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Pupforum presents your training questions answered by professional dog trainers.
Jean is a graduate of Animal Behavior College and teaches basic obedience using positive motivation training techniques. She is a member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers and has been teaching family dog basic obedience for three years. Jean is also a graduate of Northeastern University and is the co-founder of pupforum.com.
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10/31/2004
I just adopted a Yorkie rescue little girl that is 4 years old. She is a puppy
mill dog and was abused. The courts took 5 dogs from this mill and I took one.
Now my friend has a rescue and I am thinking of adopting her so she brought her
over yesterday and the girls just played and played after they got reaquainted.
She took her back home and now mine is wetting on the floor which she has never
done. Is she trying to tell me she is mad because I brought the other dog in here
or mad because she left? I don't know whether to adopt this little girl who is 2
or not . Please tell me what you think is wrong. (grandma, Florida )
Congratulations on your new furbaby! It's not likely that your dog is wetting on the
floor to tell you that she is mad. My 4 cats do things to let me know they're angry
all the time, but I've never had a dog that acted out to say he was mad.
Is it possible that one of the dogs may have wet in that spot a little while they
were playing? One of them may have leaked a little out of excitement. If your
dog smells urine in a particular spot, she will assume that she has found a good
place to go. Get some Nature's Miracle cleaner and treat the spot well.
If the problem persists, treat your dog as though she has never been housebroken
and start all over. There are some great articles on housebreaking on this site already.
Please don't let this stop you from adopting the other dog. It sounds like they had a great
time together.
I have a 6-8 yr old rescued Yorkie that is afraid of people. There is not a person
on this planet he will come near. He has come closer to me than I ever expected.
If I'm walking around the house, he goes the opposite way. I cannot give him
medicine that is not liquid and even that is a challenge. He acts like he is going
to bite me, which one day he may. I am sure he was a puppymill dog. He has a tatoo
on his belly. I'm w/a rescue group and know he will never be adopted because he
is so afraid of people. He loves all my dogs and they play like nothing is wrong.
If I go to pick him up, he cowers and runs. I have to put a gate
up so I can catch
him. I go slowly and talk sweet to him telling him what a good boy he is. He wants
to love me, but he can't. I scratch his head and back and give him back rubs and
he loves that. But he is stiff as a board all the while I'm doing this and he will
not look me in the eye when I'm holding him. (mchunt48, Ohio)
For whatever reason, your Yorkie has a negative association with people. It's not
necessarily the case that he has been abused, it may simply be that in the past he
was picked up more often for unplesant things like vet visits and grooming than for
petting and praise.
One thing you don't want to do in this case is to over-comfort the dog when you do pick
him up. (See Fran's column
Forms of Abuse)
If you pick him up and coo "Oh it's ok puppy, see everything is ok," your cooing will
have the opposite effect you are going for. Your dog will hear your voice (not understanding
the words of course) and likely think to himself, "oh my gosh, something is going on,
I am afraid."
Start picking him up a few times per day just to feed him a handful of treats. Don't
do anything to sooth him, just give him treats and put him down. If you must pick him
up to give medicine, make sure you have several of these treat sessions on those days.
You definitely don't want him to think he gets held only for unpleasant things. If he
won't take treats while you hold him, just carry him around for a minute or two still
offering treats nonchalantly, and then put him down. Dogs generally enjoy treats much
more than they enjoy just petting and praise.
When he gets fed, stand as close as you can to him while he eats. If you get 10 feet
away and he stops eating, stand 11 feet away. Don't coax, just stand or sit. Over
several days or weeks, get closer to him.
I want you to start being prepared when any person comes into your dog's sight. The
moment your dog sees a person, have something super yummy ready to feed him like
chicken or liver. I don't care if your dog is a perfect angel or a total menace,
start to teach him that at the sight of a person he will get chicken. It doesn't
usually take long before your dog will let you know when a person is around,
because your dog will be looking for that chicken!
Don't expect to see results in a short period of time. Remember that you have up to
8 years of negative association to overcome, so please be patient!
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