CORRECTING K9S

As soon as possible! Your veterinarian needs to perform a complete examination and set up the puppy’s vaccination schedule.

Yes. Unless you are planning to breed your dog, there are many benefits to having your dog “fixed”. These can include curbing behavioral problems and improving the life expectancy of your dog. While traditional thinking has been about 4 months for female and 6 months for male, more studies have shown serious health benefits for waiting until physical maturity for both sexes. These can include less likelihood of: spay incontinence (female), several types of cancer, cruciate ligament disease and hip dysphasia. Contact your veterinarian to discuss the best time for your dog, as individual dogs have individual needs. I personally, have changed my thinking to the newer guidelines.

Puppies can begin Puppy Pre-School as soon as ten weeks of age. It is important to wait for at least two weeks after the first set of vaccinations have been administered so they will be in effect before exposing your puppy to the outside world. Consult your veterinarian to an exact time they feel comfortable with. Formal obedience can begin as early as four or five months. You’ll want to start obedience BEFORE bad habits start to form in the long term memory of your puppy.

Absolutely! You will be glad you did and so will your puppy. I discuss crate training procedures in my Puppy Pre-School presentation.

Yes. There are techniques taught in my Puppy Pre-School presentation that address all three problems.

Yes, contrary to the popular axiom, you can teach an old dog new tricks! It is never too late to have a disciplined dog.

There are many variables that can affect training times. I would conduct an evaluation of your dog and discuss training objectives before I would be able to approximate a training period. Costs would depend on the training objectives and method of training.

After an evaluation of your dog/owner situation and discussing the training objectives, I would suggest training alternatives.

No. If the owner follows through with the instructions given by trainer, the commands will become a normal way of life for your dog.

You will find that many behavioral problems will be solved through obedience training. Your dog will learn the meaning of “No” and that is a sweet, sweet thing. However, some behavioral problems require special attention.