We have a 10 week old Australian Shepherd puppy. Along with her daily exercise, I take her for a walk/ run with my daughter around our street. I'm trying to teach her not to nip at her while we run. I understand this is her nature. I'm looking for interesting teaching ideas that have worked for others.

Right now, we can run and if she goes to nip at her heels, coat etc, I tell her no and give a little pop on her leash. When she runs with us and doesn't, I keep telling her "good... that's fine. Good run." When we walk and she's walking correctly, I say, "good walk" etc.

My problem is that giving her a tug causes her to cough while she's running so I'm worried I'm hurting her. I don't think I'm tugging too hard, but it's obviously causing her to cough. Would it be better to stay away from this type of exercise/ training until she's older?

We've worked on her in the house and just walking with me and my daughter in our yard and she does well.

As I'm writing this, I'm thinking I may have figured this out. I may have skipped right over a major part of her training (But I figure I'll post it anyway for informational purposes for anyone else in this situation). I guess I should teach her to walk and run with me first and then add the "distraction" of my daughter walking. And then work up to walking.

Thanks for any responses.

I don't know about the Australian Shepherds, but our German ones shouldn't be exercised all that much when they're that young. I'm sure other AS owners will chime in on that.

But otherwise, you have a 10 week old baby and be patient. You don't want to ruin a bond you've just barely begun to have with your pup (and you don't want her to associate either your daughter or the walk or the leash with something negative).

I would also stay away from leash corrections at this young of an age. Generally, "no" shouldn't be used that often with a dog that young, either, IMO. Bonding is really important and if you do it right you'll have a MUCH better relationship with your dog and an easier time training. Try to put them in positions where they're doing right and you can heap on the praise.

I have two Corgis and grew up with a Border Collie, so I know what you mean about the heel biting! I tried to control the environment and prevent my dog from chasing children in the first place.

What I did, and my advice to you, is try to stay away from those situations for just awhile longer. Wait until the dog is a little more mature.

My Corgis were REALLY easy to break of that habit because they were tightly bonded with me and wanted to please me. And I trained them not to do it to me before I introduced anyone else, so I think you're thinking the right thoughts!

Just my bit of midnight wisdom, for what it's worth! Good luck and enjoy that new pup!

Thanks, Amber. The more I thought about it, the more I think it's just too soon for her (as you said). I also have not perfected her walk/ run with me alone, so how can I expect her to behave with a screaming running excited human girl.....

We try not to over-exercise her, but since there are no real guidlines, we are winging it. When we run, it's for about 5 seconds at a time. Then we walk, sniff a bush etc and then she might run again. Total time we're out is about 10 minutes. My daughter on the other hand....

I never heard that "no" shouldn't be used before. So many things to think about. Please provide your wisdom any time of the day or night.... but try to get some sleep too.

I saw this problem addressed on the TV show, "Good Dog", by Dr. Stanley Coren (author of "How to Speak Dog", and "How Dogs Think".

Dr. Coren was helping a family who owned a young Shetland Sheepdog. I think his method would apply to your situation since it is non-correcting and non-punishing.

Dr. Coren's philosophy was, dogs chase cats, bikes, squirrels, etc. but do you ever see a dog chase a tree? So, to stop the dog from nipping, act like a tree. If she nips or jumps up, simply stop moving, look away from the dog, and cross your arms. Do this until the dog gets "bored" and looks and moves away. Then continue walking/running, she will come back. If she nips, repeat.

The dog on the TV show caught on very quickly, your dog may take a little more time because she is so very young.

Let us know how it works out.

I agree with the above poster. Don't take your 10 week old pup out on runs. A short walk around the block is fine, a 1 mile walk is not. Your dog is too young to be going out for runs/long walks regardless of the breed. The general 'OK' time to take your dog out for runs is 1 year.

As far as training goes, all i'll say is that i recommend Ed's 4 hour Basic Dog Obedience DVD, as well as Your Puppy 8 Weeks to 8 Months. Any trining question you have will be covered in those DVD's. I have them both, along with 10 others. Knowledge is power, and after watching the DVD's you'll be happy to spend another $100 on information that will last you a life time.

If you're serious about training, which it sounds like you are, you'll watch each video 10 times ... and learn something new each time

I second that, no runs for puppy

Thanks, Angela- This is how I've "trained" my daughter to act. Anytime the puppy starts this, whether it be outside, inside etc, she "freezes".

