Entertaining a puppy

[acginkc]

Bella is about 12 weeks old now and tons of fun and energy that doesn't stop. Our problem is that days like today when only one of us has her all day and evening, we start to run out of ways to keep her entertained and from trying to bite us to death (ETA: While I was typing this post up she pit the cr@p out of my hand, 1st time she's bit hard enough to bring tears to my eyes).

Things that will work for short periods of time:
Kong
rawhide
training-but since she only knows sit, look at me, and treat dispenser (ie come) this doesn't last too long at all

We can keep her a bit more engaged when we do leash training or walks, but with temps near 100 that is out during the day, besides the fact that we have stuff to get done.

I am just running out of ideas, we have lots of toys for her and she'll play with those, but once again for very short times. And she loves to explore the back yard, but with temps topping 100, I don't want her out there too long.

So all you experienced dog owners, how do I keep her entertained until her next puppy nap?
http://www.imagestation.com/8073551/3991848831(a rare moment of peace)

[luv2cook]

For one thing, stop that biting crap immediately! I mean, stop it. it's only going to get worse. She's teething/playing/no manners (yet). When she bites you, tell her no! and give her a toy and praise her. Don't play w/her w/your hands. use a toy. She doesn't know the difference - just like if you allow her on your old sofa, she won't know when you have a new one!

PetsMart has great toys that you can get that she can play with on her own. You didn't mention stuffed toys. Does she have those? esp. the ones that squeak?

Also, have you gotten one of those balls that you can freeze ice cream or peanut butter in? that will keep her entertained for quite a while.

As long as she has water, she can stay outside and entertain herself unless you think she's too stupid (as some puppies are becuse they're too young to know better) when she's hot and come to the door to come in? Mine came to the door and barked when they were ready. We have a thing that you attach to where a water hose would hook up. We taught them how to use it and they get fresh water whenever they want! And you can put a baby pool outside and let her frolic in there. THAT would be fun...

[PurplePotato]

Ditto the biting advice. 3 months is certainly old enough to know not to bite.

Other than that I don't think I have anything to add to the previous poster's suggestions. Oh, are you doing a puppy training class? That can give you some more ideas on what/how to train and also gives your puppy socialization.

[ErinM]

I agree with the biting! That must stop NOW. When she bites, tap her on the nose and say, very firmly, "NO BITE!". They'll learn pretty quickly! If they try again, keep doing the same thing. Consistency is key! She'll learn...in fact, my 7 1/2 year old shih tzu has always loved to chew on my fingers (not hard, but there were a few times in the early years) Now, when he starts to bite too hard all I have to say to him is "Is that proper shih tzu behavior? Were we taught to bite?" and he immediately stops.

As for keeping her entertained, I love the pool idea! That should keep her busy. Also, do you have any bones for her to chew on? (Sorry, you seem to be covered there!) A ball she can chase as it rolls around the house? When Cody was a puppy he loved to carry things around, like keys and shoes.

Another idea is to leave her a lone and let her figure out a way to entertain herself. Sure, she may get in trouble, but that's part of being a puppy. If she has enough toy options, she'll figure something out!

[acginkc]

Thanks for the tips so far. We are working on the biting thing. She's deaf so we are using a spray bottle to get her attention, but if she is in play mode (or getting tired) it gets her all hyper. Unfortunately deaf dogs take a bit longer to train.

We have a private trainer who has experience with deaf dogs. We are hoping to get her together with other dogs to teach her bite inhibition. She had kennel cough, then they were afraid she had distemper, then we found out that one of her litter mates had parvo and the other died of pneumonia all within the 1st week we had her. So she has been on house arrest (except for little walks on our block). Gotta love shelter dogs. To say the least its been a long month.

As for toys, the kong we fill and freeze, she's got several stuffed toys and is very good at squeaking even if she can't hear them, she does spend quite a bit of time outside, but still needs some supervision at times. I may have to try the baby pool. But her stitches from being spayed are still healing so have to wait a bit longer for that.

More ideas are still welcome. TIA

[JJeannette]

Buster cube--it's a cube that you can put treats/dog food in and then the dog has to push it around to make the food fall out. Along with the pool idea, make her big ice cubes studded with goodies--put one in the empty pool with her and let her figure out how to get the goodies.

