Puppy Training and Other Issues

[Faerin]

I have a four month old Chiweenie (chihuahua/dachshund) and I having some training issues and I have some concerns about other things as well.

1. House training is not going along as well as I thought it might. I have managed to get her to go on newspaper in the house most of the time but she still has about four or so accidents daily. I started training her with training pads and she decided that training pads were exactly like carpet so any bit of carpet was fine to go on. Needless to say I stopped with the training pads. She likes the bathroom floor for most of her nasty surprises.
:disgust:
2. Her separation anxiety is terrible. We tried the D.A.P. (dog appeasement pheromone) collar but it didn't do anything. She comes with me most places since leaving her at home is loud and annoying for my roommate let alone the landlord who lives upstairs. I can't even leave her for two minutes while I go feed the buns.

3. She sucks on fingers constantly like she needs to nurse. I have tried replacing fingers with toys, carrots or nyla bones to no avail.

4. I'm pretty sure she's allergic to her food or something else around her. She always sucks/bites her feet and tail, chews the fur around her back legs and butt and scratches like crazy. I have her on Origen puppy food and sometimes she gets fed raw. I have made sure that she doesn't have fleas/mites or worms (she is on revolution and interceptor). She has no hot spots or red/angry marks on her. I put a leather collar on her since I found out that she was allergic to nylon.

I don't know if it makes any difference or not but she came to me really young since her mother had abandoned the pups at birth and was raised by humans. I'm assuming that she didn't learn all the things she was supposed to from her mum and obviously didn't get weaned properly. I've been told that both breeds are notorious for being difficult to train, stubborn and headstrong to boot.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Korr_and_Sophie]

For the house breaking, stop using newpaper and allowing her to go inside. Get her to go outside, even if it is only on the porch/deck. She should learn to go outside, not inside. Paper training is basically telling her that it is ok to pee and poop indoors. You should keep her on a leash and with you so you can monitor is she need to go, then take her outside.

I am not great with dealing with separation anxiety, but I can try. Crate training could really help you. Get her to go in the crate when you are around. Do not let her out unless she is calm and quiet. You can give her a toy or chew thing. A kong toy filled with peanut butter can keep her busy for a bit. Taking her everywhere with you is not going to solve the problem, it will probably make it worse.

How old was she when she was taken from her mother? The sucking should like she is trying to nurse and that can mean she wasn't weaned when she should have been, or that she was taken from her mother and the litter to early.
I just read the past part of you post, so I didn't know her situation about the mother. So the sucking and some of the sepertion anxiety could be becasue she didn't have a mother to teach her.

You should talk to your vet about the allergies. It could be the food, or something else. You can try different protein sources like beef, lamb of fish and see if she does better on that. You would have to not give any other foods that could cause an allergy. If you are trying to get away from chicken, do not give treats with chicken or raw chicken.

You should spend a ton of time on training and socalization. She needs to learn how to interact with people and dogs. As she didn't have a mother to teach her, her doggy socials skills are lacking. She should be meeting dogs of all shapes, sizes, and ages. If she is not socalized, she could become fearful and/or aggressive with other dogs and people. Dog parks area great place to socalize. I would avoid puppy socalzation classes as they are just puppies and they don't always have older dogs or big dogs.
One of the most inportant things is to treat her like a dog, not a small dog. She needs to be trained like any other dog. If a behavour is inappropiate for a large dog, do not let your dog do it. This also means that you should not be carring her everywhere (not that I am saying that you do).

 

[jfreight]

I can only give advice on the house training part ... I agree, never paper train a puppy, they should only go potty outside. At first, you should bring her outside every half hour or so ... when she goes potty, say "go potty" ... she will actually learn what that means. When I bring my dog (he is 3 years old) outside, I just say "go potty" and he goes right away. Be persistent, it will work. Keeping her on a leash while she is in the house is a good idea, then you always know where she is and she can't have an accident without you catching her in the act. A firm sounding NO during an accident in the house will help to give her the right idea. Good Luck!

