5 Activities to Avoid With Growing Puppies
Puppies need exercise and activity. However, growing puppies, especially large breed puppies, should avoid heavy, jarring activities or exercise including lots of twisting and turning. Too much jumping and turning can injure growing bones. In order to preserve your puppy's joint health and structure, avoid these 5 activities. Running on Hard Surfaces Repetitive impact on hard surfaces, like running, can jam a puppy's long bones and prevent proper joint development. While puppies often enjoy wrestling and zooming about, such activities should be age-appropriate and kept to softer surfaces, like grass. Puppies naturally run and shouldn't be limited. However, they shouldn't be forced to run or walk long distances. Jumping Jumping results in huge amounts of force being distributed across growing joints. Young puppies should keep four on the floor as much as possible. Injuries to knees, ankles, hips, or shoulders can result in malformation or lasting issues later in life. "Jumping" includes things like jumping out of the car, off the couch, or in agility training. Frisbee Frisbee involves lots of running, jumping, twisting, leaping, and hard landings, often while in a hyper excited state. As such, full-on disc play should be avoided until growth plate closure can be confirmed. if you'd like to introduce your puppy to frisbee, learn to throw rollers along the ground for them. Treadmilling Treadmilling is the epitome of repetitive activity. It also forces the puppy or dog into a fixed gait or movement pattern. Puppies should avoid treadmilling outside of some very light introductions to moving surfaces. Forced exercise does nothing good for puppies, especially not for their growth and joint health. Walking on Slippery Surfaces Slippery surfaces can cause puppies to splay out, slide, or land in puddled heaps while running. While adorable, this activity isn't safe for developing joints. If you have hardwood or tile floors, consider putting down runners or rugs.
How Soon After Eating or Drinking Do Puppies Need to Go Out?
Everyone knows puppies need to go outside more frequently than adult dogs. For the first few weeks of having a puppy home, it often seems that all anyone does is take the puppy out to potty! Using a feeding and watering schedule can help simply housetraining, as can answering the all-important question: how soon after eating or drinking do young puppies need to go outside? Optimal Times Vary Widely Most veterinarians, dog trainers, and behaviorists agree that puppies need to go out "very soon" once they eat a meal or drink water. Generally speaking, the recommended time frame varies from 5 to 15 minutes but sometimes trends upwards to 30 plus minutes. Multiple factors change the recommended time -- size of the puppy, age of the puppy, how much was consumed, activity levels, etc. You'll get to know your puppy, their habits, and their preferred schedule pretty quickly but in the meantime, monitor intake and take the puppy out regularly. The younger or smaller the puppy, the quicker they'll need to go outside to potty after eating or drinking. It's important to note that it's almost impossible to time puppies who have free access to food and water. Puppies should eat on a schedule and be offered water at regular intervals. That way, it's much easier to predict when they'll need to potty. Use These Tricks to Potty Train Faster In the beginning, take the puppy out on a leash so you can watch them and keep them focused on their business. There should be no playing, pouncing, excessive walking, or tons of interaction. Take the puppy to the area you want them to potty in and stand there quietly. Wait for the puppy to do their thing. If the puppy doesn't go quickly, they may not need to go right then. Keep them on a leash until they're old enough to understand the difference between toileting breaks and playtime. Puppies who are just let out easily get distracted and forget to go potty. Then, they come inside and squat on the rug. If you take a puppy out after eating or drinking and they don't potty, then tether the puppy or crate them for another few minutes before trying again. Once the puppy successfully potties outdoors while on leash they can enjoy some freedom to play, exercise, and be loved on. What Goes In Must Come Out Every puppy digests food and water at a different rate.
Make Dog Potty Training Faster, Easier and More Enjoyable
Dog potty training. Toilet training. House training. Whatever you call it, it's one of the most basic, if not the most basic, things your new family member needs to learn. And you should begin with your puppy as soon as you arrive home. Puppies need to go to the bathroom frequently and your success and theirs depends on anticipating their needs — which at first can seem like full time job. But don't worry, with proper training, puppies learn fast! Crate training We highly recommend crate training your new puppy. Be prepared for a drama show though! Sometime between 16,000 and 32,000 years ago when dogs learned how to live with humans, they also learned how to work our emotions. At first, your dog will whine, beg and cry but be strong! Allowing your puppy to learn how to be alone for a little while and self soothe is a crucial skill, much like for human babies. Crate training helps with a number of important issues — and gets them ready for one of the most important, life-changing and underused things you can train a pet, Service or Working Dog: tether training. In the wild, a dog's den is their home — a cozy place to sleep, hide from danger and raise a family. Your crate is your dog's den, a place where they can find comfort and solitude instead of tearing up your house while you're out running errands. However, today we're talking about using a crate for house-training since dogs, by their nature, don't like to "go" where they sleep. Choose a crate that is appropriate for how large your dog will be in about a year, but when they are a puppy you may need to divide their space with a cardboard box so that they only have enough room to turn around and sleep. Come up with a command to teach your dog to enter the crate such as "kennel" or "kennel up." Do not use the crate as a punishment. It's a happy little bedroom for your dog. If you use the crate to punish your dog, they will eventually come to fear it and not want to enter. Do not leave your dog in the crate too long and be prepared to arrange your life around this. Puppies need to be taken out to eliminate about every two hours and leaving your dog cooped up too long may cause