Helping Your New Dog Adjust To Your Home
Crate Training
Biting/Mouthing
Socialization
Health Survey
Grooming

Helping Your New Dog Adjust To Your Home

1. Set up a schedule and follow it consistently. ALWAYS feed, water, walk, socialize, etc., your dog at the same time. Like the rest of us, dogs feel much more comfortable if they know what to expect. Follow this schedule for at least 4 to 6 months, as it will take the dog some time to feel "at home".

2. Be consistent. Not just with the schedule, but with everything you do with your dog. Decide on the rules the dog will live by and then stick to those rules. Dogs learn much more quickly and behave much better if you are consistent in your actions and expectations. Consistency must start the minute you get the dog home. Everyone in the household needs to agree on the rules for the dog, how those rules will be taught and how they will be enforced. This means that you will need to be prepared for the dog BEFORE he comes home. Be fair to the dog -- don't get him on the spur of the moment. Be ready for him. Dogs don't just walk in the front door and say to themselves "Oh...there's the potty". They need to be trained where to relieve themselves even if they are already housebroken. A new house means new rules and you MUST TEACH HIM the rules.

3. Don't get angry. Anger doesn't teach, especially with a PON. It tends to make the PON confused and stubborn. PON's love to please their owners and you will get the best response by treating your PON with kindness. Deal with disobedience by using quick, matter-of-fact corrections. Don't get your emotions involved. Many problem behaviors are not the result of the dog's attempt "to get even" but rather a result of being bored, lonesome, frightened or having learned to get attention by some undesirable means.

4. Pack leader. A leader is clear, concise, consistent. Dogs understand and need to have a pack leader. If you don't assert your right to that position the dog will naturally move into the leadership role. That means that the sofa is his, the garbage is his, the Thanksgiving turkey is his, and the new pair of shoes you just bought is his. In short, he is in control. Leaders don't come when called. Leaders may bark when and how long they want. Leaders may bite. Think about it..

Often common behavior problems are caused by the dog's assertion of leadership rights over at least some members of the family. If you are not familiar with "pack leadership" as it pertains to the family dog and training, read Is Herbert There? A Survival Guide for Pet Owners, by Animal Behavior Consultant, Terry Jester.

5. Enroll in Training Classes. Training classes help you communicate with your dog. Learning to obey when there are lots of other dogs and people around helps build confidence in both the dog and owner. Owners who work with their dogs find that the mental exercise is just as important as physical exercise for keeping the dog from becoming bored.

It is a proven fact that people who put in the effort to obedience train their dogs and maintain the training have fewer problems with their dogs. An added bonus is the working bond that develops between the dog and the owner when they spend time training together.

6. Praise. Praise is the reward the dog receives for obeying your command. There are some simple rules for giving praise/rewards:

A) Make the reward immediate. Praise delayed = praise denied.
B) Reward the dog only for obedience. He doesn't get any praise without earning it.
C) Praise should be short-term. Only a few seconds of patting is enough.
D) While some trainers discourage the use of food as the primary type of reward, it can be a very useful tool when training most PONs who are usually very food-motivated.

7. Be positive. Tell the dog what you want him to do instead of what you don't want. It is easier for the dog to understand one positive command (like "down") instead of a series of negative commands (don't chase the cat, don't jump off on the sofa, don't bark). Being positive enforces the idea that you are the leader because you give and enforce commands.

A) Giving commands gives definite direction.
B) Obedience earns a reward (praise) for the dog.
C) It puts you in control.

Let him be a dog. Enjoy him, train him, have fun with him. Do not expect him to make decisions. That's your job -- you're the leader. Expect him to act like a dog -- nothing more, but certainly nothing less. Dogs are intelligent, energetic and very adaptable. Given the right training and being respected for the qualities that have made them "man's best friend" for thousands of years, dogs can become very good companions and valued members of the household. Without training, proper care, or an understanding of how dogs think, feel and react, these four-footed creatures can become problems to both owner and neighborhood, and not give the pleasure that good training can create.

