OCR Text |
Show ' ' 3 Ap points 1 On Pets T Housebreaking a puppy By R.G. ELMORE D.V.M. Copley News Service Q. We recently purchased pur-chased an 8-week-old male Pomeranian puppy. We have bad the puppy for a few days and we are not making very much progress in housebreaking him. How do you believe a dog should be housebro-ken? housebro-ken? A. Housebreaking a puppy usually takes a lot of perseverance and patience. If this is your first puppy you probably are astounded astound-ed at how often he has to relieve himself. It is often possible to housebreak an 8-week-old puppy in less than a week. It is important that you help the dog by anticipating anticipat-ing when he is likely to defecate de-fecate and urinate. He should be taken outside immediately im-mediately following each feeding, as soon as he awakens from his naps, the very first thing each morning, morn-ing, and the very last thing before retiring each night. The dog should be taken to the same location each time he is taken out. You should wait patiently for him to empty his bladder and to have a bowel move ment. Immediately after performing correctly the dog should be praised greatly. If the dog is caught wetting wett-ing or soiling inside, he should be punished by a few slaps and immediately taken outside to the location loca-tion where he should have gone. Reprimanding the dog is only effective if done at the time of the act or very shortly following the accident. acci-dent. Later punishment is usually confusing to the dog. Whenever punishing the dog, he should understand under-stand that he is being punished pun-ished and not played with. Any accidents inside should be carefully cleaned up and disinfected. The odor of the soiling must be removed or the dog is likely like-ly to have an accident in the same place again. Another method to toilet train a puppy is to "paper train" them. This is partic- ularly helpful if taking the dog outside frequently is not possible. Four or five layers of newspapers should be spread in a quiet corner of the kitchen or bathroom. The dog should be put on the papers and made to remain on them until eliminating at the four times already outlined above. When cleaning up, the bottom paper of the old stack can be used as the top paper of the new stack. The odor of the paper will help attract the dog to the corner. Dogs will often start using the corner papers pa-pers on their own without a lot of encouragement. After the dog has learned to use the papers and reached enough maturity matu-rity to have bowel movements move-ments and urinate less frequently, fre-quently, he should be taken outside to eliminate. It is sometimes helpful to take a newspaper outside to help train the dog. Most dogs will learn quickly and indicate by barking, whining, or scratching at the door that they want to go outside. Although Al-though your dog may want to go out frequently at first, with time a suitable pattern will evolve. There are many different differ-ent ways of housebreaking dogs. Probably the most important things are to be patient and consistent. Q. How often should a dog be bathed? A. Probably the most correct answer to this question is whenever the dog needs it. However, that is not a very helpful answer. an-swer. Most dogs do not need their first bath until they are several months old. Older dogs usually do not need baths any more often than every three to four weeks. However, the dog's environment and activities may alter th'is pattern. During the cold months dogs should be bathed in a warm, dratt-free room and allowed to stay inside until entirely dry. A shampoo formulated for dogs should be used. A suitable one can be obtained from your pet store or a veterinarian. All of the soap should be rinsed from the dog before drying. A clean dog is certainly a more lovable pet! |