Puppy Guide

Puppy Guide

Welcome to the K9 Manhunt & Scentwork Scotland Puppy Guide

1. The Pawfect Match
Why did you choose your puppy? We always advise people not to pick their puppy based purely on looks or what’s the latest fashionable breed. All puppies are adorable but some of them grow into 40kg+ nightmares. Social media has a huge impact on popularity of breeds and making them look great for family homes. Please do your research and think about what kind of lifestyle you live and if you can fit a dog into it. Speak to trainers and see what problems they are seeing in different breeds, look at local rescues and see what breeds are popping up and find out why! Research genetics and don’t just look at the mum and dad, ask about previous litters, grandparents etc. See if there is a common problem in that line of breeding.

2. Preparation is Key
Impulse buying a puppy is never a wise decision as it takes much more than what you believe to prepare yourself and your household for a puppy. Look at brands of food, the higher the meat content the better! Make a list of everything you need to buy and get that before you buy the puppy. Section off a space I your house where the puppy will spend its first few weeks. They don’t need the full freedom of the whole house; you don’t have eyes on the back of your head so make life easier on yourself.

3. The Critical Learning Period
When we say critical, we mean it! The first period from 8-16 weeks of a puppy’s life is the most crucial part. They don’t forget anything that happens in this time, so the tricks can wait, get them out seeing everything. When choosing your breeder, discuss with them what they are doing to ensure they have been exposing your puppy to different stimuli in preparation their new home (hoovers, cars, kids, different noises etc). Ideally your breeder should be handling the pups on a regular basis to help them get used to this and develop an understanding of the human smell. If they haven’t done this or the puppy has been locked away in a kennel/crate, walk away. Socialization is the next key step and is vital to get it correct. Don’t keep your puppy in the house awaiting their second vaccinations.

You can carry them to visit different places or, if safe to do so, have them exploring on the ground. Let them explore as many places and see as many things as you can (different people, train stations, bus stations, pets at home, b&q, castles, boats, ponds, wildlife etc). Remember, they do not have to interact and speak to every single person or dog. You will create a headache for yourself later! Your dog can have a social group of safe dogs whose owners you trust to know what they are doing. But please refrain from letting your dog meet and greet EVERY single dog you see. You do not want them having a bad experience from an untrained dog. Exposing your dog is different to allowing them to meet everything and everyone! Remember, they grow into larger dogs and many people don’t like dogs once they aren’t pups.

4. Behaviours vs Tricks
There is a massive difference between a dog who can perform sit, down and paw and the dog who you can take anywhere and settle without causing a riot. You can absolutely have both. Focus on building a great relationship with your dog from day 1 than focusing on teaching your puppy to perform tricks. Society has a certain expectation of dogs and people have the right to walk past you and your dog without it jumping up and barking at them, whether it be out of excitement or aggression

5. A Clean Puppy
We 100% recommend crate training here at K9 Manhunt. Not only does it help with toilet training, but it also helps with your puppy learning to be on its own and keeps them out of trouble whilst your back is turned. Loose lead walking at 12 weeks old isn’t as important as making sure your dog is comfortable in a crate. Dogs learn everything through exploration and reinforcement. If your puppy is being given the opportunity to display unwanted behaviours, punishing them will keep them around. By ensuring that you put your puppy in a crate when you cannot have eyes on them, you ensure they can’t practice naughty behaviors.

If your puppy has an accident in the house, it is not their fault. It’s yours. When the puppy comes out of the crate, finishes eating, wakes up or finishes playing, take them outside to go to the toilet. Take them to the same space each time. Don’t use puppy pads as you are encouraging them to do the toilet inside. Dogs never want to do the toilet where they sleep so a crate will massively help you with toilet training. Puppies need 18-20 hours sleep, so make wise use of your crate for naps!

6. Be the Leader not the Littermate
Whilst we want to be our pup’s new best friend, we can easily lose sight of how to create a well mannered dog. By setting clear rules and boundaries from the very beginning, that’s day 1, you are actually being kinder to your new puppy. Dogs thrive on structure and clarity. They do not cope with mixed messages, so it’s super important to make sure everyone is following the rules for your puppy. It just isn’t fair on your puppy to be allowed to do one thing with one person and then be told off for the exact same behaviour by someone else.

If you won’t allow a behaviour when they are 1 year old, don’t allow it at 10 weeks old. Dogs do not go out of their way to be naughty; your puppy is exploring its new home and what he can get away with. Don’t avoid stress with your puppy, we seem to believe that stress will break your puppy. Now, we’re not saying set fireworks off in your garden with your puppy sat there. By allowing your puppy to make mistakes and recover from it can in fact be super beneficial for your puppy by creating an adult dog who is better equipped to deal with things

7. Puppy Prison
Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as what you think!

It is completely natural for your puppy to display behaviours that you don’t like. Chewing, biting, digging etc. When we give puppies too much freedom, they tend to make more mistakes because they’re puppies! We always suggest setting up a puppy room, or a space that is specifically for your new pooch. Crate and play pens are a fantastic way to do this. It’s not cruel, your puppy will thank you because then there is less opportunity for you to annoyed at them for just being a puppy!