Crate Training
by Karen Willson

Dogs in the wild are naturally den animals. They like their own spot to feel secure and protected. A crate, if used properly, makes a great substitution. If you make crate training an enjoyable experience, your dog will adapt to it and even learn to enjoy it! The key is not to abuse its use. I very, very, rarely leave my dogs in their crates for more than 3 hours. Because of this, I've never had any difficulty getting my dogs into their crates. They have learned (on their own!) to head for their crates whenever I tell them I'm leaving. They also go in all by themselves periodically throughout the day for naps or to get away from noisy children or each other.

Crate training is indispensable for these reasons:

• It keeps the puppy out of trouble when you aren't there with him to keep him safe. Few people have the time or energy to follow a puppy around the house during it's every waking moment. But that's exactly what you would have to do to prevent him from chewing carpet, gnawing on furniture, getting entangled in drapery cords, chewing on electrical cords and the like. Keep him and your house safe by putting him in a crate.
• It speeds up the housebreaking process. Dogs do not like to soil their "home". You can use this basic instinct to your advantage by using a crate to housebreak your dog.
• Traveling. If you ever take your dog on an airplane he must be in a crate (unless, of course, he's a puppy who can travel with you up front). When you take him in the car, unless you buckle him in a harness, he should be in a crate. He cannot balance himself when you make abrupt stops and could end up flying into a window and seriously injuring himself. If you ever have to stay overnight in a hotel with your dog, it is usually required to crate him when you are out of the room so he will not destroy it or run away if the maid opens the door to clean.
• Its much easier to crate your dog when you have a houseful of guests or children. Then you don't have to make sure the dog isn't jumping or licking a guest who doesn't appreciate it or constantly supervising so a child doesn't pull his fur or ears. PONs may also find great delight in herding a group of children around the house which definitely isn't their idea of having a good time.

Start your crate training as soon as you bring your puppy home. They can be purchased at pet stores, some major department stores or through mail order catalogs and usually cost about $30 and up depending on the type you buy. Keep in mind that if you're using the crate on an airplane it must be airline approved. Never use a metal crate in the car. More than one dog has been impaled or horribly entangled in one should you be involved in a severe car accident. Plastic crates are cleaned easily but are not collapsible like metal ones so this may be a consideration. There are also some alternative kinds of crates available which are very nice but can be very expensive. The soft sided crate is almost like a miniature screen room for your dog, there's an extremely light-weight yet durable crate made by Eezi-Crate, or the soon-to-be-available Care-eze Pet Carrier from Amerlin.

Buy a crate that's big enough for the dog to move around and lie down in when he is full grown. The top should be 2-4" above his shoulders and 2" from the dog's rump when full grown. Then partition it for use when you bring your puppy home. Leave just enough space for the puppy to be able to lie down. Too much space allows puppy to potty in one area and lie in another. Put the crate in the room the family uses most so he will not feel left out when he's in it. When you move to a different room, bring it with you, particularly at bedtime. If puppy can see you nearby he will settle down to sleep much faster.

