Should I Borrow My Parents Older House Trained Dog To Help With My Puppies?
Filed under Care & Training Q&As
Ok here goes… I have three… count them 1…2…3 puppies currently residing at my home. There are two husky puppies that are 10 wks old and a papillon that is six months old. I’ve had dogs all my life, it’s just been a while since I had to deal with puppies. I’m working on house breaking them right now… all of them. My parents have an eight year old dachshund mix who has been (obviously) housebroken for years. Should I ask them if I can borrow Grettel (dachshund) for a couple days so they can see how it’s done?
I’m in training to be a dog trainer… so they’re well behaved, all three sit, stay, come, and lay down on command… they’re just having trouble with the going potty in the house.
I know I need to buy crates…
I know that is a lot of puppies… trust me… I used to run a rescue center with my family in California… this is nothing for me… I just need some advise.
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Holy moly! Well, bless your heart taking these dogs in and training them so well.
I’d love to have some wise answer for you but the truth is, I don’t know if it would work. BUT. I’d love to find out! I say get Grettel over and see how it pans out. Also might be good for the pups to have an older dog to dominate them and keep them lower in the pecking order! How wonderful would it be if Grettel did all the work for you?? You could hire her out to others and make a fortune!
Good luck with your pups. Sounds like fun times ahead!
Your pups will learn by following / watching an older dog, not just with the house training but with other things too but be sure she is up to it as putting her into this situation may be a bit much for her, she needs to be the right temperament for the job or she may teach them the wrong things.
I used to foster pups but my own dogs knew nothing else and did a great job for me they knew when and how to play, but also how to say “enough” without hurting anyone. And once we could go out for walks were great examples for the pups.
So my advice would be to try Grettel and see what she says. If it works great, if she is overwhelmed don’t pursue it. She’ll let you know if she is up to the job or not.
Just be like a member of their family..
They are puppies!! What do you expect ?? Give them some time!! The will learn to potty not in the house,somewhere in your Garden if you have any.This will serve as a manure to fertilise the soil !!!
It sounds like a good idea to me, you should give it a go. And you’ll gain a bit of experience in the dog-trainer profession, I suppose; seeing what does/could work and what can’t.
Erm.. I’d have a lot of newspaper on hand anyway, just as a precaution
I know with my chihuahuas the older dogs would teach the younger ones to use peepads. They are usually housebroken by the time they are 6-7wks old. I don’t know if it would work for you now since they have already been going in the house. Do yours have to go outside to use potty? If so that will be more difficult to train too. I can assure you it works for me with the little dogs just watching Mom.
And I want to assure you that the number of puppies doesn’t matter. A couple of years back, I had 17 puppies at one time- 3 litters just a few days apart in age. They were all trained at the same time.
I have house trained 6 dogs in my lifetime. None of them had older dogs around at the time. I have never owned a crate. I just keep them in a small room of the house until they learn. And with each one, it only took 1 or 2 “accidents” for them to learn.
The “rooms” I have used have had tile floors and have been about 10×6 or so. Throw the dogs bedding in the room and they consider it THEIR room. And dogs don’t mess in their “nest”. Try it and you will see.
FYI – The dogs I have trained have been – 1 husky, 1 chow, 1 pitt bull, 1 golden retriever, 2 border collies.
Good luck and Merry Christmas. Jim
Why not – I think its worth a try.
A more senior dog can teach a pup a great deal of things.
U will still have to work with the pups on ur own.
LOL this is pretty funny!
Number one, I think you have too much on your hands, why in earth do you have 3 puppies, perhaps you should only keep what you can handle.
Toilet training may be aided by an older dog but the older dog is only doing what you should be doing and that is taking them out in the yard to toilet.
If you’re training to be a dog trainer you really should know how to toilet train a puppy it’s not that hard.
Every 30 minutes you take them outside and give them a toilet command such as “Toilet” or “Quick Quick” as soon as they start to go you give calm praise, as soon as they have finished you lay on the praise big time and then have a play with them in the backyard to show them the yard is a great place to be.
Inside the house you watch them like a hawk, if one has an accident that you see you give a firm but non-scary NO and then take them outside and do the above.
If they have an accident in the house that you didn’t see, you can’t do anything, simply clean it up with a special accident spray otherwise your house will smell like one big toilet to the puppies.
sure