First Coast Pet

Posts Tagged ‘havanese dog training’

Soon, the average hav owner realizes the fact that the hav at home is more agile and faster than its cutesy, delicate appearance indicates. Indeed, the dog’s robust hind quarters make it capable of relatively good jumps for its size. The front paws complete the effect somewhat reminiscent of the nimbleness of a cat. All this not only mean guaranteed amusement and laughter, but also unfortunately, possible disasters if the dogs and owners are not too cautious!

One important havanese training issue here is dogs that sneak in a nimble-footed trick or two, which is practically the norm when nobody is looking. Indeed, who would expect that such a dainty looking, stuffed toy-caliber dog would act with such boldness, clambering over gates? Many a Hav dog owner had to fight panic and keep calm after seeing a Hav perched at a risky height, planning a new mode towards freedom.

If some find the dexterity amusing, the results however, are far from positive. Assuming too much about a “well behaved, obedient” Havanese can lead to so much damage at home, or even injury to the tireless dog! For one, getting up a baby gate is very different to getting down one; and there is no telling about the injuries should the dog simply want to just jump! Lack of supervision can also lead to the worst possible scenario, chewing on electric cords or swallowing household chemicals.

But if there is any good havanese training news in all this, it would be that not all Havs are such thrill seekers. But the issue is that some dogs simply like to be high up, so as to keep as much family members within loving sight. Favorite crow’s nests are the head rest on a recliner, or the top of the couch. All this goes to point out that when there is a Havanese puppy at home, or a puppy from any breed whatsoever, it’s always safety first. And, as pointed out already, a three-foot high x-pen or gate need to be complemented by a double check that the dog has no way to clamber up the barrier. Better yet, why not a crate, or an x-pen with roof panels, or an enclosed puppy pen?

Some Havanese can be a bit mysterious when it comes to their affections. Thus, a Hav looks like it does not mind spending time with any one family member, but nevertheless it can be seen appreciating very much if together with a certain person.

But who’s to say there is anything wrong with this behavior? The worrisome bit, however, comes into view when a hav appears desperate being together with a certain person, or just one person. It does not want to do go out for a walk, or go eliminate, with somebody not until the preferred person joins in. It is important to dig into this matter since it is likely that submissive tendencies is at the root of all this.

One of the basic havanese training steps to solving this problems involve interacting with the dog one person at a time, with nobody interrupting or joining in in occupying the dog’s attention. The family member who wants to bond with the dog will need to cook up games, and involve the dog’s favorite toys.

Fear is a likely factor behind some of the dog’s tendencies. But the solution is quite practical: more and more socialization, and more opportunities to meet and interact with other dogs. Indeed, we humans can try dismissing all dogs as no different from each other, so why bother with the dogs outside the yeard? But the social setting matters a lot. Sooner or later, all owners will learn anyway that there is simply a difference between your dog interacting with another canine pet at home to your dog interacting with a stranger-dog at the park, or on a walk.

Fear is an important havanese training consideration that nevertheless needs a level head to solve, so a full stop must be put on all the actions of the family that smack of coddling or soothing in order to alleviate fear. But potentially ugly situations nevertheless need to be avoided.

To help dogs overcome fear, some owners even coax their dog to come close to what is scaring them, then giving them praise and treats immediately afterwards to help the dog feel secure.

Again, as we have seen, Havs may indeed be one-person dogs, but they generally do love their entire human family.

Havanese dogs that missed socializing with children during their puppyhood surely view with dread the antics and pranks of children! Since what children do tend to incite play, chase and sometimes a shocker—nipping—puppies and children need to be taught how to deal with each other.

For puppy homes that have active children, the next few months of the dog would be an ideal time for testing. Moreover, it cannot be anymore worth it, since fully socialized puppies have healthy personalities that will prove critical to their adult years, a time when ideally nothing in their environment ought to make them skittish or afraid. This explains why havanese training on good manners sounds so important.

What about the prospects of puppy owners with nothing to worry about kids running around and roughhousing the dog? Children will need to be invited over, and that’s how important the training is! Initially, children in initial numbers will be invited over. When you are just starting out, a maximum of two are fine enough.

It is obvious that only children with a responsible way of dealing with dogs will need to be invited. The children will also need to be supervised from start to finish of their interaction. After spending a period of time with this group, the next to come over would be the tpy of children your puppy is most likely to meet the most often. After spending still more a few days with this group of children, last comes one or two of the neighborhood kids. Since these are the most likely to attempt teasing your dog as they pas your house, try to give both these last mentioned group and the dog time to know and like each other.

