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Italian Greyhound Tips & Tricks to make your life easier. These are things we frequently use to train foster dogs.
Correcting Bad Behaviors
- Water Bottle - A squirt of water stops humping, whining in the car and a few other behaviors.
- Noises - Clapping your hands together loudly will help stop a dog behaving badly in most cases. Other people shake a tin can filled with dried beans or pennies.
Leash Training
- Starting Out - Give the dog little pieces of lunch meat. Start with one step, reward, and then increase the number of steps by one for each piece of lunch meat. Hold it down where they can smell it, close enough they can't reach it until a step is taken, but far enough they have to move to get a treat. Pulling on the leash will cause the dog to fight it.
- Pulling - Get a harness. It will not choke the dog when they pull and give you more control.
- Heal - Use swift short tugs on the leash after saying 'heal' and giving a second for the dog to correct itself.
Crate Training
- Warm Blankets - Put bedding in the dryer for a few minutes before asking the dog to go to the kennel.
- Special Treats - Smear some peanut butter on the side of the kennel. This will also keep the dog busy as you go away, and give a reason to go in the kennel again.
- Whining - Wait until ten minutes has passed after whining has stopped to let the dog out of a kennel. Letting a whiny dog out of the kennel reinforces that they get out because they whine.
- Favorite Toy - Put a new or favorite toy in the kennel so they have something to do.
House Training
- Verbal Praise - Praise them as they are doing their business, so they know it is the correct behavior.
- Treats - Reward, reward, reward! As soon as they go outside or on a potty pad.
- Attention - Give a lot of praise and attention after a job well done in addition to treats. After letting the dog out of a kennel, make them go potty before getting attention.
- Marking - Buy some belly bands for male dogs whom mark, or doggie diapers for the girls. They save a lot of time cleaning up and are nice to take on vacations or when visiting friends.
Chewing
- Hot Sauce - Put a drop or two of hot sauce on things you don't want chewed up. One taste and they will not try it again.
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