Text by: Tanya Munshi
No matter how cuddly your pet puppy is, start its training from day one. If it’s mischievous and starts pouncing on your couch, sitting on your favorite cushion, you need to make it clear that this behavior is not fine. Put it down immediately and in a stern voice say, ‘No’. The pup should know its limits. As the puppy grows, it develops a superiority complex. It starts treating your home as its castle.
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Let’s try a small experiment. Most of the times when you and your mutt return from a walk, watch who enters first. It will always be your dog. A dog always feels like a king and the need to enter first in its castle, you being the owner is immaterial to him. This is not a worrying aspect of a pet dog. Dogs are instinctively like that. They usually move in packs and are used to have a leader. In this case, they get to be a self proclaimed leader in whatever little way they can.
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You need to make it clear to the puppy that you are the ‘leader’ of the house. If you find it happily chewing a shoe or creating havoc in your house, use a rolled up newspaper to tap (not so hard) on its behind. It will get the message that it is not permitted to do anything and everything it wishes in your house.
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There will be instances, when the puppy will do its job right there in the house. So the first thing you need to do is keep an eye on the little one to evade such reoccurrences. Usually a puppy will start sniffing for a corner or a spot. You’ve got to watch out for this. As soon as you watch the pup trying to look for a corner to let go, quickly pick it up and run out to a lawn/ garden or place a newspaper right next to it. You have to now gradually start assigning time for the puppy to get used to. For a pup, the need to do its job will more frequent than an adult dog. So fix time slots for it and use a command for that. Gradually it will learn that it can go out thrice or four times a day and can do its job in peace.
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