Sarge the Boxer Puppy - Training at 8 months

Sarge the Boxer Puppy at 7 months with his brother Hoss

Sorry for the absence, I was super busy with portrait commissions this Christmas and beyond.  Etsy has proved to be a great showcase and I got a lot of commissions from them.

So how is Sarge?  He's now 8 months old, almost 57 lbs. and is doing great.  How did he do with potty training without a crate?  Fabulous. 

He has the run of the house and has done beautifully. I think it's important to have the run of the house because his natural instinct is to protect and guard.  How can you protect and guard if you can't get to it??

Anyway, we have been really lucky with the chewing, we haven't lost anything.  I corrected him with an "uh, uh" any time he mouthed anything inappropriate.  He gets a raw beef bone every day, and I think that takes care of his need to chew, and keeps him nicely occupied.  I also pushed a sturdy chair next to a window so he can watch the goings on outside, which keeps him from being bored while I'm working on my dog portraits.  And a long walk every day it's not icy out is good for both of us!

The big news for Sarge was that our son and daughter in law became puppy parents to his half brother, Hoss!  Hoss is a "black" boxer, which really means he is a very dark brown, where the brindle stripes actually cover all of the tan .  They have the same father.  Hoss is a few months younger than Sarge, and they bonded immediately.  Here they are playing, love that manic face dogs have when you snap a photo of them playing!  Hoss is a city dog, who has to be walked, and also was trained without a crate.  It IS possible!  Hoss's parents have outside jobs, and he spends significant time alone, but they built a custom gate to keep him in their kitchen, where he can look outdoors, and he's been a champ.  He was the last of his litter to go and his breeder had him housetrained without a crate before he came to his new home.  There's definitelly something to be said for getting an older pup!!!

So is Sarge perfect?  Yes!!  Ha, ha.  Actually, we are working on jumping on people.  It's soooooo hard, especially when people actually pat their chests and welcome him up!   He's doing better on it, but by no means can I report that he has good manners regarding jumping!

Sarge the Boxer Puppy - Training and Development



Sarge the Boxer Puppy at 5 months

Sarge the boxer puppy turned 5 months a few days ago and he is doing incredibly great!  A few "devil dog" days, but he's been totally housetrained for over a month, hasn't destroyed the house yet and hasn't seen the inside of a crate.

He was perfect about staying in his backyard until a few minutes ago (ran to follow a dog being walked), has been perfect about waiting at corners for me to tell him to cross the street, and is a champ at car trips, motel rooms and as a houseguest.

And he's puzzlingly not that thrilled with walks.  He goes, but shows no enthusiasm for it.  He'd much rather play in his backyard.

He's chosen a favorite chair for naps, can leap in the air at least 4 feet, but expects a little boost into the car for rides.  He's shown no interest in chasing squirrels, but likes to watch them, and loves leap in the air after the pigeons invade our bird feeder.  Good boy!

His favorite place in the world is my neighbor Pat's willow tree.  Our backyards are not fenced from each other, and he runs and runs and runs around her tree.  She thinks he's crazy!  His giant teeth are coming in and I've given him a fresh beef bone every day to enjoy and teeth on. 

But it's been a full time job to get him to this point! My art has definitely been backburner, but that's okay. I don't have to be on a schedule, and it's one of the things I really like about working from home! Yesterday I was photographing some vintage to sell and he thought the whole exercise was about knocking the camera out of my hand. Uh, oh!

And he's nicely on his way to being social and trained just as my busy season for portrait approaches.  I am looking forward it!  The difference this year will be that I'll have to take more and longer breaks to make sure Sarge gets lots of playtime!

Sarge on his birthday - training without a crate

Yesterday was Sarge's 12th week puppy birthday, and he celebrated by pooping on his walk!  Which is where I want him to go, I would rather pick up after him right then and there than have to go on a hunt in the back yard.  He's peeing almost the moment he gets outside, now.

He also pooped in the dining room, and seemed totally oblivious to my "correction". 

I've also changed his diet from the canned doggy food he got from his breeder to the home cooked meals he'll be getting for the rest of his life, supplemented by some kibble.  Yesterday he had a nice chicken/rice and vegetable blend, and that firmed things up a bit!  I don't think he'll need to go as often, and that should help ...um...solidify .... the notion that he goes when and where we want him to.  I don't want him to get into the habit of "I can't wait", so the rice will help.  I'll keep tabs on it though and adjust the rice to chicken and veggies ratio if need be.

We know he can hold it for 8 hours, since he sleeps through the night without having to go.

