Are you able to look after a dog?

So exciting, getting a puppy!

But also - especially if this is your first venture into having a companion dog - fraught with hazards!

In my efforts to make the transition from “new dog” to “family dog” as smooth as possible, I have provided you with many, many resources.

There are over 300 articles here, and most important of these are the three-part series on Choosing a Puppy. Start here.

There’s New Puppy!  - a handbook to get you through the first few months.

And there are various free and premium courses

Total mindset change

But the most important thing in preparing for your new puppy or new dog, is the total mindset change you’re going to need to make!

As any new first-time parent will tell you, the whole thing is mind-bending and requires a huge change in your lifestyle.

You have no idea of the effect this new baby will have on your life - till it happens!

This applies to four-footed family members too . . .

Resentment of the invasion?

It’s not uncommon for me to receive complaints from people who’ve just got a new puppy, and can’t understand why they can’t carry on their life exactly as before.

Maybe they think they’re getting a stuffed dog, or a bicycle, or something. Not a living, sentient, being - who has hopes and fears, feelings and sensations, needs and desires.

So seeing the puppy blamed for its distress and the new owner’s lack of sleep is upsetting for me.

Would they blame a baby for crying and disrupting their sleep? Of course not! They’d try to find out what’s wrong and put it right.

Some of these entitled people even re-home their unfortunate pups after only a few days. They seem to think their comfort is far more important than caring for this little creature they have chosen to bring into their home.

Perhaps it shows that they bought their puppy or dog on a whim, with no thought about whether they were suited to have a dog living with them for the next 12-15 years.

You should be prepared for total disruption to your life!

It also tells me that the person who sold them the puppy or dog was simply trying to shovel off excess animals with no care of where they went. This is all too common, I’m sorry to say, with those “greeders” who are just in it for a fast buck.

It’s no good taking five days off work and thinking that will do the trick for your new puppy.

And if you work full-time away from home, how are you going to manage a creature who cannot be left for more than four hours? If you’re relying on a family member to mind your dog while you’re out - for free - I can assure you that such arrangements frequently break down when the person involved realises what a huge commitment this is and that they’re being used.

Is it about you, or about the dog?

If you think your sleep is more important than your puppy’s wellbeing, think again.

And if you think that scamping on food - buying the cheapest and feeding as little as possible - is the way to go: oh oh oh. I hardly know where to begin.

I have had people tell me they feed two meals a day - to an 8 week old puppy! Even giant breed puppies! Then they wonder why the poor starving creature is crying all night.

If you fit this category, I question the breeder of the dog.

A good breeder is concerned about the wellbeing of her pups, so anyone who gets a puppy while being out of the house ten hours a day has clearly gone to a puppy farm.

I had to complete a detailed questionnaire and write an essay before I could be considered for my latest puppy!

This is NORMAL.

A good breeder devotes months of her life to rearing her precious pups. She’s not going to let them go to any-old-body who has no understanding of how to manage them.

Would local authorities hand over a child for adoption without in-depth investigation? One would hope not!

Start the right way!

So start the right way. Read this article and kick off by making some choices about who you want to share your life with. Then do some serious research into where you can source your chosen dog.

The right breeder will be keen to help you learn what you need, to have a great start with your pup.

And a reputable shelter will not want to make a mistake with one of their charges, and find it bounces back for further re-homing.

Starting an adventure with a new dog is a thrilling experience! And just like how the excitement and anticipation of planning a holiday is often as good as the holiday itself, so a preparation period while you learn and research is so important to the success of this new relationship.

Please avail of the many resources available to you, dismiss fanciful notions and deal with facts.

Here’s that Puppy Book for you: 

How can I stop my dog stealing and chewing?

 I recently received this tale of woe with its heartfelt plea:

“My pup picks up everything from the floor and chews on it. She has plenty of chew toys and she is driving me nuts. I can’t even leave my shoes on the ground for the time it takes to take them off! I dropped a vitamin and she had it before I could bend down and pick it up. How do I teach leave it?”

This is a common refrain - but really, it’s not necessary!

I can honestly say that my dogs never chew anything that isn’t theirs. Sometimes I have to teach them, and sometimes they just know. My latest pup needed no teaching whatever. He knew that if it hadn’t been given to him, he couldn’t touch it. So he never had to be taught to leave food on the coffee table, for instance, and if his toy landed amongst a coil of electric flexes he’d simply stare at it till help arrived.