 

[degrassi]

You need to be very vigilant during potty training. Don't let the dog have free run of the house. Either keep her on a leash or block off a room. Every time she wakes up, take her out. When she is wake and playing, if she hasn't already gone, take her out every 30mins until she has peed. Puppy bladders can't hold it for long and when they are playing they need to go more often.

We got my dog when he was 8 weeks old and he he was potty trained in 2 weeks(only had 4 accidents in the house) because we wouldn't leave him alone and took him outside any time he looked like he wanted to pee. I never gave him the chance to pee in the house. I also taught him the "go pee" command. Its the best thing I've ever taught him. Any time he went to the bathroom i'd say "go pee" and now he pees on command. Works great when you have to go somewhere and need to know he's gone to the bathroom before you leave.

The chewing/sucking on her body might not be from the food. You are on one of the best brands you can buy, with no added grains. You wont' find a much better food for her. The chewing could be stress related, especially since there isn't any visable signs of itchiness like redness or flaky skin. If your dog is really neurotic then the chewing/sucking could be a stress sign.

The seperation anxiety needs to be address ASAP. Bringing her out with you is not the solution and will only make it worse as you can't take her everywhere all the time. You need to show her that you are "top dog" and that she doenst' have to worry(she worries because she thinks she is in charge). I had Bark Busters dog trainers come to my house and one of the issues we worked on was seperation anxiety. You can PM me if you want more info on what they showed me.

Good luck

 

[Faerin]

I will try the "umbilical method" for a while. I have heard that this works quite well. I have been praising her like crazy and sometimes giving her treats when she goes to the bathroom where I want her too and saying "go to the bathroom" or "go pee" whenever we go outside. I don't know if the outside is to weird first thing in the morning (three in the morning since that's when she wakes me up) but she will always wait until we get back inside to go the the bathroom. She will do her business outside if we are out there the rest of the day. I can't seem to get her to understand that the door leads to outside where she can pee. She only see's the door as oh yay lets go visit the bunny or go for a walk.

She has been coming out with me since I first got her to meet and play with other dogs and people. I have just felt safe letting her really run around and play with them at dog parks now since she's had all her shots but she's doing fine with dogs and people and I have had so many people comment on how well socialized she is compared to other dogs her age.

She doesn't seem to be stressed/neurotic...but then again how would I know.

We need to work on the treating her like a dog and not a small dog. She likes to jump up on people and though I am trying to train her to not do so no one else really thinks it's an issue and they allow her to jump on them. I'm so frustrated by the fact that my training seems to be doing nothing at times but I see how my roommate treats her and lets her act and I understand where some of the complications are coming from. Unfortunately I still have to live with him for a while and he's not going to change the way he acts around her or his attitude towards her. I found out about a month after I had lived with him that he really doesn't like animals and he will only put up with the dog or bunnies for so long before he gets angry. As soon as my lease is up I am finding another place.

 

[MyLOVEABLES!!]

Faerin wrote:

1. I trained Oscar in about 4 days, over all he had 1 accident and thats because I was too late by 8munites and he just couldn't hold it. ever since I took him home, we took him outside every 3 hours. And we would take his paw and make him scratch the laundry door, basically training him to scratch the door to let us know if he wants to go. And we had a cat door and he was small enough to fit so by the end he just used the cat door lol. Everytime we took him outside we tell him "go potty" and when he does praise him, soon enough your dog will get the meaning of "go toilet/potty" always praise him. We had a litter tray though incase he couldnt go outside he peed in there fine, we used news paper in there, we were careful with putting paper around the house though .



2. Crate training should do the trick, just google it you'll get around 100000000000 hits

3. Try kongs with peanut butter inside, freezing it is great as well.


Oscar came to us 2 weeks ealy, we didnt knwo the breeder said he was 9 weeks but then gave us his birthdate.. DUH. Raising puppies are hard I learnt that the hard way, but you'll be fine. Stay strong. haha. oh and a tip, puppy play dates are great, you get rid of all you're puppies's energy lol... but make sure your "puppy friends" are vaccinated though.

Good luck!