Function and Importance of the Educational Park
Your goal is to control hygiene at home. The way to carry it out is to limit and reduce your space.
Likewise, it fulfills a capital purpose, not always mentioned: teaching our dog to have self-control and a "high tolerance for frustration and boredom" in the words of Ibáñez Setter Bakio.
We are going to ask the adult dog to be quiet in many different circumstances. For example: that he be serene and silent when he is alone at home, when he travels with us in a car or plane, when he accompanies us in social relationships... in numerous and more varied situations.
Therefore, you have to analyze what you need from the adult dog so that you both lead a long and quality life. That disposition that you require from the adult must be implanted in the puppy before six months.
We see that every puppy in this society must learn something that is not in its nature. He has to learn to “get bored” (for example, staying for hours at home alone, sitting next to his owner in the park for hours while he reads a book, traveling by plane, car, train or accompanying to their owners in relationships
social) and, in this state, not rebel with tears or complaints.
The dog with high tolerance for boredom is a dog that knows how to be in all sides and situations for as long as necessary, calmly and serenely.
In our society, the dog's control and mastery of boredom is a major component of its conditioning. It is not in his nature and it is a characteristic that he has to learn, to live in the human environment as a good member of the family or canine citizen. Teaching the puppy, immersed in a complex society like ours, a great capacity for mastery and self-control is the best life insurance we can offer.
That the puppy gets used to the park is one of the best tools we have for this learning. A dog that has a strong command of his emotions and impulses is a very adaptable dog to any difficult situation that life throws at him. It will never cause problems.
For example, sadness if the owner is absent is not a problem in itself. A dog can be very faithful, love his owner intensely and be completely relaxed and asleep when he leaves. Love is not determined by the lack of capacity to manage dependency. The dog complains or cries when the owner leaves, not out of love but because he is unable to apply well-established self-control.
One more, aggressiveness. It is never the problem itself. A dog may have a strong aggressive drive toward other dogs, toward people, or wants to protect his food or toys. Being aggressive and actually attacking does not respond to the "hostile motivation" (according to Ibáñez's concept) of the dog. It is rather the lack of ability to contain their impulses. A dog can be very aggressive, but if he has strong self-control, there will never be any aggression. On the contrary, a dog can be simply ill-mannered, with a weak self-control that will provoke aggression and bite, at the slightest annoyance.
When an educator treats separation anxiety; the aggressiveness of a dog; a phobia
or a personality disorder, the first thing to work on is not so much that anxiety, that aggressive impulse, phobia or disorder, but rather the ability to control oneself.
If this self-control management is done properly with the puppy before six months, it becomes completely fixed as a character trait in the adult dog. On the contrary, a puppy educated with wide limits of autonomy and little leadership can cause many character problems in the future, because it will not know how to control itself, it will be dominant and capricious.
This self-control in the adult dog is complex and difficult to achieve, in case it has not been exercised in its childhood or adolescence. His youngest age is the best to favor these qualities. That the dog integrates self-control as a trait of its natural character has its complications, beyond six months. It can be controlled in the presence of the owner, but when the owner is not, the dog will act pressured by the demand it has.
It is interesting that the puppy, recently acquired, has been educated in a
family, in the heat of it. But in adequate control parameters.
Also that he has grown up with a dog park. Much of our work will be done beforehand.
The park must be located in a quiet place in the house, for example a room.
Inside will be the bed, the water bowl and the toys or food when you leave it. The rest, the entire surface, will be covered with soaker. Avoid the diaper inside the park. The bored pup may scratch it and extract the material inside, chew it or eat it. It is very dangerous, I know of more than one case of serious risk to his life. The soaker, however, does not have this danger.
When we introduce the puppy in it, it must be tired or have done enough exercise. You can't confine the pup when he's bursting with energy.
In the period of habituation, I recommend implementing the time of activity and play in the street, so that the puppy is tired.
In addition, we will always give him food in the park, as well as his bones and toys.
If the puppy is not used to being in a playpen, you will have to spend a period of habituation to it before closing the door. In this case, we will proceed slowly, stimulating the moments spent in the park with kong bones or toys, always offered in the corral and with the door open.
DOG CRY IN THE PARK
When the puppy is inside the park during the day, its attention should never be called, because it encourages it to complain. When he is in the park, do not look at him, touch him or talk to him. Ignore it mostly.
If the puppy cries and demands your attention in this way, we will do the opposite of what it asks of us: we move away, close the door, turn off the light or cover the playpen on the sides with a thick cloth.