So I think a lot of this problem comes from a feeling that puppies chew and you have to expect it.

And as I often say - with dogs and the rest of your life,

What you expect is what you get

So the first thing to do is to change your expectations!

Know that this is an intelligent, thoughtful, being you’ve invited into your home - not a wild animal or a bicycle. People often actually teach their dogs to steal, chase, and chew, by reacting to what the pup does in such a way that guarantees repetition.

Simply saying Thank you, and accepting the object in exchange for a tasty treat (you do always have tasty treats to hand, don’t you?) is actually teaching the beginnings of your retrieve as well!

Start teaching this new 8-week-old baby in the gentlest way possible - no need for any NOs or Ah-ahs or anything else that expresses your displeasure.

You are teaching this young creature. Mistakes are an essential part of the process, and gentle redirection a standard requirement of parenthood!

And yes, offering a treat is a perfectly acceptable way of teaching how to make these choices. This seems to be a continual source of confusion for people.

If your pup makes a mistake and you toss a treat away for him to fetch, you are not rewarding bad choices!

You are rewarding the action of leaving the undesired thing. Think about that for a moment . . . and it’ll make sense to you.

Formal Leave It training

Once your pup is a week or two older you can start teaching this more formally, thereby ensuring that not only your possessions, but also foul stuff on the street, dropped pills, and the like, are out of bounds. This is where this skill can be a lifesaver!

I have often seen people trying to teach this, and because they’ve missed out a vital step, they are simply confusing their dog. It really is important to get into your dog’s head, understand how they think, and teach it the right way!

How to learn it?

You’ll be glad to know we have a full Impulse Control system within the Brilliant Family Dog Academy - teaching self-control around food and objects, of course, but also instilling a thoughtfulness into your dog so he can make the right decisions in the future.

You can learn about the Brilliant Family Dog Academy here, in our free Workshop, which is packed with lessons you can put into practice straight away!

As you can see, this is something I’m passionate about - not only for the health and wellbeing of your dog, and not only for the health of your home and possessions - but for the responsibility your dog accepts in fitting in with your requests (whether spoken or not).

This is a surefire way to bring about a better relationship between you and your chosen companion!

Prefer books about dog training?

Then hop over and pick up Leave It! How to teach Amazing Impulse Control to your Brilliant Family Dog (Essential Skills for a Brilliant Family Dog, Book 2)

Here you’ll find a step-by-step method, complete with troubleshooting and what-ifs, to turn your thieving pooch into a model citizen!

Here’s another resource for you:

I can’t leave any food anywhere - my dog will steal it!

What about chewing?

Knowing what to give your pup to chew that is safe and effective is not as easy as you might think. A little guidance will help you:

What can my dog chew?

I can’t leave any food anywhere - My dog will steal it!

Digging, chewing, chasing, barking: Instinctive drives you love or hate?

In sum, you want to start as you mean to continue, and don’t assume you know better than those who’ve devoted their lives to force-free remedies for common puppy problems!

If I wanted to learn how to make cakes, I’d take a baking course, or at the very least read a step-by-step book. Same goes for any skill you don’t yet have. Learn from those who do have it!

This will save you from making so many mistakes from not quite grasping the lesson, missing some vital aspects and thoroughly confusing your poor dog!

I love it when people plan ahead for their new puppy or dog, and learn what to do before it happens, rather than give knee-jerk reactions when it does.

That’s why the cleverest people join the Brilliant Family Dog Academy ahead of getting their puppy - wise folk!

Are you limiting your dog (and yourself!)?

I was meeting up with a friend recently and met his wife. “And how are you keeping?” says I. “Getting older,” she replied. 

And, I’m sorry to say, this theme was revisited time and again during my visit. Everything was framed as what she couldn’t do because of her age. Sadly, I think that joining a group of older people - who seem to be preoccupied with their health and what they are unable to do - had emphasised her feelings of gloom and despondency.

But you know me! I was not long about filling her mind with more positive thoughts, ways to move forward, make exciting plans, realise what she could do with her life with what she already had.

And she was a very different person when I left, thanking me for what I’d done for her, already full of ideas and making plans for her next project.

Why am I telling you this?

It’s about LABELS.

You may know that I have a bee in my bonnet about how people label themselves, their family and friends, and their dog!

