New Blog, and sorry!

I'm so sorry that I haven't posted in a super long time! My life has just been crazy, but it's starting to calm down a bit. I decided to make a new blog, even though it's pretty much on the same topic. Since this blog hasn't been so successful, that's why I made a new one. Here is the link

http://yorkiefurbaby.blogspot.com/

Check this one out because I won't be posting on this blog anymore! Again I'm sorry but at least I'm not quitting blogging anymore!

I didn't forget about it!!

Just to let you guys know I have not forgotten about this blog I have just been busy with cheerleading and I haven't had time to write a blog post. I am in the process of writing one about puppy nipping and biting so look out for that soon. I have also been busy because a lot of things are happening in our town, fair/carnival, festivals, and football is starting for my school soon so that means cheering, cheering and more cheering!!! Soooo, yeah. Here is a picture of my dog too.

xoxo,

Kirstyn

Crate training

Hey everyone!!! These first few posts I know have been about puppies and taking care of a puppy but that is a lot of what people have problems with. So this post is going to be about crate training either a puppy or even a full grown dog that you failed to crate train before or you got them as a full grown dog.

First, you have to pick the right size crate or cage for your dog. Your dog should be able to stand up stretch out and turn around in the crate. Also, if you plan to leave your dog in the crate all day then you should have room to have toys and a water bowl, also a folded up towel or bed.

People wonder why crate training is so important, crate training helps for potty training, if you want a break from your crazy puppy, if you don't want a puppy to sleep with you at night, or you don't want him to have free reign over the house while you are at school or work.

The location if the crate is also really important. You don't want to put the crate in a room that no one ever goes in, like the spare room or basement. You want to put their crate in an area that everybody is always in like the kitchen,living room, or even your bedroom. The reason is that if every time you walk into the spare room or basement and call your dog, the only thing the associate that with is when you leave them alone in the crate.

Some puppies are afraid to even step one little paw into their crate and that is a problem that you can fix. Don't force your puppy into a crate by shoving the in or picking them up and setting them in, start by throwing a toy or treat into the crate and say "crate" or "cage" while they go to get the treat. Repeat this quite a few times then when they go to get their treat close the door for about 5 seconds. If your dog whines or barks don't let them out right away. Don't open he door until they calm down. If you do open the door it teaches them that when they bark they get out of the crate. Keep repeating this then increase the time until you can keep them in there for about 60 seconds. After you get this accomplished then start throwing the treat in the crate, closing the door, and walking away. Leave them in there for about 20 seconds at first then keep increasing the time until they either lay down and relax or until you have been gone for about 10 minutes and you didn't hear them whine or bark. Remember to reward them when you come back if they didn't whine or bark. *TIP* It's best to do this after a long playtime or walk because they are more prone to want to lay down and sleep. After you keep increasing the time until you can leave them in their crate for about an hour or so without a peep coming out of them next you want to leave the house. I would take your digital camera, cell phone, laptop, anything with a recording feature then set it up in view of the crate. Put it on record and walk out of the house, at first just go into the garage or outside where they know you are not in the house any more. At first, just leave for about 5 minutes and come back. Reward them if they are not crying or barking. Check the recording to see what your dog did while you were gone. If they lied down as soon as you left or barked a few times then relaxed increase the time. If they barked, whined, and cried the whole time then decrease the time. Eventually you should be able to leave the house for however long you need to and come back with your dog perfectly fine.

Make sure that if you are going to leave your do at home alone to make sure they have toys. I recommend KONG and the reason is that they can really occupy your dog and keep their attention on the toy and other than the fact that you are not there with them. Also, this helps if you dog is destructive. Some dogs with chew on the bars of their crate. Again if you are leaving them home I would put a bowl of water in their crate so they have constant access to water.

If you are leaving your dog home alone all day some people don't like the idea of leaving your dog in one spot for a long period of time. Personally, I don't really like it either. Imagine having to be in a closet all day long with maybe some kind of toys (for a human maybe a phone or ipod) and some water. So you can buy play pens or exercise pens that you can put a bed, water, toys, and maybe a pee pad. If anyone is wondering when I hopefully get a new Yorkie puppy I want to get a Sleep n' Store which is a bed on the bottom with a closet for dog clothes on the top. I want to get a small gate like the one in the picture and put a pee pad and water on the floor and toys on the floor and bed.