House lines or clipping a short lead to your puppy in the house will also help with managing their behaviour. When we say, “you can reinforce behaviours by accident”, what we mean is as soon as you say something to your puppy even if it’s saying “ah-ah” you are marking that behaviour. A good example of this is counter surfing. If your puppy jumps up when you are trying to cook your dinner and you either remove them with your hand or vocally try to stop the behaviour, you can make this behaviour a lot stronger. Therefore, your puppy is more likely to repeat it. By having a lead on your puppy, you can stop them from jumping up with the lead

8. Paying a Fair Wage
The easiest way to think about how to reward your puppy is thinking in currency. You bring your puppy home and expect it to fit in to your life for free. Do you go to work for free? Do you work harder without the promise of a bonus? Then why do we expect our dogs to do the same. If we want good behaviors, we need to pay.

Use your puppies’ daily allowance and save yourself money on fancy bowls and treats. Invest in a treat pouch and a clicker. Reward your puppy with its own food all day, every day. Every single behaviour you like, reward it with food. This will build a strong relationship and input loads of value into you. If you are putting food in a bowl, the bowl holds the value. Not you! Mix it up from 1 piece of kibble to a jackpot of kibble, to keep them on their paws. You can also hand feed with raw food and wet food. It’s just messier but, trust us, you’ll have a much better relationship with your dog!!!

If you keep using high value rewards for the mundane tasks, what will you use when you need to be more exciting than birds or other dogs? If your pup refuses to eat, please refrain from rushing to the pet shop and buying a whole new menu of food. Puppies are like babies, sometimes they just don’t want to eat! The next day, they will eat again

9. Be Consistent & Persistent
Consistency is key when training dogs. A behaviour that is sometimes reinforced is much stronger than a behaviour that is always reinforced. Read that again.
This is because your dog loves the gambling game. There is a high chance that the behaviour that you are trying to stop, there is some form of reinforcement happening. If you cant spot it, get in touch for help. If you are trying to stop a behaviour, you need to be consistent in not allowing it to happen. That crate is sounding handy again, isn!t it? You cannot let it slide one day and then correct it the next day. You will only make the behaviour stronger. On the flip side, behaviours you want to see again, you need to reinforce and reward also

9. Sleep is Important
Did you know that your puppy needs anything between 14-18 hours of uninterrupted sleep a day? We encourage you to enforce nap times for your puppy. By ensuring they are receiving enough sleep you will have a much happier puppy who will be less likely to be naughty. Have you ever been around a 2-year-old who hasn’t had a nap? That’s what puppies are like for the first year or so! Make good use of the time that they are active, training, sight-seeing, playing
and walking. Then back to sleep. This will help with your toilet training too. If the only time they go in the crate is night time or when you need to leave, this is why you’re having problems with crate training. But if it just becomes routine, then night time becomes a lot easier.

Don’t be fooled into thinking your puppy needs loads of physical exercise. Your average dog is being physically exercised way too much and still displays ‘naughty’ behaviours. By working their brain, you will have a much happier and content dog. To tire a dog out mentally only takes 5-10 minutes. Scentwork is a great way to mentally stimulate dogs! 15 minutes of scentwork is the equivalent of a 90-minute lead walk!

Don’t believe us, book into an one of our sessions, a introduction to Scentwork from 8 weeks old by clicking here.

10. Guide your Puppy
We often see owners who are pulling their hair out with their adult dog who has become reactive, pushy, nervous etc. Don’t wait around for things to go wrong, instead be proactive in helping your puppy become the best dog. Be the GPS. Be the source of fun, love, structure, and guidance for your puppy. If you are strict
for the first 2 years of your pup’s life, you can enjoy 12-14 years of a lovely, well-mannered dog. Or allow your pup away with everything because they are cute and end up spending 3-5 years (or more) fixing and managing your adult dog. Of course, there is so much more to raising a puppy than what we’ve covered here, but we can’t give everything away!

We specialize in nose work, we cover behaviours modification
puppy classes, bootcamps and so much more!

Now there is much more in owning a dog than what we have included here, but we cant give everything away for free! here at K9 Manhunt and Sentwork Scotland we run a wide range of courses from our 6 week Puppy Course to 1-2-1 courses at our Glenrothes base to home visits and so much more.

Please take a look around our website for further details on our course and should you wish to book on any please  click here to be taken to our booking page. Should you requere any further information please click here to get in touch, or you can call us on either 07803 925099 or 07359 158662