Keeshonden

Doug and I are adopting a sweet little Keeshond (pronounced kayz-hond) puppy. Her name will probably be Penny, but that could change. After months of research we decided that a Keeshond will be the right dog for us. They are a medium size intelligent dog. They like to please their owners. Most Keeshonden are bred as show dogs but Doug found a breeder that specializes in family dogs. Our sweet little puppy will be coming to us on Wednesday, May 16. Below is a video of her daddy.

I don't know if our puppy will try to talk to us but I know she'll be cute. 

We have been reading so much about training. So many people I talk to only know about training that uses punishment for bad behavior. I've had people tell me to use a rolled up newspaper to wack her on the nose when she doesn't listen. Other people have told me to make sure to rub her nose in her feces if she has an accident so she'll know it's bad. From everything we've read, those training methods will only teach the dog to fear you.

We are going to use positive reinforcement. If the puppy does something good, she gets rewarded. If she does something bad we say "NO" within 3 seconds of the bad behavior, replace the bad behavior with a desirable behavior, then reward the new good behavior. This way the dog will learn what's expected, instead of learning to be afraid to mess up around you. If she does something bad when we're not around we should ignore it because she won't remember what she did bad and won't understand why she's being punished.

We are going to be crate training so our puppy won't be given free roam of the house. She will be in her crate to sleep and eat. After eating and sleeping she will be taken outside to the bathroom, as well as other times throughout the day. As soon as she comes out of her crate she get's an opportunity outside to go potty. Only after she goes will she be allowed some play time outside of the crate. Some people think it's mean to "lock" up your dog all the time but it will help her succeed with house training. She won't really be locked up a lot, just when she's sleeping, or needs some time to herself, or when we're not home. It should help us avoid accidents and set her up to succeed. After all the videos we've watched and books we've read usually a bad dog is the result of a bad owner. We're trying our hardest to prepare ourselves to be good owners.

If anyone has any feedback or suggestions I'd love for you to comment.