I hope this post helped you, I know it wasn't my best considering I haven't had pretty much any experience with it. My dog isn't crate trained and I know that's bad but I got her when I didn't know anything about dog training. Like I said hope this helped and remember if you have any questions email me at petspetshelp@aol.com and follow me on twitter Kad971!!!

xoxo

Kirstyn

Puppy Chewing Help

I have a few things to say before I start this post. On August 6th or 5th Teddy (hamster) died. I woke up went to go feed him and found him not breathing. So now I only have Coco. Also, the reason this post is late is because I had a virus on my computer and it wouldn't let me open my folder where I keep all of my pre-written posts and I wasn't about to type it all again. My dad fixed it and now we're back in business!! Haha! By the way it was stupid Security Tool that infected my computer!! Now enjoy this post!

You bring you new puppy home and you hope that it will be a perfect little angel, not the truth is, it won't be. When you leave your puppy home by itself confine it to an area like in the kitchen, bathroom, or laundry room. I don't understand why people get mad at their puppies when they chew something up when their not home, you have to wonder, what did these people expect!! So to make sure your dog doesn't destroy anything, confine it with lots of toys. I really reccomend a KONG so that they have something to do all day while you are gone. There are different kind of KONG's some for dental care like this http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2750601

or ones for solid food like this http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3882654

Here are all of the KONG options http://www.petsmart.com/search/index.jsp?kwCatId=&kw=rubberkong&origkw=rubberkong&sr=1

As long as you give your puppy something to do while its in confinement, it shouldn't try to escape or chew anything it's not suppsed to.

If your really big problem is your puppy chewing on things when you are home then as I said in my potty training post, attatch their leash/lead to your pants. If you don't want to do this for whatever reason then anytime your dog bites on something then scold them and put them in a "time out' by putting them in a bathroom with no toys. DO NOT put them in their crate/cage, you do not want them to think going in their cage is a punishment. If this continues then you can buy a no chew spray like Bitter Yuck that you can get from petsmart or other petstores. Still scold them when they go to chew on the furniture and put them in "time out" but it most likely will stop them from chewing your furniture. Anytime your puppy chews on it's toys that it is supposed to then reward him/her to let it know that that is what you are supposed to chew on. Keep the training consistent and never give up. If you have any questions email me at petspetshelp@aol.com. Also, follow me on twitter Kad971. Hope I helped all of you new dog owners or old dog owners that just have a troubeled puppy, please comment and follow this blog!!!

xoxo,

Kirstyn

Potty Training Tips for Puppies

- Do not rub the puppy's nose in the mess or smack the dog, that will teach the dog to hide it's accidents from you and you do not want that.

- Take the puppy out every hour or two to make sure there are no accidents.

- If the puppy needs to stay home by itself then confine it to one area like a bathroom or laundry room and if there are rugs in the room, remove them, soft items where the puppy doesn't sleep will make her want to go on it. If you do not want to put them in a room put them in an area where there is no carpet such as a kitchen with wood or tile floors will work as long as they have a baby gate/playpen to keep the confined to one area. If you are only going to be gone for about an hour then you can buy a crate or cage because a puppy will not relieve itself in a place where it eat and sleeps so put a blanket and a small food and water dish in the crate.

- Don't wait to start potty training your puppy, start as soon as they enter your home, and their new home.

- I've never potty trained a puppy with pee pads but when you leave them alone I would recommend putting pee pads on the floor in the play pen, so half of the play pen should be their bed and the other half pee pads so they will not go on their bed but on the pee pads.

- If your puppy does have an accident (all puppies will) make a sound like "NO" or "AH-AH" as they are going or as soon as you can get to them, then immediately take them outside and eventually they will get the idea that they have to go outside.

- I had to edit this post because I pre-write all of my posts, but I had to edit it because I wrote a schedule and I realized that a schedule is not going to work for a puppy because some puppies pee every 15 minutes while others an hour or two so you can't create a schedule the only thing that you can plan is when you are going to feed then then take them out, then when they wake up, take them out and that is the only thing you can really plan.

- Some people teach their puppies different ways to get their attention to go outside some ring bells, some sit on mats, some run back and forth, and some speak or bark at what they need. Personally I have never taught Coco how to get my attention to go outside she just learned herself to run over to me then to the door then to me and so on. When I hopefully get a new puppy I want to get the puppy to ring a small service bell to get my attention to go outside. This will take some time but every time right before you take them outside ring the bell for them and once they realize the bell is there then start taking their paw and hitting the bell then after training for some time they should think "Hey, she takes me outside when this thing makes a sound, so I'm going to hit it and then she will take me out!!!" You can also have a small mat and every time they need to go out teach them to sit on it and also after a while they should realize " When I sit on this mat she takes me out so I have to go, I'm going to go sit on this mat." Also, I don't recommend letting your dog bark, if someone is over and you have company, you don't want your dog barking like crazy and dogs naturally bark, so you are going to be taking your dog out way to much and 3/4 of that time, your dog doesn't even have to go out.

