New puppy owner needs advice please!

[blurryeyegirl]

Hello, I have a 7 month old rescue puppy. Gris very gentle, a timid dog by nature and totally untrained. I have 2 children, one who is a baby.

I also have an unwell cat who is not allowed to go outside for a few weeks.

I have (for now!) a couple of questions I'd really like help with please. I am an experienced dog owner, but have never had a young puppy, always rescuing older "difficult" dogs.

Our new pup is getting the hang of toilet training. I can spot his signs and let him out with lots of praise and very few accidents. If he does get caught short, he makes it to a puppy pad, so I'm really pleased with progress only 3 days in. However he will often go out for a wee, but come straight in and poo on the pad! I clear up with no fuss, and put him outside saying "toilet" - but is there any more I should do? Is it just like toilet training a child, where poo often comes later?

Secondly, he has lived in a pound with his siblings, so is incredibly greedy. He wolfs back his food, the cats food, and anything vaguely edible in his reach (nothing now!)

How do we deal with this? Give him food little and often? Leave dry biscuits out so he learns food is plentiful here? (Tried that this morning, he ate the whole lot then brought most of them up again, ate them again etc etc- disgusting cycle that I had to get involved in!)

Thank you :)

Puppy pads are a waste of time IMO - they just confuse the issue of whether toiletting should be inside or outside. I'd just get rid of them.

I've had an ex-pound dog, I got him at about that age...he was never completely ok with food, cat food had to be kept out of his reach his whole life, but just feeding him normally and teaching him leave and giving him time to settle in and work out that no-one was after his food did solve most of it.

You can also get special bowls that make them slow down their eating www.amazon.com/Brake-Fast-Food-Slow-Feed-Bowl/dp/B000PE30MQ

We had a 2+ yo dog that we had to housetrain last year - we think that she'd been in a barn or a shed so had learned that 'inside' was where you did things - so we could go out for a 2 hr walk and she'd come in and wee. What we did with her was use a lunge rein which gave her a reasonable amount of freedom, then stand in a boring part of the garden with her at a time that we might expect something to happen - eg after feeding. We would stand there, giving her the commands (quietly!) and not go in until she had performed if it looked as though she needed to but just wasn't concentrating on it.

If you're going to use puppy pads, make sure they're by the back door as you can then move them outside to just outside the backdoor.

re feeding, the first few weeks, our dog hoovered up her food in less than a minute. She now will pick at it over quite a long period - she knows there's food there, but also knows that no one else will steal it if she leaves it so that she can eat it when she wants. You could also try a (full, on its side) tin in his bowl if you're feeding kibble as this will make it more difficult to get his food easily - or get one of the special ones already mentioned. You can also get treat balls that hold food and you could give some of his daily allowance in one of these which will slow him down and make him use his brain/ have fun whilst getting it out.

I thought that wolfing food and eating the cat kibble whenever the opportunity arose was normal for dogs, but I've got a lab so perhaps other breeds are more refined in their table manners .
Its probably best to stick to proper mealtimes rather than spreading food out through the day. You could make meals into a training opportunity/playtime by teaching dog to sit and wait while you scatter it over the lawn, or hide it in various places in the garden (or house if you've got washable floors) so he has to hunt for it.