Advice Needed from Dog Men

[PiTBuLL200416]

I recently purchased a new pup and she is about eight weeks now and has tremendous drive. My question is how to control this drive because she is the most hyper active pup I ever owned. She isnt out of control but I just want her to listen more and calm down when I tell her to. ANy advice you dog men can give me.

[cemoreno]

I personally would use positive reinforcement training and start now. Try teaching her to sit, and some other basic commands. This will help her to learn to focus on you. Once you have tought her to sit then take away the treats (I use mines dog food) and just tell her to sit with out the yummy stuff. If she does sit then praise her loudly and pet her. My 5mo. old pup has one heck of a drive as well. She stays in a kennel at night so whit I did is taught her how to sit w/treats and then I would walk up to her kennel in the morning and say sit ofcourse this takes time but within' three days she got the point. If I sit I get out, so she does. also I have taught her to sit before she gets to go outside and before she gets to come inside (it's positive rewards). She can't even get in the car with out sitting. This process help to teach her that I/you are dominant as well as develops her listening skills. As for the calm down thing you can teach her rest or calm. What I did was put a movie in the DVD player made a little blanket bed by my feet put Anita on a leash and told her to sit on the blanket and stay rest. Then I sat on the leash and she eventually will lay down and sleep. If she cries I will ignore her, now I can tell her to sit on her blanket by the couch and stay rest and she will lay down (Only for about 5secs. though she's still a baby) if I have the leash she will stay laying down though. Good Luck to you and your little ball of fire.

[catcher T]

a whole 8 wks old and still hyper? u got along time of hyper here,,its a puppy for a while,,give her some time she is a baby,,she will be a dog in about soon enough.

[14rock]

Work her ass off, these arent couch potatoes.

[cheese]

14Rock is rite. I took my puppy on too long of walks and her pads got raw so keep this in mind though.

[Evil_Elvis]

you dont wana walk a pup that young in public till its had all of its shots and remember their puppies to tire them out you better have alot of time

[Evil_Elvis]

and really you shouldnt work it that much any way its still growing you could actually hurt the dog doing this just play short games of fetch

[Luke.UK]

8 weeks!!!
got to have come just off its mother.play around with it for 4 more weeks,get its shots.
then start taking it out and teaching it.If the dog is bothering you at 8 weeks/2 month,
com````on your its master,YOU till it what to do.
Good luck.

[PiTBuLL200416]

Thx I know eight weeks old is early to expect her to listen to my every word but honestly I was asking for future purposes.

[pennsooner]

First off, you've got what a lot of folks looking for performance dogs look for. She sounds great. I'd learn how to train and start right away. Go to a pet store and get a cheepo agility set and start her on that. Just learning to weave in and out of the "course". Use a treat to lure her.
Any constructive, positive thing to keep her occupied.

Find a savvy trainer to show you the ropes. The good thing is, the more drive, the easier to train a dog is.

A lot of French ring and Schutzhund people really like the sort of pup you have. Of course most people find a real working quality dog overwhelming.

Time for you to really stretch your skills as a dog handler.


Oh, for the record, I'm not a dogman, but I have been acquainted with keeping a very high drive dog happy and done a little training, good luck. Oh, and I'd google "Pitbull training".

[Riptora]

I also have to recommend some crazy exercise routines, to burn that energy. It's funny, my son is 3 1/2 and he is that way. He's very smart and sweet but if he doesn't get put to work DAILY then he goes nuts and drives me crazy. Ever since he was born I thought of him as a bulldog because he had this massive upper body and tiny little legs and bum. He's way too strong for his age and full of fire. He needs constant physical challenges or there's nowhere for that energy to go but in my house, usually in a bad way.
Like puppy, like son!