Hello! I've been a bit of a lurker for the last six months reading all your posts on puppies before we committed well now we've got one I need some advice or reassurance or probably both actually!
We've just bought home Rocket an adorable little Boston Terrier X Jack Russell and we also have three human kids aged 10,7 and 18 months.
Read up hugely before we got him, spent endless nights watching YouTube videos and even compiled my own puppy training notebook like a good nerd!
Now he's here though I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. I'm clicker training him and he's learnt sit and stay quIte well in a few days. My main issues I really want to work on are no biting (crawling toddler is a great target) house training and preventing separation anxiety. I guess I want to check I'm doing it right and see if you have any other tips!
Biting
Myself, partner and big kids are going with the yelp ignore strategy and then replacing our hands etc with a suitable toy. The baby however flaps his chubby little arms around and it's pretty much like waving sausages infront of the dogs face. So as soon as we see pup getting bitey jumpy with baby we remove him with a stern no and direct him to something he can chew on. We also make sure Clark (toddler) and Rocket have plenty of calm interactions, feeding treats, playing ball etc. I'm aware that at only 9 weeks the teethings gonna get worse and I just wanna make sure I'm on the right track with preventing it?
Whining
Ok again I know he's just a baby and we've had him for under a week haha but I just wanna make sure we're doing stuff right. Rockets bed is in our office at the end of the dining room, with a board across for now till he's housetrained. When we leave the office or put him in there he cries (more I think when he can hear us but not get to us like when we're eating dinner) I've been leaving him with a stuffed Kong, toys and stuff but he still cries. We always wait for him to stop crying before going back over then we praise. Could I be doing anything else or will this just take persistence and ignoring?
House training
Ok this one is tricky, we decided we were gonna do pads in office then transition him to garden but what with having a toddler and the rare non manky weather we've been in the garden a lot. Naturally he's done his business a lot in the garden and I mega praise him but I'm worried it will confuse him as he'll still go back in and wee on the office floor. If it was the winter we'd just be going out for toilet trips then coming in again but because of the weather we're out here for hours. If I continue to ignore accidents inside and praise outside will he get it? Should I do away with indoor pads?
Also what do you think is age appropriate/most important to teach first?
Sorry for this MEGA long post and thanks for reading 