shy-er they tend to stay much more quiet and controlled. However, lots of people here end up with very very feisty brave puppies that are all over the place.

For example, Nia was a very easy puppy. Basically potty trained at 5 months old and she doesn't chew too much. She never bit or screamed when we crated her or anything like that.

Popcorn on the other hand is the most naughty badly behaved puppy in the world. He'll constantly bite, chew, howl, scream, pee, poo, demand attention, etc. etc. It really depends on your dog's personality.

But you should wait another 6 months before coming back to tell us that your puppy was easy. Most people start to find it's a harder job than they thought after a few weeks. For example, Popcorn didn't start biting until 2 weeks after he came to us. Didn't start chewing everything until 2 months later.

Marsh Muppet

As the 7th Cavalry was riding toward the Little Big Horn, Gen. George C. Custer was overheard complaining about having to be on "another boring-a** patrol" and wishing for a worthy enemy who wasn't "too damned cowardly" to give him a decent fight.

Cracker

Cracker was an easy puppy too. Took little time to housetrain, didn't bark or chew inappropriately. I got her at 4 1/2 months, she's a rescue (see pic, first week I had her) then the poo eating started...then she hit 6 months and the anxiety issues started up. Then she hit seven months and her prey drive kicked in.


Puppies vary and temperament varies. You did a great job deciding what you wanted and how to find it. But you still won't know the true personality of your pup until he starts truly settling in and then starts hitting his developmental milestones. You may STILL be lucky and he may be easy peasy and if so, that is GREAT. But none of this is truly normal puppy behaviour and I do hope that you continue to be optimistic but also be realistic in making sure that you are prepared that this MAY change at any time. There are going to be a lot of changes that go on physically and chemically in his body and in his brain and this will effect his behaviour at different stages.

Good luck and keep up the good work!

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Labsnothers

Dogs vary widely. We have raised 19 puppies for service dog schools. Some of them were quite easy and others a real challenge. Once you gave Daisy a couple of corrections and she identified the behavior, she never did it again even when you weren't watching. After a correction, Nugget might go several minutes before he did it again.

mikedavid00

Thanks!

I hope I get real lucky and things keep running this smooth.

We got chinese food tonight and he didn't beg for any food. He never does. I fried up a lot of bacon in the kitchen (I like to get it on sale at walmart, fry it up, then cut it into real bacon bits and store it in the freezer to use for pizza toppings).

The dog knew there was something good cooking but never begged or tried to jump on the counter.

Right now he's quietly on the floor in my den chewing at a milk bone in my den. There are tons of wires, wii, xbox, and other goodies for him to chew on.

I forogot to mention that when it comes to our sofa's, I told him 'NO!' twice to not jump on our sofa's and that's that. He doesn't try to get on the sofa's and will only stay on the floors (we have those white Ikea thin fabric sofas).

Oh and one last thing. Ok... we keep our garbage containers in our garage so we frequently have to open our interior door to our garage to throw out garbage. In maybe 4-5 openings over 2 days it's funny.. when we approach the door he'll just sit down. Then we say 'GOOD BOY!' after we throw out the garbage. We can leave the door open and he wont run into the garage. And we never even really taught him how to sit! I went and got a step ladder and had the door open for 40 seconds or so and was out of his site and he stayed there.

This is all from a 3 month old puppy that we got 6 days ago that never got any training.

I have a friend who is *DYING* with her siberian husky. She bought it CKC registered too. She lives in a small town house unit with barely any yard.

Myself I'm having a great experience. I'm really lucky so far I guess

Pai

Early puppy socialization by the breeder can help A LOT. Getting them used to strange smells/sounds/sights and basically making them more 'adaptable' to change and such is something that can start from the day they are born, basically.

KBLover

Don't question good things?

Don't look a gift-horse in the mouth?

Don't jinx yourself?

Be careful what you wish for?

Any of those the moral of that scenario?

Certainly was the case for Wally.

On the plus side, it gave me PLENTY of chances to reward calm behavior while also getting him warmed up to me.

Now that he's less shy, he's still largely quiet and calm/controlled. Feeding time and right after play are the two times he's becomes possessed by some feral dog spirit and is like a totally different dog

Marsh Muppet

Basically: don't declare victory until you've fully surveyed the terrain. Or, as Han Solo said to Luke Skywalker: "That's great kid...don't get cocky".

What I tell people is that you don't really know who your pup is until he/she is completely confident that you are not going to kill and eat him/her.

I got a Rotty bitch who acted utterly depressed for nearly a week after coming home. She was more like a rug than a puppy. She was a sweet and relatively easy pup, but she had her moments. I once picked up a very young (Collie mix) puppy off the street, and for 5 days she was a total gem. Then, like somebody flipped a switch, she turned into this gloriously WILD THING.

jesirose

Yep. That's why.

I love Sadie more than anything in the world. After 1.5 years she appears perfect to most people who meet her. She shows off her tricks, walks perfectly, is gorgeous and happy. But if the person trying to meet her is a child, she's a mess.