Since she is deaf, work on teaching hand signals--including one for "easy"/ "no bite"--even something as simple as a closed fist to indicate she needs to keep her mouth closed. Work on ways to get and keep her attention on you--. Go ahead and talk to her--I'm betting she will learn that certain lip movements mean certain commands-- just make sure they are distinct mouth shapes and include the hand signal that goes along with the command.

Routine will be important to her so that she knows what is expected and when--. My old girl who just passed last week, was deaf for several years, but knew our routine--and kept me on it! I'd always taught hand signals along with verbal ones, so really the only time we were sure she was deaf was when she was looking away from us or sleeping--.

[misskitty100]

My dog LOVES when we hid treats in a room and then she has to sniff them out to find them and then gets to eat them. For the first couple of times, let your dog watch you hid the treats and then let her find them on her own. After she has the hang of it, you can put her in another room while you hide the treats.

We used the small size dog biscuits and broke them into 3 pcs each but you could also use dry dog food or.... :)

[Laurielee]

what a great thing to do adopt a deaf dog :)


have you checked out this site? likes like it has great training advice

http://www.deafdogs.org/training/signs.php

good luck

Laurie

[Beth]

The best thing you can do with biting play is to stop playing. Get up and walk away -- that works whether they can hear you or not. There is no ambiguity in "I won't play that way." It may take a few times to make the connection, but she will. It doesn't mean you have to end the play time, but let her get the message that when she bites, you go away. Once she gets the message, you can probably just pull your hands back and ignore her for a bit to remind her. If she persists after that, you could try wearing a cotton glove sprayed with bitter apple, but she may learn to not bite obnly when you have the glove on and she smells the bitter apple. Try just walking away whenever she bites and don't resume play until she starts to calm down.

I applaud your patience. It can be hard enough to get or hold a puppy's attention when they can hear you. Have you tested whether she can hear a whistle, clicker -- ranges outside the normal? Or whether you can find something where she may feel the vibration (more likely a lower sound). She might never get voice commands, but you might be able to find something she responds to. If nothing auditory, you might check out the miny flashlights (I'm thinking of a particular one sold in the camping goods and comes in a variety of colors -- flat enough to fit in a pocket easily and not much bigger than the end of your thumb that would squeeze it. You could teach her to pay attention when she sees the light (that's why I'm thinking a color might help her identify it?) and you could move to shining it in front of her when she is turned away from you. You might also find ways to use her sense of smell to get her attention.

I posted on the other puppy thread about how our pup became enthralled with a couple of little used cat toys. One was a disk with a ring around the outside and a mouse on a wire that swung around the ring. Coco would carry that around, flip it over, paw at it and work so hard to try to get the mouse. We actually bought her another one because it was such good entertainment for her. The other version with a ball that went around the track was not good -- she popped the ball out very quickly.

[mcgeiger]

The best thing you can do with biting play is to stop playing. Get up and walk away -- that works whether they can hear you or not. There is no ambiguity in "I won't play that way." It may take a few times to make the connection, but she will. It doesn't mean you have to end the play time, but let her get the message that when she bites, you go away. Once she gets the message, you can probably just pull your hands back and ignore her for a bit to remind her. If she persists after that, you could try wearing a cotton glove sprayed with bitter apple, but she may learn to not bite obnly when you have the glove on and she smells the bitter apple. Try just walking away whenever she bites and don't resume play until she starts to calm down.


Exactly :)

[luv2cook]

Another idea is to leave her a lone and let her figure out a way to entertain herself. Sure, she may get in trouble, but that's part of being a puppy

I strongly disagree with this. It's just adding more bad habits and setting them up to get in trouble. Plus, w/a deaf dog, it would be harder to break a bad habit -esp. since they can't hear that deep inhaled sigh of a "Ohwhathaveyoudonenow" sigh that ALL dog owners know all too well.

AND, in addition, my SIL, allowed her (puppy through adult) dogs to do whatever they want. She never crate trained them. As a result, they were horrible. Never learned any manners and her house looked like a war zone of chewed on furniture, carpeting, soiling, etc. It was terrible.