In interacting with the dog and possibly even attempting to teach it tricks, owners will need to give the children tasty treats as rewards during handling and training drills. Examples of treats can be kibble or freeze-dried liver. For the first initial week, the dog’s interaction with the child will need to be calm. Eventually though, it is crucial that the puppy experiences and gets used to the noise and activity of children starting from a very young age. Never pass up also the chance to bring the puppy to many children’s parties, complete with children and adults jumping, singing, shouting, playing games, and laughing… and soon it will consider as predictable even the loudest noise zooming across the street on a lonely evening. To end, an adolescent dog’s reaction to the pranks and roughhousing of children will indeed depend heavily on the havanese training the dog got as a puppy.

The last thing that a Havanese owner would expect from a puppy is that it can’t appreciate a walk. How can that be indeed, since these little ones will actually bark to demand to go on the appointed time, even if held twice a day!

How dogs handle the challenge vary according to many factors, aside from havanese training. Most owners agree that it depends on the diligence of the owner to get the dog used to the challenge, the stamina of the dog, and what’s out there: temperature, time of the day, terrain, etc. Owners can how much the dog can handle by adding more time or mileage gradually, then closely watching the dog for signs it had had enough.

Signs of a tired Havanese dog include, but of course is not limited to: a droopy tail; split nails on a few toes; and the ultimate, a dog sitting or lying on the ground, refusing to get up. In case of these signs, it really is time to call it a day.

There is another way to know the best amount of time to spend walking a dog. At least in the case of jack russell puppies, a rough rule of thumb here is that a dog can have 5 minutes for every month of age. Therefore a three month old puppy can walk for 15 minutes and so on.

But all owners had better be sure their dogs are really, really, really enjoying the walk! Moreover there are also known “good” and “bad” ways of doing it. So what’s the good way? Everything starts with the fact that the owner-handler is the dog’s boss who decides the exact route of the walk. That may seem small, or too abstract for others! But being the dog’s boss is something that the dog will need to be aware of, even in this small matter of dog walks.

Let’s continue with how to go on a good walk. First of all, if it wants to get what it wants, which is the walk, it will need to do its share of behaving and obeying by sitting properly by the door, quiet and calm, waiting for the collar to be slipped over it. If it does not do most of those, then it is not ready for the walk.

Next, once master and pet are out on the streets, the puppy or dog will need to be put at ease in obeying who’s boss (the walker). How? The walker will need to make unpredictable and hard to tell the route of the walk: Go 5 steps towards the park, suddenly go round a lampost or a bench, go 8 steps in the exact opposite, stop and inspect some bushes, cross 1 block to the park, stop and go on and off the pavement or sidewalk, etc. The walker will need to make the route unpredictable so that the dog will want to focus on its walker, instead of focusing on whatever disrupts its bored fancy, which can end up in the dog dragging the human. It’s essentially telling the dog that it needs to follow everything the walker wants it to do. Otherwise, if the dog starts pulling, the dog will need to sit, calm down, and wait for the signal to start out. All dog training guides have this technique, including havanese training.

While housetraining sounds manageable from the point of view of Havanese training how-to articles, things seem to take on a anxious realism when families themselves have to deal with all that mess and schedule setting.

At the root of all housetraining concerns every owner has to deal with is the lack of set, automatic rules to set straight even two dogs of the same dog breed, try as we all might. All right, so in fact, things are not as worse as the above paragraph intended. While there are a million ways to help out a particular case, certain things fortunately remain changeless: pinning down the problem, and checking out any of the options within the owner’s control.

So what’s to be done about the almost universal story of the Hav that avoids making use of the dog door at night, and even balks at going under a little rain or snow, and in cases of these, prefers pooing inside the house?

Really, the problem above could still thankfully be worse! If there is a way that it could spill into “the perfect crisis,” it would be for the owner not to lift a finger and put into action some consistent and firm havanese training.

In the case of the above dog, looking for extra clues certainly help. For example, let’s say that the above dog is capable of staying inside the family car without complaining that it wants to be let out. This may hint that the dog will do all right if crate-trained. The current owners will also need to be more assertive, putting in place a daily routine that helps the dog know what is expected of it. If the dog has a history of being re-homed, then the dog may have picked up from its previous owners the bad habit of skipping bad weather.