Here are a couple of posts on the subject:

Hooray for change for your dog! Discard the old labels

Labelling your dog and yourself

Labels are limiting!

The thing is, applying a label to something is so limiting. It means it can never be anything else.

This is fine if it’s a table, or a car, that you’re labelling.

But when it comes to sentient beings, creatures interacting with each other, creatures who are growing and developing (or should be!), it is totally inappropriate.

Saying “I’m too old,” is going to prevent you from doing all the things you’re well able to do.

Things that will make your mark on the world, help society, move the world forward.

And saying, “My dog is … stubborn/stupid/untrainable/a rescue” is preventing you seeing your dog as a creature capable of huge learning and growth!

Blanket statements

Making blanket statements tends to be limiting.

“I’m no good at …”

“He always …”

“My dog never …”

We hear these all the time, and it’s equivalent to throwing out the anchor and parking yourself exactly where you are.

No possibility of change!

Replacement thoughts

How about replacing these thoughts in your mind with more enlightening ones:

“I’m open to trying new things.”

“I’d love my dog to … walk nicely on lead/retrieve/calm down ..”

“I have plenty of time left to me - I’m going to …”

“The only constant is change.” Heraclitus

And as Maria Popova says so well,

“A person is not a potted plant of predetermined personality but a garden abloom with the consequences of chance and choice that have made them who they are, resting upon an immense seed vault of dormant potentialities. At any given moment, any seed can sprout — whether by conscious cultivation or the tectonic tilling of some great upheaval or the composting of old habits and patterns of behavior that fertilize a new way of being. Nothing saves us from the tragedy of ossifying more surely than a devotion to regularly turning over the soil of personhood so that new expressions of the soul can come abloom.”

https://www.themarginalian.org/2024/05/15/gardner-self-renewal-meaning/

Budget mentality

Folk sometimes get stuck in limiting themselves to what they think they can afford.

Oh, what a bad road to go down!

You are only limited by your imagination.

If you decide you are going to do anything at all - move house, write a book, start a project - the last thing you should worry about is your budget.

If you leave that out of your calculations entirely, opportunities will present themselves which you would never have seen if you were focussing on what you could afford.

And - here’s the exciting part! These opportunities can bring rewards you could never have expected. Results that far outweigh any investment you made.

Students in the Brilliant Family Dog Academy, for instance, tell me they enrolled in the program because their dog was difficult, or pulling on the lead, or whatever, and what they discovered is a new way of being with their formerly challenging dog that has opened up a new life for both of them.

Here’s what Carol R had to say:

“We have both come a long way, and it is no exaggeration when I say she is a transformed dog 😊. Although we have now worked our way through the whole of the course, we are continually going back to work again through modules, and dipping into Beverley’s books as and when we need to. Our learning will be ongoing for life, but we don’t mind, we are really enjoying it. I’ve found it’s really strengthened our bond, and most of all, it’s fun!!“

We’re exactly halfway through the year - tell me in the comments what you’re going to do with the second half!

Do you tidy up after your dog?

Do you tidy up after your dog?

Or does your dog tidy up after you?

A recent reviewer of one of my cozy mysteries (yes! I write cozy mysteries featuring dogs!) wanted to know how to have more than two dogs and keep her house clean! You see, the books feature a household of three dogs and a cat.

Great question!

Once you have a family - be it two-legged or four-legged - a certain level of housepride has to drop, to maintain your sanity. But this doesn’t mean you have to live in a pig-sty!

It’s important to remember that this is your dog’s home too, and you shouldn’t be spending your time trying to pretend that you have no dog.

My dogs have plenty of beds around the house, so they can use their own furniture instead of mine, and tidy themselves up out of the way of foot-traffic.

They also have a large toy basket. All toys get chucked into this every night, and they can spend happy times rooting through to pick out their favourites or a new toy the next day. They always have access to a large variety of toys, of all possible materials - cloth, wood, metal, plastic, rubber, silicone … things to chase, chew, or cuddle.

Meals are taken in their appointed dining places, and one of them collects the bowls afterward and stacks them for me.

Dogs doing the work

I can frequently be heard saying, “Pick that up for me,” when I drop things or can’t reach them. Sometimes this is from laziness on my part, sometimes because the dogs love to do it - but always because it provides an opportunity for a positive interaction. And is often very entertaining!