Do not provoke him to cry, it is the most appropriate. Nor should the puppy of three or four months be corrected. He is forming his character and the correction affects him more than the adult dog. Therefore, we must behave with him in such a way that we do not give him reason to complain.
It is essential not to attract the attention of the puppy when it is in the park. If you have children, you will have to educate the children beforehand and explain these aspects to them. Listening to him (that is, looking, touching or talking) during the time he is confined is a serious mistake, because you teach the puppy to cry and demand. These attitudes forge an adult dog that is arrogant, dominant and at the same time dependent.
You must remember it. It is unfortunate that this is a very common attitude. Talking to him in a childish tone, looking at him or touching him, being closed, teaches the dog to claim and sue. If this is the case and the family cannot control their own attitudes, it is more appropriate to eliminate the pen as an educational tool. This is the first basic lesson in early education: ignore the puppy when he is in his park.
You cannot play with this tool. The park is a wonderful object of puppy education, but it has its laws. If the owner does not know how to control his impulses, it is better to remove the pen. Otherwise, that magnificent means is the most harmful of all. Certainly, confinement, more than any other procedure, teaches the dog to cry and demand that we play with him.
You don't look and ignore the little dog in his park. Consequently, you teach him to be silent in his chores, sleep, play or just watch what you do. In all cases, he learns in this way to be calm, focused and independent and, something very important: to get bored.
TEACH THE PUPPY HYGIENE AT HOME
Puppies urinate frequently up to six months. noticeably more than
in its adult phase. It must be so. Just as we cannot ask a baby not to urinate so many times, it makes no sense for us to ask our puppy for this requirement. It is more appropriate for him, naturally and without coercion, to regulate his need progressively. For this reason, we have to set up a space at home where he can urinate without forcing us to take him outside every so often.
The park will help you to teach the puppy to urinate and defecate in the place designated for it. Usually, at two months of age it will be in the park.
When you urinate inside, you will inevitably do so on the underpad. Doing it repeatedly on the underpad fixes the peeing behavior on this texture. This is what is called habituation to the soaker. With this we achieve that, later, a month later, when he is loose in the room and wants to urinate, he goes to the underpad and not to the parquet, tile or marble.
Usually, we correct by quickly taking the puppy to urinate in the underpad when we see that he is about to do so. Even then it is too late because your mind has already chosen the place.
But this teaching that I show is much simpler and with a higher level of precision: the repetition of this behavior, over and over again, in the same texture fixes the habit for that behavior. For this purpose, we delimit his space so that he inevitably urinates in the underpad during the first few months. A common mistake is to take the puppy out of the park, because he needs to pee. It is inappropriate. It should not be taken out of the park because it asks you to, not even to urinate. The confinement is done so that he urinates in the underpad and exercises his habituation to it. The dog will regulate its urination over the months. He will do it more spaced out and finally many times in the street, although always without having to cry to go out.
SEPARATION ANXIETY: The Park and the Toys KONG
There is no better prevention and therapy to avoid or cure separation anxiety disorder than getting used to the park. In addition, it is the only tool we have for it.
When you're away from home, you can keep your pup entertained with some big beef bones or a Kong toy. The latter has food inside that you will introduce and he will look for how to extract that appetizer. Do it immediately before you leave, so that this entertainment softens the moment you leave.
Do not give these inducements at another time. If you habitually use this gift, it will lose its attractiveness and strength. It is very important to work on this aspect of the absence in this phase of the puppy, not separation anxiety symptoms. Therefore, he postpones the delivery of these succulent gifts for when he is alone.
The puppy will acquire the habit of solitude by staying alone in the little park at first, if possible, two hours a day. So, use the stuffed Kong or a bone, but make sure the pup has gone out before and is tired.
Kong stuffing: for example, a healthy and stimulating way is to cook chicken or beef livers. Crush them until they make a paste. Put a few pieces of cheese inside the kong and cover it with the liver paste. Put the kong in the freezer and take it out when you go out to give it to the puppy.
The beef bone: you must have checked before leaving him only with the bone (as you will see in the feeding chapter) the attitude of the puppy with them. For this reason, the first few times you will not leave the bone for more than 15 minutes without supervision.
Avoid the sounds and hustle and bustle of exits and be very discreet. These aspects are capital.
The puppy must be satisfied with activity and tired.
Fill the Kongs with the liver paste, making it more appetizing.
Avoid as much as possible the sounds and protocols of the exit: the sound of keys, coat or colognes. In the puppy phase of your puppy you have to be very careful with these matters.
There should always be water available in the park.
