How to correct a new puppy

[robbie4christmas]

I will be getting a puppy in about a week (if everything goes well)
This will be my first GSD, what do I do when the dog does something it shouldn't.?

I searched but I couldn't find anything that was extremely helpful to me.

[amaris]

From everything i've read, for the first few days, just bond with the puppy...training can be simple, simple sit, down etc....lots of praise, lots of treats, lots of happy happy voice.

Does smthing wrong, redirect....bites your arm, redirect attention to a toy...rinse and repeat as needed....

i'm sure more advice will come ur way from more experienced ppl once morning hits the NA continent

[Lucy Dog]

Depends on what he did or is doing. Did you catch him in the act or after?

Dog's live in the moment, so if it pees in the house and you catch it 10 minutes after the fact, there's nothing you can do but clean it up. If you catch him in the act, make a loud noise to stop him from going, immediately pick him up, and bring him outside to finish up. Praise when he finishes up outside.

If he's chewing on something that he shouldn't be and you catch him in the act, you need to redirect. Pickup whatever he's chewing on and give him something that's ok to chew on like a toy.

Praise good behavior and redirect or ignore bad behavior.

These are just examples. Did you have anything specific?

[robbie4christmas]

Originally Posted by Lucy Dog

Depends on what he did or is doing. Did you catch him in the act or after?

Dog's live in the moment, so if it pees in the house and you catch it 10 minutes after the fact, there's nothing you can do but clean it up. If you catch him in the act, make a loud noise to stop him from going, immediately pick him up, and bring him outside to finish up. Praise when he finishes up outside.

If he's chewing on something that he shouldn't be and you catch him in the act, you need to redirect. Pickup whatever he's chewing on and give him something that's ok to chew on like a toy.

Praise good behavior and redirect or ignore bad behavior.

These are just examples. Did you have anything specific?

Sorry, I don't have any specific examples. I will be getting the GSD puppy in about a week. I'm just trying to get prepared for stuff I'm expecting to happen.

[Lucy Dog]

Learn from experience and don't forget to ask as many questions as you want if you're not sure. Good luck with the pup.

[BlackPuppy]

Don't correct, don't yell. Your puppy will be doing things that are natural for a puppy. If it's doing something you don't like, redirect with a little play time or a toy. Puppies just like to play, eat and sleep.

That also applies to potty training.

Over the years I've learned to just keep calm, and make a game out of everything.

[cowboy17]

methinks you need to do quite a bit of reading.
Lots of great puppy posts here.

...for the first few days bond with the puppy....

I think this should read....for the first few months bond with the puppy.

Sit, down, stay and all that other pretty stuff is left for later. Once you have focus and a great bond established, all of the OB stuff comes a lot easier.

Spend time walking around with pockets of treats. that pup should follow you everywhere. The key word here is follow, not you following it.

Get ready for the biting. There will be lots of it. Many posts here on how to manage it and redirect it. It will take several weeks before it diminishes to manageable.

Make everything fun from day one. You are the best thing in the world and nothing else should matter to the pup.
Treats, treats, treats.

No yelling.
No choke chain.
No popping on the leash.
No smacking anything.
No corrections, period.

[Emoore]

Absolutely no reason to correct or punish a young puppy. Would you punish a baby? If the puppy does something wrong it's because of poor planning or training on your part. For biting- redirect. For house breaking- monitor. For training- motivate.

[Cassidy's Mom]

Originally Posted by Emoore

Absolutely no reason to correct or punish a young puppy. Would you punish a baby? If the puppy does something wrong it's because of poor planning or training on your part. For biting- redirect. For house breaking- monitor. For training- motivate.

Set your puppy up to succeed by managing his environment, don't wait for him/her to do something wrong and then correct it.

[MaggieRoseLee]

Originally Posted by Emoore

Absolutely no reason to correct or punish a young puppy. Would you punish a baby? If the puppy does something wrong it's because of poor planning or training on your part. For biting- redirect. For house breaking- monitor. For training- motivate.

Dog training/raising has changed alot the past years. And a big part is having the humans plan, think ahead and MANAGE our puppies life to set them up for success.

The old methods were really about using corrections and punishment cause our puppies had to learn by being bad bad bad bad, wrong wrong wrong wrong so THEN we could punish/correct and they would 'learn'. But they also could 'learn' avoidance, fear behaviors, and other behaviors we did NOT want and couldn't fix down the line.

NOW we learn that it's better to manage our puppies so they are 'right' all the time and we can praise and love them for being so brilliant from the start! We crate train because it helps them learn to housebreak themselves, is easy to clean up if they have an accident, and is a small controlled environment where they can't get into trouble.

Old method of teaching them not to destroy the shoes/cords/pillows was to punish them each and every time they grabbed the shoes/cords/pillows/etc. Separate punishment for each new thing they grabbed (BAD DOG!). Now we clean up the shoes, cords, pillows and instead have puppy play toys all over the house. And when the puppy grabs the toy we praise and PLAY with them so they learn to grab the wonderful things!

Baby gates, closed doors, us paying attention. Learning to set up our pups to succeed by giving them vast amounts of exercise, setting up playdates, locating and scheduling puppy classes, finding this forum ....

These two sites have great info

Engagement - Key to Training

Intro to Clicker Training (perfect for puppies!)