Re: running- So puppies should not run at all? We throw a ball in the yard for her to chase also. She runs to get it and (sometimes) brings it back. My walk/ run would be the equivelant to that. I guess I phrased it incorrectly. I'm not talking around the block. I'm talking around a cul-de-sac. i.e. up two houses, over two houses and down two houses and then across the street back to our house. And she doesn't run the whole time. As I mentioned, 5 seconds at most at a time. And she might run three or 4 times during our outing. So we're talking about 20 seconds of running over a 5-10 minute walk.

But, if that is too much, I will definitely stop. I'd much rather air on the side of caution now to avoid hurting her in the future.

I have watched both the Puppy video and OB video. I like the videos, but, let's face it, Ed is trying to fit 30+ years of experience handling, breeding and reading dogs into an hour or two (or 4). This stuff is second nature for him. That is where the forum comes into play. We can discuss and expand on what we've seen or haven't seen in the videos.

Good stuff. Thanks for the replies.

 Quote: mike hawker

Re: running- So puppies should not run at all? We throw a ball in the yard for her to chase also. She runs to get it and (sometimes) brings it back. My walk/ run would be the equivelant to that. I guess I phrased it incorrectly. I'm not talking around the block. I'm talking around a cul-de-sac. i.e. up two houses, over two houses and down two houses and then across the street back to our house. And she doesn't run the whole time. As I mentioned, 5 seconds at most at a time. And she might run three or 4 times during our outing. So we're talking about 20 seconds of running over a 5-10 minute walk.

Fetching is, IMO, good for puppies that age. If they get tired, they'll stop and that's the idea. You can't really let them pick their exercise limit on a leash.

For me, just wandering around the yard was good when my pups were tiny things. Playing in the house for short bursts, things like that.

For my GSD pup, he has more energy that needs to be burned off, so I do those things only more often as he needs them.

I will take him for a walk though the woods sometimes, but only a wander...I have a long lead on him for safety, but it's still basically an off-leash excursion with him setting the pace. And with the exception of when we got kind of lost, these are always short and sweet jaunts.

Also, my pup needs mental stimulation as much as the physical. Even from an early age, I've done easy and basic obedience with him because he LOVES it, and I only do what I know is in his range. That's turning out to be a lot, actually, but what I guess I mean to say is it's sort of a game that he can win, as opposed to trying to teach him anything complicated.

I should say that what's complicated to the Corgis seems to already be a cinch for him. Nothing against my Corgis, but Carbon is razor quick. So, this is my wordy way of saying give your dog some "head" time too.

As for my original post: I should clarify that even within the herding group, the individual dogs are different. The Corgis vs. my GSD for example are on totally different planets. So just because it worked with my Corgis doesn't mean it's the right thing for your AS. There are some AS people here, and I hope they'll speak up because that's a breed I only have limited experience with.

Good luck!

Something I did with my young puppy as much as possible (when I was still faster than him) was find nice big open areas and let him drag his leash around and continually walk away from him.

The idea was to cement his view of me as "pack leader" and have him follow him on his own volition with ZERO negative assocition. When he'd catch up and reach me, praise praise praise etc, then I'd walk off again as if I didn't care if he followed. Even from a purely practical standpoint of simply getting him to follow along it seemed to work much better than remaining stationary, facing the pup, slapping my thighs like it's a hoe-down and saying "C'MERE C'MERE C'MON C'MON LET'S GO THASSA BOY!!!!"

It's definitly something I'd do again. Leash manners is something I'm glad I didn't rush. Other than leash chewing. Immediate no-no.

 Quote: steven lepic

Something I did with my young puppy as much as possible (when I was still faster than him) was find nice big open areas and let him drag his leash around and continually walk away from him.

The idea was to cement his view of me as "pack leader" and have him follow him on his own volition with ZERO negative assocition. When he'd catch up and reach me, praise praise praise etc, then I'd walk off again as if I didn't care if he followed. Even from a purely practical standpoint of simply getting him to follow along it seemed to work much better than remaining stationary, facing the pup, slapping my thighs like it's a hoe-down and saying "C'MERE C'MERE C'MON C'MON LET'S GO THASSA BOY!!!!"

It's definitly something I'd do again. Leash manners is something I'm glad I didn't rush. Other than leash chewing. Immediate no-no.

I think this is a really good idea. Wish I'd thought of it first. A hoe-down? You make me laugh with almost every post!