Lastly, a few Havanese training tips. The dog must never be allowed to do exactly what it wants, like refusing crate training, refusing to go outside, etc. The trick is really to start being assertive and in control. Obviously, the dog needs to be appealed to through its favorite treats, in order to finally get it to stay in the crate. Dogs, after all, are driven by smell above all, and sight and sound are only secondary. Getting the dog used to the crate is basically a matter of placing treats bit by bit close to the door of the crate, then eventually within the crate, until such time that the dog will feel used and accustomed to staying within.

Twelve weeks of age are the times of a Havanese puppy becoming more aware of its powerful senses. Its enthusiasm to check out its world is so overcoming, everything simply has to get inspected by the dog’s mouth and-or nose! Thus there is no need for great alarm at a puppy that seem to devote its walks more on chewing the leash, rather than concentrating on the walk.

But if you think you need to take serious Havanese training action about your Hav chomping through the strap and the buckle (short of sawing through the metal part!), then here are some alternatives that can compose your game plan.

Instead of the bite-prone collar and leash, check out using a harness. In this alternative, the leash is attached on the back, making it harder to reach. Put it on the dog eight before leaving, so the dog can’t go for it.

Indeed, doing something about the leash is the starting point of the solution. The following steps illustrate another way of using the leash in order to discourage chewing on the leash.

Hook first the leash to the collar. Then take the leash and wound it around the dog’s neck to make a circle. Take the slack part of the leash, insert and pull through the leash handle. You now have what looks like horse’s reins, consisting of two shorter leads instead of one long one. In effect, the leash rides higher than the collar on the neck.

Lastly, here is a curious Havanese training way to train a dog to lay off the leash. The owner will walk backwards in this procedure, holding the leash of the dog. He or she will hold a long wooden spoon with a few smears of peanut butter, and entice the dog to follow. When there is some slack on the leash, the dog gets praise (plus licks on the spoon of course).

For Havanese dog owners that are constantly on the move, an easily car sick dog is one more pressing issue that demands time and effort. It gets even more frustrating knowing that it is a condition that is not so prevalent anyway. Wouldn’t it be great to have a Havanese training dog that, upon hearing the jangle of car keys, is rough and ready, waiting by the front door, for a car ride?

Unfortunately, most dog owners are far from living this rosy picture. Most of the time, a car ride with the dog prone to feeling ill means stopping a few times to clean up poo in the crate (if nothing worse happens), or to open up windows, or avoid certain types of roads to avoid stressing the dog.

But if there is a will, there is a way of course! Any of the following are bound to keep coming up in any discussions of how to resolve canine car sickness:

1. Some owners make sure about exercising their dogs before the car ride starting from the puppyhood of the dogs. Another common alternative is to give the dog a good walk. The effect of this is that the dog goes to sleep in the crate. Overtime, a dog accustomed to this routine will simply go to sleep during the trip, with or without the walk or romp.

2. If veterinarians are asked, the likely response will most likely be (although a consultation is still the safest and error-free) about meclazine or Bonine. In the case of the latter, the recommended dosage is half of a 25 mg tablet before travel in the case of a dog weighing 9.5 pounds.

3. Another possible recommendation would be half of a Dramamine pill in the case of a ten-pound dog for motion sickness. The pill needs to be given 30 to 40 minutes prior to the trip.

When all anti-car sickness tips and Havanese training tips are tried and judged, perhaps the best things to do are still to keep the dog well-exercised before the trip. An extra rare treat given to the dog before revving the engine will also associate the car ride with good stuff and rewards. But opening that car window may also be the straw to break the camel’s back.

When you are leaving for work and you see your havanese puppy protesting at the top of its lungs why on earth you are leaving it, you know that it is time to seek answers to one of the most highly anticipated havanese training issues: separation anxiety.

Veteran dog owners immediately recommend crate training as a sure way to start working on the dog’s losing its head every time people leave. The routine will look something like the following (although these definitely can be improved some more): put dog in crate for a set number of minutes, then leave room; open crate door and ignore dog for set number of seconds; greet puppy and play with it; repeat and add more minutes.

Some owners apply a simple, related strategy such as this other one. The dog is left alone in the crate for short periods of time a few weeks a day so that it gets used to the idea of people leaving. The dog is sure to cry for a week or two, but then it is sure to get used to the scheme (which is like a drill of what’s going to happen sooner or later anyway). Before anybody leaves, the TV or radio is turned on, is told “Good boy”, and given a treat. Then the discreet exit is made by everyone.