Begin to accustom your puppy to it's crate by putting some treats under a towel or blanket while puppy is watching. Allow puppy to go in and get the treat. While he's in there, praise him, "Good puppy". You can also throw a toy in there to retrieve and then praise again, "Good puppy". After you do this awhile, close the crate door when he goes in for a few minutes. If the puppy is quiet while he's in there tell him, "Good puppy" let him out, and give him a treat. If he starts complaining, ignore him until he is quiet and then praise, "Good puppy", let him out, and give him a treat. Never let him out while he's complaining or you'll be reinforcing this unwanted behavior. When it's time to feed puppy, put his dish in the crate so he'll also associate his crate with the pleasure of feeding time. Praise him for eating inside. After he's grown accustomed to eating inside, you can close the door while he's in there. Then let him out and praise him when he's done. Next time leave him in there a bit longer after he's finished, let him out, and praise him. If you make this fun for puppy he will learn he has nothing to fear from being inside. Gradually increase the amount of time puppy stays locked in his crate. Start with 5 minutes. When he's quiet, let him out, praise him and give him a treat. (Don't forget to put an especially good treat inside to get him to go in too!) Then go to 10 minutes or so. Try leaving the room for a minute, return to him for a bit, and then if he's still quiet let him out, praise him, and give him a treat. Keep increasing the time he stays in the crate and the amount of time you're out of the room while he's in the crate. Remember, lots of praise when you let him out and give him a treat. When he stays quietly in his crate for 30 minutes or so while you're out of sight, he's ready for you to take short trips and eventually longer trips away from home to run an errand. Congratulations you're puppy's now crate trained!

Biting/Mouthing

First of all one must realize that normal puppy behavior includes biting and mouthing. Puppies don't have hands so they use their mouths to explore their world. It is through play with their mother and littermates that a puppy learns to control the force of their biting. Here is a typical scenario: A puppy runs up to its mom to play and bites her too hard. Mom then squeals her distress. This catches the puppy by surprise and the puppy usually stops a minute. The puppy decides to bite mom again and this time mom really lets out a cry. She may even bear her teeth and growl at the puppy to get her point across. Then mom turns and runs away, completely ignoring her pup if it should approach her for further play. The puppy eventually learns the message mom is teaching it; if you can't play nice with me I don't want to play with you at all! If the puppy won't take no for an answer and continues to bug mom for play, mom gives an especially nasty growl and using her teeth she grabs the puppy by the scruff of the neck and shakes him. She will continue to shake him until the puppy gives up and relaxes his body while keeping perfectly still. In this way the puppy is telling mom that he agrees that she is boss in dog language. Thus mom is establishing dominance over her pup. Sometimes if a pup is really out of control its mom may knock the puppy over with her paw and pin it to the ground. She may even growl at the puppy or pinch it with her teeth until it squeals but does not hurt him. Just like the first instance, she only lets go of the puppy when he completely relaxes and lies still. Then the puppy is free to run off.

Now lets apply this same principle to teach our puppy not to bite humans.The first time your puppy bites you let out a good loud OUCH! Make it clear to your puppy you are very distressed. Completely ignore your puppy for a few minutes. Turn away from your puppy and don't play with him, talk to him or give him any attention at all. If he insists that you play with him and won't leave you alone, grab him by the scruff of the neck and give him a good shake. At the same time make a low growling noise in a deep voice. Don't be afraid to sound very menacing. If the puppy just won't give up, and/or his behavior starts to escalate every time you attempt to use this correction, flip him over on his/her back and really give him a low deep growl. Hold him in that position until he stops all his wiggling and lies totally still. Then let him up to go his merry way. Please do not overuse this last technique. Putting a puppy on his back should only be necessary if you have a particularly strong-willed pup. Another technique used by many people is to spray your hands with Bitter Apple. Then when the puppy grabs your hands instead of the toy you're holding he learns that hands taste nasty and it will discourage him. Whatever technique you use, be consistent with this training! Even though puppies love to play rough, it is never a good idea to wrestle or play tug of war with a puppy. This confuses the puppy as to when he is allowed to use his teeth in play and when he is not.

Socialization

This is an EXTREMELY important part in the development of a PON. This point cannot be stressed too much! From the time your PON comes home, you should be making sure your puppy is exposed to lots of different people and places. So as not to overwhelm your puppy, start out slowly with 15-20 minute socializing sessions. After your puppy has had all its shots you can gradually take your puppy to new places. Parks, the entrance to grocery stores, pet stores, and schools are all good places where your puppy can meet lots of different people in a short amount of time. Work your way up to 2 to 3 times a week of exploring and continue this at least until your dog is 15-18 months old. The longer you continue this practice the better! Ask people to feed your puppy a treat that you provide. This helps your puppy associate good things with meeting strangers. The more experiences your puppy has with different people and at different places the quicker he will warm up to strangers he meets and the more adaptable he will become to new situations. If your city or town has a place that teaches puppy socialization classes, this is a marvelous way to get your puppy off to a good start.

