We Got A New Puppy! Meet Shroom!

Meet Shroom!

Recently, we unexpectedly added a new puppy, Shroom, to our lives! Shroom was found wandering with some wounds and was dropped off at the vet clinic where I work part-time. The plan was for us to treat his wounds and place him or send him to a shelter, however, he ended up staying with Jay and I, and we quickly fell in love with him. Now he’s sticking around permanently! Our best guess is that he is around 14 weeks old and is a pit mix, though we’re waiting on the results of his DNA test to come in. Shroom is now our fourth dog, and while we certainly weren’t planning on adding anyone to the family anytime soon, we’re taking steps to make sure he fits in well and that the transition is as seamless as possible.

First, let's talk about reasonable goals for young puppies. I think we often expect way too much of our young dogs, as well as ourselves, when we get a puppy. We try to teach them so many new skills and often forget that they are babies and that learning takes time. We need to streamline our plans and focus on the most important at the beginning. For the first few weeks and months, my primary focus with puppies is potty training, name recognition, crate training, and relationship building. I don’t usually start working on any complex skills initially, as I want them to have a solid understanding of our daily routine and what life looks like here. Setting Realistic Expectations for Puppies Blog Post (READ HERE)

Most days, I wake up, take Shroom outside to potty. When he’s done that, he goes back in his crate for breakfast and some water. Shortly after he finishes his breakfast, we go back outside to potty again and I make sure he has finished his business before we go inside again. Depending on the day, we will do some play time or a short training session and then head out for a final potty break before it’s nap time in the crate. If time doesn’t permit for additional training right away in the morning, I will provide a chew or a puzzle toy to help burn off some energy, making it easier for him to settle and nap. As soon as he wakes up, we go back outside to potty and then we do some more play time, chill together on the couch, or he follows me around while I do some chores around the house. Anytime I can’t actively keep an eye on him, he is crated to prevent him from rehearsing any unwanted behavior such as getting into the trash, chewing on things I don’t want him to chew on, and pottying inside. With puppies, supervision is essential.

Shroom is enjoying some free food enrichment with an egg carton before his nap time. This helps appropriately tire him out so resting is easy while I work.

Our training sessions are usually very short! I keep them under 10 minutes long so he doesn’t get overtired or frustrated. So far, a lot of our training has consisted of skills I want him to have and that he will use daily. The first thing we worked on was name recognition. I want Shroom’s head to whip around anytime I say his name and often I want him to come over to me if I’ve said his name and he isn’t already next to me. Next, we began working on sitting for attention rather than jumping. I taught him to sit, and then when he started to offer sits, he got tons of pets and attention. If he decided to jump up, I would instead ask for a sit and then reward him with attention when he sat down. He is learning to do this out in the real world as well when he goes to work with me or out on his socialization outings. After a few days of settling into the routine, we expanded. Today, we started to work on relaxing on his bed formally. During early learning staged before they understand how to relax, I find a tether helpful. This helps him stay next to me at work with a bed and a chew toy until he’s learned to settle on his own. This morning, I asked him to get on one of our beds and lured him to lay down and then slowly rewarded him with snacks as long as he was laying down on the bed. After a few short repetitions, I would reset him and have him get back on the bed. As he’s figuring out that I want him to be laying on the bed, I’ve stopped luring the down and just reward him when he lays down on his own.  Next, we’ll start working on some leash manners, but for the most part I just want to focus on the potty training and learning to relax during the day to help him easily integrate into our routine!

Often I think we get so focused on teaching them tricks, leave it, leash walking, recall, impulse control, etc that we do too much too soon and we don’t end up finishing and proofing the skills we want them to have as well as they need to be. I’d much rather take it slow, and really spend time working on a few things that I know will get a ton of use and then layer in the more challenging skills. As Shroom matures, we will definitely be working on the impulse control skills and manners, but for now I’m quite happy to have a puppy who is good at crating, settling, and knowing his name! Stay tuned for more blog posts on how we went about integrating Shroom with our existing dogs and cats!