Misbehaving

He's only a puppy once and someday we'll look back and laugh. For those two reasons I laugh a lot now. Tailor tries to be a good puppy, but of course he's still learning. I won't pretend to be the perfect puppy parent, so I'll admit that while most of the time I practice positive reinforcement, sometimes he get the stern, "Tailor No!" This is what we're working on:

I quickly learned to follow the path of least resistance. For example, if it's time to go for a walk and he's uber hyper and not behaving on the leash at all, I don't try to calm him down or start barking commands at him. Instead I take him off the leash and let him run around or fetch a stick in the backyard. Once he calms down a little, I put the leash on him and we go for a high spirited nice walk. Usually his misbehaving is due to his high level of puppy energy.

I also had problems with him peeing frequently (about every 10 minutes) after mealtime. So now we eat, go outside to pee then go for a walk. If I can't take him on a walk immediately, I let him pee then put him in the crate so doesn't pee freely. Since he's now 12 weeks he can hold it, so now it's just a matter of teaching him to save it for the great outdoors. The crate is definitely helping with that.

He also whines when he thinks I'm not home. I hope I'm doing the right thing here: sometimes he's in the crate when I need to run errands and sometimes I'm just in another room of the house. I typically start by giving him a frozen toy* to keep him busy while I leave. Sometimes he thinks I'm not in the house so he starts howling. At that point I can just yell, "Tailor No!" from the room that I'm in. It surprises him and he immediately quiets. His howling has become more and more infrequent and I think it's just b/c he doesn't know if I'm home or not.


*Note: The frozen toy has peanut butter inside. Every night I put a little peanut butter inside two toys (such as a puppy Kong) and place them in the freezer so they're ready for the next day. Freezing makes it take longer to get the peanut butter out, and is also supposed to feel better for teething.