Health Survey

We are very excited to inform PON owners and breeders of our new health survey which was recently mailed out to every PON owner in the United States whom we have an address for. If you fail to receive one in the coming days, please email us at ponparadise@coloradoweb.com and we will send you one immediately! While this mailing was done at our own expense we felt this was such a worthwhile project that it was imperative we start the task of gathering health information on our beloved PON from everyone willing to devote some time to helping us track health data.

While Karen and Susan are both members of the American Polish Owczarek Nizinny Club (APONC) we know there are many PON owners who, for various reasons, do not belong. Therefore, in order to give every PON owner the opportunity to submit information in a "non-political" environment we decided to put together a long overdue survey of the current health issues of the breed.

We sincerely hope PON owners will feel comfortable submitting information to us - so let us give you our backgrounds so that you will be assured of our utmost integrity.

Susan Stekoll has a BS in Nursing, a Masters degree in Community Health Nursing and a Post Graduate fellowship in mental retardation/developmental disabilities. As a nurse, she is accustomed to patient confidentiality of all medical records. She is also acquainted with looking at the needs of an entire population rather than the needs of the individual from her background in community health. Further, her experience in working with retarded/delayed individuals has given her a strong working background of genetic disorders. Currently, she has three wonderful dogs, a 13 year old bearded collie mix who has lupus and is dysplastic, as well as two PONs, mother and son, ages 7 and 3. She has bred two litters of PON puppies to date under the kennel name DarBozy PONs.

Karen Willson has extensive computer knowledge including database management and statistical analysis derived from her ten years of experience as an Administrative Assistant at Lockheed Martin Corporation. She has three PONs, ages 4, 2 and 2.

Steve Willson (Karen's husband) is our "advisor" and is presently employed with Lockheed Martin Corporation, a major Defense Department contractor, in a supervisory capacity as an Electrical Engineer. He has extensive computer experience in many disciplines and we rely on his technical expertise to help us with data analysis and database programming.

Our survey is the cornerstone of our proposed "semi-open" registry. Semi-open meaning that we highly encourage the submittal of the owners name, dog's name, sire and dam of the dog, and the breeder's name, whether or not you intend to breed your dog but the information received will be held in the strictest confidence - NO ONE will have access to this information without the PON owner's written permission. In order to accomplish better health in future PON generations we feel it is extremely important that as many people as possible submit ALL of this data to us for the following reasons:

1) We do not want to repeat information that is already recorded in the database; we hope to distribute this health survey on a yearly basis so that we may continuely record new information and be able to track what progress we are making and which areas we need to work more diligently on (or which areas acquire professional assistance such as locating specific genetic markers for illnesses which are particularly distressful in the breed). Without names of dogs meaningful progress cannot be tracked and dogs may inadvertently be submitted more than once leading to inaccurate recordkeeping.

2) We intend to follow-up on all health problems that arise. If we do not have the owner's name and the dog's name we cannot contact the owner to screen the responses given. Here is an example of why this is important. A breeder friend recently got a call from a buyer of one of her puppies. The puppy buyer was very upset because her dog was diagnosed with a condition believed to be genetic in origin and wanted her money back from the breeder. When the breeder contacted her veterinarian to inquire as to the possible cause of this particular condition she was appalled to learn that this condition was linked to the use of certain pesticides as well as being a genetic disorder. The very pesticide that she had used in her yard and which her pregnant bitch had walked on! Consequently, it could not be assumed that the disease was truly a genetic one when in all probability the pesticides had contributed to the disease. Without careful follow-up by the breeder, this puppy would have been entered into the survey database incorrectly as having a genetic disease!