Even delicate or awkward things can be carefully retrieved for me, including the tv remote, or a metal spoon. Naturally I’d never ask them to pick up anything sharper than a butter knife!

So “Where’s my jumper?” gets an enthusiastic response as Lacy runs to locate it and bring it to me.

And “Where’s my shoe?” is always good value. Even little Coco can pick up my heavy clogs and bring them. The star of the show here would be Lacy, who - if she can’t see them downstairs, will run upstairs and bring down one shoe. “Where’s my other shoe?” causes a momentarily wrinkled brow before she turns and runs back up to find the pair.

My socks are passed to me when I’m getting dressed and I “drop” a sock. And as long as they’re not very tight-fitting, they can also be removed for me, as well as trousers on request, coat-sleeves (very useful if you have a shoulder injury and can’t reach behind you), and - the pièce de résistance - pulling the cover off a duvet!

These last are all a development from Tug - but with a controlled “hold” so they aren’t ripping things to bits.

A further development of this would be emptying the washing machine, or tidying up rubbish into the bin, or toys into the toybox.

16 Muddy paws?

A towel at the back door is the simplest solution for this, along with an absorbent doormat. Teaching your puppy to have his paws dried is one of those essentials that can be overlooked if you are enjoying a hot dry summer (which this year we definitely are not, here in England!). So be in the habit of randomly “drying” your pup’s paws when he comes in, even when they’re not wet.

You can go a step further and teach your dog to wipe his feet. Some folk use a similar process to teach their dogs to file their own claws on a scratchboard. I have to say I can’t be bothered to supervise this foot-wiping with multiple dogs - easier to grab their paws with the towel. But, of course, I don’t “grab” them. They raise each paw for me in turn.

And, of course, restricting access to any sources of mud in the garden would be a good move.

Lastly, teach your puppies to enjoy hopping in the tub and having a shower from an early age: Coco needed more than a shake and a rub-down when he fell into a black dyke!

So how do I teach all this?

Most of these “tricks” can be learnt in Fetch it! Teach your Brilliant Family Dog to catch, fetch, retrieve, find, and bring things back

For fun and games, when you don’t care about the wellbeing of the object (e.g. their own toys) you can have an informal retrieve. For things where precision is needed - jumpers, shoes, electronics - you need the section on teaching a formal retrieve. It’s no use having a speedy find and pick-up if your item arrives back slobbery and in tatters!

And tidying toys up into a toy basket is simply an extension of the retrieve, but they deliver the item to the basket instead of your hand.

It’s certainly possible to have multiple dogs AND a clean and tidy house.

I’d love to hear what your dog does to help about the house! Comment below.

Don’t give up on your dog!

I love tennis! And not just because of having a constant supply of tennis balls for the dogs …

** Actually I don’t make my dogs ball-mad - there are too many injuries associated with ball-throwing. See this post. I work with frisbees and hoops and tugs in the main - but I digress …**

Tennis … and aficionados will know that right now it’s time for the French Open, at Roland Garros. Roland Garros was not, in fact, a tennis-player, but a famous aviator. And this is what he said:

“Victory belongs to the most tenacious” - Roland Garros

This is emblazoned on the main stadium for all to see and constantly remember.

Now - it’s not just tennis-players who benefit from being tenacious!

Whatever it is you truly want to achieve requires tenacity.

🐾 Things will seldom go as you expected.

🐾Things will fall apart regularly.

🐾 Something you thought you had done will mysteriously become undone.

🐾 It all seems too difficult!

And nowhere is this more true than shaping your pet dog to become your Brilliant Family Dog.

A living being!

We are not dealing with an inanimate object, like a tennis racquet - we are working with a living, sentient, being who has his own ideas about how things should go!

Now it’s true that, as Susan Garrett says, dogs are always doing the best they can with the information they have in the situation they find themselves in.

They are obliging souls!

But they are not superhuman (supercanine yes, superhuman no). They cannot give you the right response without some clue as to what you want.

And with the things you thought you’d taught breaking down, and your dog producing new behaviour with each passing month as he grows and learns, you need to keep those clues coming!

Keep in mind that this dog you’re working with is not set in stone. He’s a changing, developing, person.

Development in the dog

It would be a mistake to think that your 8-week-old puppy is the finished article. He’ll go through many changes as he develops physically and mentally. Just like our own children, there’s a huge learning curve for them to travel before they reach 2.