We didn't find that out until she was 9 months old. She was perfect until then.

Hadley was perfect for the first week too. Then she got roundworms - meaning liquid poo for a week, vomiting, and screaming all night. She can fetch, do all kinds of tricks, loves people, etc. Is doing great with potty training. But she's far from perfect.

They're still great dogs

It takes time for them to grow into their personality.

Labsnothers

Yes, being carried off to a strange den by strange creatures is very stressful to a puppy. I have had ones that didn't risk biting us for a few days.

Our Raven and her litter mates were taken to the dog guide school last weekend. They spent the week with new care givers including the vet plus several other litters totaling 24 puppies. The kennel staff will be coming back all day today and tomorrow selecting a puppy and it disappearing. By the time our friend gets there tomorrow to leave her litter, there may not be any puppies left but Raven and Onyx. She will pack them up and drive 2-3 hours, and then meet us and give us Raven. We then have a 1 1/2-2 hour drive home. So Raven will have been through a lot by the time we finally get home. At this point, I have no plans to take her anywhere before our service club meeting Tuesday evening. Wednesday, we will be on the go all day and I have another meeting i should go to Thursday.

DJsMom

I got DJ when he was 10 weeks old & I've never had any problem with him - he's so good! Has never chewed anything other than his toys & chews, potty trained so easily, non-aggressive, not a nuisance barker, just altogether very well behaved.
Then along came our problem child Coco whom we adopted from the rescue when she was 18 mos old. She has issues & is not an easy dog! But God only knows what kind of life she dealt with before the rescue got her!

Different dogs, different ways of life, different personalities.

mikedavid00

Do you think it was possible that Coco was given the shelter at 18 mos becuase she was a problemed dog to begin with and not necessarily the owners fault and the previous owners tried the best they could to reasonably correct the behavior?

MafiaPrincess

Cider was a terror suddenly around 8 months old though she's been easy going from 8 weeks.. and can still make trouble at the age of 5..

Smudge came to me super easy going at 14 weeks has never been a problem child ever. Some days it's like I didn't get a second dog.. Never chewed his bedding, never looked to steal from trash cans.. or counter surf.. or anything else Cider can do like a pro.

Marsh Muppet

That is a definite possibility. That crazy CollieX pup I mentioned had brand new tags on her. I had to wait over a holiday weekend to get the owner's address from the SPCA where she was adopted. The people at the address denied knowing anything about her. Suspicious. By the time I had arranged to take her to a no-kill shelter, she had fully blossomed into the devil puppy that the family had kicked out of the house. Bastards!

I could completely understand why some people might want to put distance between their little kids and that little psycho puppy, but kicking a 10-ish week old pup out on the street is just cold. She would've been great with the right handling, but it was impossible for me to keep her.

Laurelin

Personally, you've only had your dog 6 days. You're just beginning things. I don't mean you will end up with a wild puppy but you won't know your pup's true personality for a few weeks. And then come the teenage years which for many ups can be when they turn into terrors.

My current puppy is not what I'd call 'easy'. I knew this going into it and deliberately picked the most energetic puppy because that's the kind of dog I enjoy and she's hopefully going to be a sports dog. But really other than energy level and mischief level she was pretty good. She's a dog with a very active mind that you have to keep busy or worn out for the most part. But she really wasn't a chewer at all until 6 months old when she suddenly started chewing EVERYTHING. She has chewed up quite a few things now like expensive textbooks, etc but before 6 months she showed zero interest in chewing things that weren't toys. So what I'm saying is don't get complacent. You may end up with a chewer after all, you never know.

DJsMom

Oh certainly, that's def a possibility. The only thing we were told about Coco's past is that she was picked up as an extremely emaciated stray & then dropped off at the shelter, put directly into foster care where we adopted her.
And honestly, tho she does have issues (mainly severe SA), she is really a very sweet girl & for the most part very good.
No matter her past, I do believe that what she needs most a home that will love her for who she is, who she can be & will work with her problems rather than not accept her as a part of the family.

dakotajo

Dakota knew the sit command when we got her at 10 weeks but..... she was a hellion!! She loved to chew hands but oddly nothing else in the house (except branches and old wood on the deck) She has been the most challenging puppy I've had so far but with the training and maturing she is coming along great. The good about her is far more than the naughty.

winniec777

You have a very sweet puppy and I hope you continue to have such a great experience with him. If he starts being more of a challenge, there are lots of great resources to help and many smart people on this forum who can offer good advice.

Our girl was a terror from day 1 and while there were moments when I wished she would just turn into a rug, 99% of the time it was and is a hoot to own a dog that keeps us on our toes. She was potty trained within 2-3 weeks after we got her but mostly she pushed every button she could all day every day. I've never seen such naked determination in my life from any creature. If we blocked her from doing something, she would keep trying until she had figured out a way around us and whatever technique we had used to thwart her. She just would not give up on anything she wanted.

I used to think I was pretty smart before I got this dog. I've been humbled many, many times since. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

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