Anyway, I wanted to go to an auction to hunt for vintage to sell in my Vintage Shop on Etsy, so had to decide if I should leave him alone in the house or take him.  I decided to go for the outdoor portion of the sale, which lasts between an hour and two.  He did great with the crowd!  So I got some really really neat vintage things and he got some kids playtime and met some other new dogs, too.  He's a real champ in the car, too.

So we celebrated his birthday with a little vanilla ice cream.  Mmmmm...  Then, he ran around like a nut playing with his dad for an hour before bed, then..ZONK.  We carried him to bed!

New Puppy, Sarge! Our adventure in Crate free puppy housetraining!

Here's our new pup, Sarge, who we are training the old fashioned way, no crate.  Nothing like a puppy to take my mind off losing my best friend, Otto, a few weeks ago.  I NEEDED a dog, and we found a non-puppy mill breeder an hour or so away and selected Sarge for his inquisitive, friendly and laid back manner.  Actually, his whole litter was the same except the runt, who looked so much like Otto as a pup.  She was feisty as all get out, starting fights with everyone, and I just felt that a more laid back pup would fit with us better.

So Sarge left his nice Amish barn that he shared with his pack and several horses and came home with us.  His breeder is a pro, she'd been breeding dobies for years, and since she and her husband retired from farming, she decided to add another breed to her repetoir. 

So she aquired two new pets of her own, Sarge's mom and dad, and they produced 10 pups their first try!  We got Sarge nicely socialized, since her large extended family included grandkids of all ages who played with them, and cats and horses and men, like I said, she knows how to breed and raise good pups and it shows.

Sarge did smell like a barnyard, though, so he got a good bath his second day with us.  Looks like we could have waited, he loves this mudpuddle! 

Everything was new to Sarge, a real culture clash.  Car rides, t.v., radio, cell phones!   He loves a walk, but not the leash. 

My aim is to have him do his business on his twice daily walk.   First step, of course is to do it outside the house!  We do not own or plan to own a crate for him.  I know it's the current trend in dog training.  But dogs have been trained to behave in the house long before there were crates, and Sarge will be one of them, just like every dog I've had in my life.

I'll be honest with you.  I don't like crates.  If you do, that's your business but I think they are contrary to a dog's nature and when I hear of dogs who love their crates, it makes me cringe.  I hope Sarge's adventure in being socialized cage free will inspire others to learn how to do it.  There's very little info on raising a "free range" puppy on the internet, I notice.  Now, we do have a large kitchen and that's where Sarge will be kept when we have to leave him until he is trustworthy.  So it's like a giant cage, but he gets to play, look out the window, move all around and guard his little domain.

Of course, it takes a ton of time and attention.  I can't imagine doing it without taking at least a week of "maternity leave".  I admit I'm very very lucky that I work from home, being a pet portrait artist, but we were able to accomplish the same with our other beloved dogs, Gussie and Otto, when I worked full time.  We paper trained them first, but since Sarge was almost 12 weeks old, I figured we could move right to outside, being that he had the maturity physically and mentally to grasp what we wanted him to do.

I thought we'd be rolling up the rugs for a week or so, but he caught on really fast.  Just take him outside every hour, and praise the heck out of him when he finally does his job.  I say "let's go outside to potty" and when I put him on the grass, I say "Go ahead, go potty".  Whatever combo of words you want to use will work, just use the same ones.  When he goes, "Good boy, go potty!!!"  Then we run back inside and get a treat.

The other "trick" is to not let him have the run of the house yet.  I keep him in eyeball distance, even taking him to the bathroom with my while I shower.  Letting him get into the habit of finding a hiding place is not a good idea!

So basically, this week, we are just getting him used to always doing it outside and not letting him in til he does and keeping him with us to keep an eye on.  He's learning:

1.  I go outside.

2.  I can come back in when I'm done.  But not before.  And she can wait a looooong time!

3.  She really thinks I'm swell when I go!

He's had a few accidents the first days and we just said "Uh, uh!" and picked him up and put him outside.  Boxers especially respond to positive, not negative, reinforcement, I learned.  So I'm doing the "Praise twice, correct once" method I used with my human and dog kids.  Always correct, but praise the heck out of good behavior!

Keeping him with us is important for other training, too.  He's learned Mom gets REAL MAD when he tries to bite a cord, that shoes are not for biting, but toys ARE!  That you can sit with Mom when she's working, but you can't paw at the computer, or try to eat the paper she's drawing on!  And that in this house, dogs are allowed on the couch, but not on the tables.  And that jumping up is bad manners!  Yes, he is exhausting me!!!!  But a good week of one on one is important, so I'll be skipping my auctions and estate sales this week where I buy for my vintage online shop at Etsy.

Thanks for stopping by my art and animal blog!  I'll share artwork here, too, but you can see, I'm all about Sarge right now!!