Welcome to the puppy - LiseRovsing.dk

A new puppy in the family is a joy. Puppies are cute and adorable, but it takes some effort from the whole family if the puppy should thrive and grow into an integrated part of the home.

Being together with the puppy is enriching and filled with great adventures, so look forward to beginning a new chapter in your life – life with a dog!

This note is meant as a help to a great start. There’re many different “suggestions” regarding “dog training”.

Pick what you like, we are all different and there is more than one way of raising a puppy. Find your own way of doing what that fits you, your family and your dog. It will pay off in the long run.

The puppy usually arrives in its new home when it’s 9-12 weeks old. It comes into a busy home, since most of us have a busy life. It can be overwhelming to fit a new puppy into our program, even if we believed, we had thought it over and planned it all.

It can be a big change of daily life for the family.

Rest and sleep!

You got to take into consideration that the puppy has been taken from its mother and siblings. It will have an enormous need for sleeping and resting, more than many believe. You can compare the puppy with a baby. If the puppy doesn’t get enough rest, then it might get stressed and not thrive.

In many families the family life is at high speed. We are busy being busy, which is a bad combination with the puppy and its needs going in the opposite direction with the need of plenty of time and rest.

Plan your time and set time off for the puppy. No matter the breed, it will always be a unique individual, which takes time to get to know – just like it takes time for the puppy to get to know its new owner(s). The puppy just lost its safe contact with its mommy and its siblings. You can risk the puppy gets depressed if it doesn’t get enough contact and positive attention.

The first three months exercise is limited. The puppy just needs a walk to sniff and explore its new world. It can get hurt from too much exercise even it doesn’t look worn out.

Learn the language of the dog!

Its body and bones are not fully developed yet to handle too much exercise. So, don’t take the puppy for a regular walk yet. Spend the time getting to know the little new family member and the many signals it sends to us when it “speaks”.

Dogs communicate with a developed and varied dog language. Unfortunately, it’s only in the Disney movies the dog speaks English. Dogs can’t learn how to speak the human language (they can over time learn many verbal commands, but never our language as we speak it). Fortunately, we humans can learn to speak and understand the language of the dog and practice makes perfect!

It’s a very sad fact that many healthy dogs each year are put down due to “problematic behavior”. Many of these situations could had been avoided if only the owner had tried to understand the natural behavior of the dog.

It takes so little to learn to communicate with each other, and it’s so important for a co-existence in harmony between dog and human. Of course, there could had been a medical reason for the problematic behavior, and then of course we see the vet for help, but mostly the challenges come from lack of understanding between human and dog.

When we start reading about the language of the dog, behavior, attend puppy classes etc. then we will find out we did some mistakes. Fortunately, dogs are forgiving, so we can make mistakes and get wiser all the time. Our dogs have an amazing ability to try and understand us, and make themselves understood. We must never abuse their trust in us by being hard on them.

Read about the signals of the dog here!

Join a puppy night!

At ” puppy night” at Artemis you will get introduced to basic training based on positive intensification. We reward the behavior we like to see; we want to see more of and ignore the behavior we don’t wanna see again.

The dog will quickly learn what it takes to become a success. If it makes a correct guess, then it’s being rewarded with a treat, a friendly word or a gentle touch. If it makes an incorrect guess, then nothing happens. Naturally, the dog will try hard to be correct each time. If you are not hard on it for being incorrect, then it will still want to try its very best to try again and be correct.

Puppy license!

From the puppy is born and until it is about 4-6 months old, then it has a “puppy license” that does, it will try the big world out there – both with its own and others without to expect too big consequences. To start with it doesn’t understand what is allowed and not allowed to do in your home. You must give it a chance to learn, and the puppy will learn best and fastest, if the rules are the same every single day. Later, we can, with giving it a sign, let it know, it is for an exception have been invited up on the sofa for snuggling.

Forget the old myths!

Forget old myths about “leadership and dominance”; the myth that the dog will try to take over the power in case the owner does this and that. Dominance is only between its own – never between dog and man. The dog prefers to pass the control over to the human in case he seems in his right mind according to the dog.

Good habits!

To achieve the good puppyhood needs:

Have made clear, that it is under all circumstances a 180-degree turnaround to become a dog owner.
Have the needed time to get to know the puppy and just spend time with it.
Have made clear that it’s time for learning a new language – “Doggish”
Have a huge patience with the puppy and its developing. It gets so much easier later – especially if we made sure it got the right stimulus and we created a close bond.

Written by Lise Rovsing and Hanne Truelsen from Snudekompagniet!