- I have never taught a dog how to use pee pads and I don't plan to, but I understand why some people do, if you live in an apartment or condo on a really high floor, then you can't always go all the way down just to go on an 8 min. walk with your dog just to take ten min. to get all the way back up. So that's why people use pee pads and if I ever want to I have some sort of idea how to. Just because you have a pee pad doesn't mean your new puppy will go on it. One way to get you dog to go is if they have an accident pat the pee pad on the accident to get their urine smell on the pad so that they will realize that that is where you want them to relieve themselves. Also, if you see your dog going to the bathroom then immediately set them on the pee pad and let them finish and repeat this every time. Same goes for if you teach your dog how to go outside. Also, I will NEVER teach a dog how to go on pee pads then switch to going outside, it will confuse the dog and you don't want your dog to be like that.

- To really make sure that your puppy will NEVER have an accident there are 3 things that you need to remember, your puppy either needs to be inside in your line of vision, outside with you, or in confinement. You should keep your puppy on a leash all the time and put in on your belt or pants then you can take it off and let him drag it around.

- One last thing is that don't expect your dog to be potty trained in a night. Your puppy isn't trying to take revenge on you by peeing on the floor, all dogs want to do is please their owners. That's another reason to not hit your puppies, don't hit them for your mistake, if anything you should be hitting yourself saying, "Why did I let that happen!!!"

Ok so this is a pretty long post but I hope it helped you and again for any questions email me at petspetshelp@aol.com and I will answer any questions. Hope I helped all of you new dog owners and please comment, and follow this blog for more tips on how to take care of your wonderful little pets.

xoxo,

Kirstyn

Update

In my last post I said that I want a Pomeranian and I know this sounds crazy but I changed my mind. I have done a lot of research and have decided that even though I've wanted a Pom for a really long time, a Yorkshire Terrier would fit our household a lot better. I like that they don't shed and they are about the same toy size and very similar in cost and grooming. So like I said it's crazy but a Yorkie would fit me perfectly! By the way, this post does not count as another post it is extremely short and I didn't even have to pre-write it. Next week it a really long post about potty training tips for puppies, and even dogs.

xoxo,

Kirstyn

Intro+ Meet My Pets

Hey everyone, I'm new to the blogging world and I could easily see me forgetting about this blog with my hectic schedule, but I am going to try my best to post every week or close to it.

So, in this blog I'm going to be talking about my pets and how to take care of the pets that you have. First, in this post I am going to be talking about the animals I have and my animal history.

At the moment I have two pets, one dog, and one hamster. My dog is a brown or chocolate colored Cockapoo (Cocker Spaniel Poodle mix) named Coco. No, not Cocoa, Coco as in Coco Chanel which happens to be her middle name. She is 4 years old and she came to me as a surprise, a family friend had gotten her and his wife said it was too much as they already had two other dogs. My mother was talking to him about how I wanted a puppy to go along with the new house we moved into so he just gave us the dog, with all aceeries included. She is a smaller dog, not toy sized, but smaller than a lab, she is 20 pounds.

Next I have my hamster who is a Fancy Russian Dwarf hamster named Teddy and he is a boy. I got him a few months ago, I don't remember what month, I think April or May. My hamster also came to me as a surprise after I extremely begged for one. He is mostly grey with a black stripe down his back and white fur around is feet.

I am really hoping to get another dog for my birthday, I only have 5 things on my wishlist for my birthday and Christmas, which are very close together, My birthday= Dec. 11 Christmas= Dec. 25. The number one thing on my wishlist is a Pomeranian (preferably white) I've wanted a Pom for a long time and getting one for my 13th birthday just seems perfect.

I have loved animals for ever and my dog Coco is basically my first actual pet that I have to take care of all by myself. Before I have had ducks, but they were at my grandfathers house so I just went over to his house to see them. I am familiar with larger breeds of dogs and have expierence with them. All last summer I puppy sat and dog say two golden retrievers. Also, another family member has a huge pitbull that I play with, not care for, but I know how they act, what the looks like, and so on.

That's pretty much it and I would like for people to email me and I will do a FAQ blog post and if a question gets asked all the time and if I think it's really important, then i'll do a whole blog post on it. Also, I would love to be a dog trainer so i have trained my dog fairly well so if you have any questions about training and even about potty training then I'll answer those as well, so please email me at petspetshelp@aol.com.

xoxo,

Kirstyn