But what are they learning?

Ha! This is where you come in. Just like our own children, they need constant guidance. You can’t just leave this pup alone and expect him to turn out as you’d like - as the perfect family dog.

This is where our friend Roland has it right!

It’s persistence, consistency, perseverance - all those hard words that you perhaps don’t want to hear - tenacity!

It’s formulating your training plan and sticking to it! That’s what will bring you the results you want.

I’m so pleased when I see people who do just that - stick to their plan - and succeed.

All teachers will be familiar with those who drift in, thinking that just having the idea of training your dog - perhaps enrolling in a course or studying some books - will be sufficient.

It is not.

You have to do the work!

And it’s YOU who has to do the work. Your dog just comes along for the ride. You’re the one with the input.

Commitment to your dog training

If you’re ready to commit to REALLY helping the animal in your care have the best life, and you to have the best life along with him, then I have some resources for you:

Start with this free Workshop, with its important and valuable lessons.

Then you can decide which suits you better - joining us in the vibrant Brilliant Family Dog Academy with video demos and full individual support, or working on your own through my series of books.

It’s all there for you.

The only thing I ask - as your dog can’t ask you - is that you STICK WITH IT!

Toffee is ready to learn!

Give your dog time!

Give your dog time.

And by this I mean thinking time.

You see, dogs process information - in general - more slowly than we do.

I know that’s hard to fathom when your dog seems to be on a hair-trigger for reactivity, or rabbit-chasing - but that’s a gut reaction, not a considered one.

We may forget that there’s a big difference between a gut reaction and a thinking one, and mistakenly expect our dogs to respond at high speed every tiime.

Of course, with consistent, kind, teaching, you will get that knee-jerk reaction you want - a lightning recall, an instant drop. But this comes over time and with many repetitions.

Something new

So if we’re asking them to do something that involves thought, we must give them time to think it out!

This is particularly marked when we’re teaching something new.

Dogs need time to process what they’re being asked to do.

So SIT, SIT, SIT (which we so often hear from impatient owners) will only confuse. It’s not going to get the result you want!

SIT .. pause to see if that went in.. And if the dog is unsure, it may be followed by a ponderous sit.

So - most dogs are fairly quick at sitting in fact, but I give that as an example of the kind of time lag we may need to allow when a new thing is being asked.

Our expectations

Coco stacks cups: this level of skill takes a lot of thought from little Coco! You can see me holding back from “helping” him.

Our expectations can be so unrealistic, that we expect the dog to learn a new thing in a couple of moments!

It takes many repetitions for them to learn this new thing.

You’ve probably forgotten, but how many times did you have to be taught, as a 3 or 4 year old, how to read words, how to do sums? Many, many times! Until it became second nature to you.

And so it is with our dogs. However brainy they are, they’re not going to get much beyond a 3 or 4 year old human level. That’s not how they’re made.

The first mistake …

And one of the chief errors I see is people yelling their “command” and expecting their dog to magically understand it!

Until you’ve gone through this simple repetition process, rewarding the dog’s action whenever she does what you’re hoping for, you’re not yet ready to name this action. How you get the action you want is a secret you’ll learn in the Brilliant Family Dog Academy! You can find out about that here.

You’ll see that we teach in a different way to the traditional one. We get the dog to choose to sit, long before we ever mention that word!

Remember, we don’t add a vocal cue till what we want is pretty fluent.

Then we have to teach the thing all over again - or revise, if you like - with the cue in front. We’re saying, “That thing you’re doing, we call that a SIT.”

Softly, softly, step by step! Think of that toddler, struggling to understand us!

Eventually the vocal cue alone is enough. And by this time, you’ll have an instant response.

The second mistake …

And to keep it fast, keen, and enthusiastic - ALWAYS reward what it is you want your dog to do!

Now, before you complain, that doesn’t mean you always have to be stuffing your dog with treats.

Finding out what he finds rewarding, and then administering that reward - be it a run in the garden, a cuddle, genuine praise, another opportunity to earn a reward - is the mark of a skilful dog trainer.

Is that what you’d like to be?

Interspecies communication

All in all, the fact that this species can understand our human verbal language and act on it is - pretty astonishing!

Let’s keep that in mind, always.

Give them grace, and the time to work it all out.

And you’re not alone trying to figure this out! For a helping hand, check out our simple, step-by-step, dog training books!