NOW if anyone can tell me how to keep Kharlee out of my upstairs trash can w/out buying a new one w/a lid, puhleez let me know! :rolleyes:

[jeannewin]

Find a copy of Good owners, Great Dogs by Brian Kilcommons - his training advice uses hand signals which would be great for a deaf dog.
You need to follow his advice - get a kennel, and keep her in it for part of the day. It is not your job to "entertain" her - you are letting her know that she is dominant over you, and if you don't nip all of it in the bud, you will have a terror on your hands.

Good luck,
Jeanne

[acginkc]

Once again, thanks for all the advise.

She is crate trained and does quite well in there. We put her in there a bit while we are home, but since we are usually at work all day, and she sleeps in it, we don't (and have been advised against by our trainer and vet) to leave her in there much more, its not really fair to her. But today she went in there for about 4 hours for a nap.

I let her spend quite a bit of time outside today and she seemed to enjoy the heat. I left water out there with her and she would come in every once in a while just long enough to cool off and get some attention from mom. She was rescued from the shelter 3 weeks before we got her so she was taken from her mom quite early (since her mother wasn't at the shelter with her). I don't mean to make it sound like she is an aweful dog. She is really good and is learning really fast. She just gets excited and will use her mouth to let us know. When I say she'll bite us all the time, it is often more gentle mouthing behaviors, today was the 1st time she actually bit me really hard and we have been working on that all day since.

We are using hand signals and they are working pretty well. As our trainer has told us several times, it just takes time for them to figure out what it means (he actually thinks she may be younger than 12 weeks).

I appreciate all the tips.

[ErinM]

I strongly disagree with this. It's just adding more bad habits and setting them up to get in trouble. Plus, w/a deaf dog, it would be harder to break a bad habit -esp. since they can't hear that deep inhaled sigh of a "Ohwhathaveyoudonenow" sigh that ALL dog owners know all too well.

AND, in addition, my SIL, allowed her (puppy through adult) dogs to do whatever they want. She never crate trained them. As a result, they were horrible. Never learned any manners and her house looked like a war zone of chewed on furniture, carpeting, soiling, etc. It was terrible.

NOW if anyone can tell me how to keep Kharlee out of my upstairs trash can w/out buying a new one w/a lid, puhleez let me know! :rolleyes:


That was me! I wasn't suggested that she be left totally alone, I meant under supervision, of course! I was thinking more along the lines of human and dog in the room together with human minding their own business and not necessarily paying direct attention to dog, hence dog needs to entertain self, but human is there if dog goes astray into naughtyland.

[Canice]

Caveat: I've never had a puppy, so I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

That said, DBF's grown dogs loved, loved, LOVED their tug toys! After Bogart The Cocker Spaniel died, I started each day by shouting to the Wheaton, "Getcher tug!" and we rolled around on the floor for a good five minutes, "fighting" for ownership of the tug toy.

[Jewel]

I'm struggling with the same issue, even though my pup is close to 11 months old. He may be older, but because we got him at 8 months, he's new to training.

Murphy still bites the hands that play with him. It's not hard, but it's still skin against teeth, and I'm trying to teach him that it's not allowed. When he bites I give a strong yelp, then pull my hands away and completely ignore him. He looks all bewildered for a few seconds, then starts playing on his own. Hopefully, he'll start getting the message. His problem now is that he constantly licks me...hands, feet, legs, shirt, anything that is near his head. :rolleyes:

I find the most entertaining thing for Murphy when he's not chewing on a Kong or a toy is actually tossing a ball for him. We do this in the house right now, so we're not tossing it far, but he chases it and brings it back to us. We've started bouncing it on the living room floor and it springs up and he has to try to catch the pop fly. :) It keeps him within our sight, and frankly we can watch TV or carry on a conversation and still keep him entertained...and it tuckers him out a little too. A tired dog is a good dog. ;)

[LakeMartinGal]

NOW if anyone can tell me how to keep Kharlee out of my upstairs trash can w/out buying a new one w/a lid, puhleez let me know! :rolleyes:
Petco has a thing called "Snappy Trainers" that come 3 to a package. They are just a mousetrap with a plastic flap that you cut according to the size of your dog. Set the trap, put it in the trash can, and when she sticks her nose in there, it will release and make a noise and jump, but it won't trap anything! We have used these successfully for just that problem, as well as counter cruising! I'm still trying to figure out how to put it on a trash bag, without DH throwing it out with the trash! :rolleyes: :(