3) Dr. George A. Padgett, highly respected veterinary pathologist at Michigan State University and one of the founders of the Institute for Genetic Disease Control in Animals, presents numerous seminars to pure breed dog clubs throughout the country citing "the need for open record keeping which will report all evaluations (abnormal as well as normal) as being essential to health improvement in a colony of dogs or a breed as a whole". Further, Dr. Padgett states, "It is the obligation of the breeder to register all animals that are known or potential carriers with an appropriate open disease registry".

4) In order to make wise breeding choices it is essential that breeders know the health history of the dogs they wish to mate. Without this they are merely guessing at what they will produce!

We are grateful to the following breeders who are endorsing our health survey as a positive and necessary step in the improvement of the breed:

Grooming

Because the PON is a long-haired breed with a dense undercoat, it is important to establish a grooming routine from the time your puppy is brought home from the breeder. Using a table, whether it be a professional groomer's table or a waist high table with a non-skid mat, is good for three reasons. It will save you from getting a severe backache, and your dog will learn that being placed on the table means it's time to be groomed not to play. This will also make it much easier for the dog and the professional groomer should you decide to hire someone to do the job. As an alternative, you may lay the dog on his side while you proceed first with one side and then the other. A non-skid mat is important because if the table surface is slick, the dog will slide which can cause him to panic.

Before you begin to groom your dog, gather all the tools you will need to do the job: a good quality metal comb, a pin brush and your detangler and /or spray conditioner. On puppies, a small slicker brush can be used over most areas. Be careful to use gentle easy strokes and keep your groom time to a minimum at first. Use the comb to do the puppies face and legs. PONs of any age hate to have their legs and feet handled so it's a good idea to be especially gentle on those areas. Handle your puppies feet regularly so they get used to the touch. This will make it less distressing to the puppy when the hair starts to grow longer and you must spend more time grooming the feet. As the puppy gets older the comb and pin brush will be used predominantly as the slicker brush tends to remove the fine undercoat which is not desireable. Begin by spraying your slicker or pin brush with a fine mist of either water or a conditioning product. First go over the coat with the pin brush to remove any loose hair. Brush the coat in the opposite direction of how it grows. Then take your comb and gather small sections, gently combing each section starting from the tips and working toward the base of the hair shaft to remove any matts. If you encounter any tiny fuzzies too small to remove with the comb, you can remove these gently with your slicker. Work across the dog in rows so as not to miss any spots paying special attention to the arm pits, chest and stomach areas.

If you come across any tough to remove matts, you can try spraying the matt with one of the many matt detanglers on the market to help in its removal. Some people use a coupon-cutter or seam ripper to make several slits in the matt starting near the skin to break it up. This helps to remove the matt more easily but can also remove more of the coat so may not be an appropriate method for the groomer of show dogs.

Not all PONs require the same amount of grooming time! Mostly black and mostly grey PONs seem to be the easiest to groom as their undercoat tends to be less dense. Cream/tan PONs are moderately difficult to main. White and chocolates have the most dense undercoats and take much more time to maintain. Of course, clipping your PON down in a "puppy cut" keeps groom time down to a minimum. The condition of the coat also makes a difference in the amount of groom time. While I have not added it to my puppies' diets (discuss this with your vet) the use of products such as "Bioderma", "Lipiderm" or other food supplements containing omega 3, 6 and 9 fatty acids can make a major difference in the coat and skin condition of your dog. This virtually ELIMINATED the itching and paw licking Casper experienced and dramatically decreased the amount of time it takes me to groom her. Remember to use these products as directed - more is not better and can do more harm than good.
There is an article about canine coat and skin which goes into alot of detail about proper bathing techniques with an overview on grooming products to use for a beautiful show coat at: http://www.duurstede.ca/articles.html. It's worth a look.