But if anybody wants to implement something that seeks to “attack” the problem from several angles, perhaps the following steps are needed.

1. Before leaving, the puppy must be ignored for 20 minutes. The goal is to get the dog adjusted to still being happy even if the owner is home yet not interacting with it.

2. It’s actually possible to get the dog to feel positive about someone’s leaving. The owner needs to give it a very prized treat that it will only get when the person leaves home.

3. A shirt or pillowcase full of the owner’s scent needs to be left inside the crate. The dog can get soothe by this if everybody leaves.

4. Before leaving, the owner has to give the dog the keyword that signals the owner will be back. It could be “Be good.”

5. Upon coming back, the dog needs to be ignored until it is calm. This further tells the dog that it will do fine without its person in the house.

When everything is implemented and-or going steady, dog owners need to keep in mind that in havanese training, the crate is not applicable as a solution for stretches of time. The dog’s door can be left open as a form of transition, but in a few months’ time the dog will need to have a run of the house. But even then no chances must be taken. All rugs need to be put away when people leave, trash containers need to be hidden/ covered, table decors secured, etc.

One issue that may disrupt what could otherwise be a happy and fully-adjusted dog is a too-shy or too-submissive Havanese. For example, the dog acts frightened and actually cower when its owner tries to put on its leash, even though the owner can recall absolutely no incident of hitting. Then the dog may refuse to sit when asked to do so during grooming, but instead will curl up despite repeated commands. And when it comes to house training, the dog will refuse to pee or poo when told do so, and instead will just sit and look at the owner sideways, licking its lips, which signals submission. So how is havanese training to fit or to help in all this?

Training definitely can help improve the dog’s situation, first by helping pin down and identifying what exactly is the matter with the dog; shyness and submission are two behaviors that have different triggers, effects and of course solutions. In case of shyness, one solution is to bring the dog to at least 5 new places a week and staying for some ten to fifteen minutes. In a few weeks of hard work, it is actually possible to have a dog that is greatly improved.

How about responding to a submissive dog? For starters, there is so much meaning in human body language and postures that humans take for granted, but which mean so much from a canine point-of-view. A consequence of this is that anybody who wishes to put the dog at ease need to avoid standing and leading over it. Instead, all humans need to try squatting at the dog’s level, allowing the dog to approach if it wants to. A good way to stand near the dog is to do it facing sideways. With these steps and many more, a person is thus capable of appearing more friendly and approachable.

An even more vast source of confidence builders and self esteem boosters are havanese training for puppies, agility classes, obedience, and therapy dog titles; its a great plus point that havanese dogs usually do not think twice demonstrating before people how much they learned. Lots of patience will be needed to help a shy or submissive dog overcome itself, but results are possible if the owner takes the first step!

Many Havanese owners are aware that their dog outshines other dog breeds for being among the smartest, and for not thinking twice about showing before the family and friends just how talented they are! Indeed, Hav dog owners the world over have come to see that teaching the dog some commands is as simple as getting them to follow a simple action or routine.

Let’s take “shake hands” for example. Most people actually only hold the dog’s paw, and say to it “shake” over and over again. Then the day comes when the dog is asked to shake hands, and it actually does! So all this shows that the dog also needs time, sometimes several weeks worth, in order to allow the dog to gradually absorb training information.

Another havanese training technique that appears more methodical is to hold a treat in the fist in front of the dog. Then the dog will try to check out your hand using their nose and mouth, but wait for the dog to eventually start pawing at your hand. Praise the dog effusively if they paw. Some re-training, on the other hand, may be needed in case some dogs are not used to using their paws when sitting.

At least one has claimed that the trick can be taught by putting one’s hand down, palm up on the ground, then with the same hand nudge the knee of the dog to make it lift its paw. When it does so, the owner needs to slide his or her hand under the paw and lavish praise on the dog.

If you want to try out a clicker training method, you will also need to get a tupperware cover. Place the treat on the floor and let the dog see you cover it with the cover. Now, the dog is expected to paw at the cover so it could see the treat. Click, and give the treat when they touch the tupperware. Repeat from the start up to covering the treat with the tupperware, but this time place your hand on the cover. When the dog’s paw touches your hand, click and give treat. Last of all, your hand becomes the cue, and this time there is no treat or tupperware. Then insert the word “Paw” (or “shake hands”) when the dog touches your hand. Click and treat to punctuate this havanese training.