Appropiate Toys For Your Pit Bulls

You will find it very handy and convenient to have a toy box or basket in each room that the pit bull pup spends the majority of it’s time in. (i.e. Living room, family room, kitchen, bedroom, or the room where the pup sleeps.)

One of these entertainment boxes may not be needed in all rooms, but certainly the most frequently used rooms do.

Four or five articles in each basket is a good plan. The puppy needs a variety of textures and sizes to vent out different areas of canine instinct. For example, soft , plush type toys simulate small mammals to your puppy.

Remove the toys eyes & noses for safety. If the pup was still with it’s mother instead of with you, she would be teaching it how to stalk, hunt and even perhaps ingest small mammals to survive. Those instincts are still active even though we humans provide them with an expensive, balanced diet. Therefore by allowing them to have access to furry, little stuffed toys it enables them to vent this natural instinct.

You may see your puppy stalk or sneak up on this type of toy, then pounce on it, play with it by tossing it around the floor or through the air then pounce on it again. They can spend several minutes on this procedure at one time and literally be having a ball. They will mouth the object and may even shred it pretending to eat it. If this happens, remove the article and give him another.

Pit Bull Puppy Proofing

Soft clothing articles like sneakers, leather shoes, socks and other assorted undergarments simulate soft animal like objects that are irresistible to your puppy.

To a puppy, these are play items that if left laying around, are there for his or her enjoyment, so prepare the family members to keep things off the floor as they are fair game to the pup.

Now remember we are talking about a pit bull puppy. As the dog gets older and starts bonding, these items begin to replace your presence when you are not home due to a stronger human scent that accompanies these items.

Of course, there are many, many household items that need to be removed from the puppy’s reach. Items such as pin cushions, sewing needles, household cleaners, soaps, candy dishes, pens, pencils, thumb tacks, paper clips, yarn, paint, modeling clay, crayons and the list goes on and on.

Puppy proof your home for your new puppy in the same way as you would for a toddler aged child.

That would be the best guideline anyone could give you. Decide where you would like the puppy’s bed to be. If you choose the mat beside your bed, that’s fine.

If the laundry room is your choice, that’s OK too. The important thing is to have a plan before the pup comes home. Gather a few old blankets or large towels together so that you have a reserve stockpile to pull from.

Don’t choose your next to best linens (to honor the new arrival), as the puppy will probably eat them or at least chew interesting patterns in them. All pit bull puppies chew. It’s nature’s way of reducing painful cutting and growing of baby teeth. They also chew to relieve stress from built-up energies within themselves or from simple boredom.

Pit bull puppies will chew anything, from toilet paper to gyp rock or wallboard. Preventative measures are the best method of correcting the pit bull puppy vices.

Training the Pit Bull Dog

When people think of a pit bull, they might get a picture of a ferocious canine monster ready to maul anyone who might step in his territory. This, however, is a sad misconception of what these dogs are really like. Like any other dog, pit bulls differ in temperament and personality by breed. And if trained correctly and treated well, the pit bull can become a loyal companion, great guard-dog, and a life-long friend to the person that owns him.

To avoid having your pit bull get the image of a monster around the neighborhood, train him how to behave and maybe even teach him a few tricks to impress the guests. Training a pit bull is no easy task and if you wish to succeed you will need to be consistent, patient, and have creative ways to keep your dog focused on the tasks at hand.

Being consistent means you have to train daily or at least every other day. Just like people, pit bulls forget things if they are not reinforced over long periods of time. If you randomly do training sessions twice every month, you will probably not be very successful at getting the desired result of a well-trained pit bull.

Focus these daily training sessions of about half an hour each on a specific task such as “Sit Down” or “Roll Over”. Give the dog an incentive such as a treat if he does the task correctly. This kind of positive conditioning is proven to work well with dogs over the long term.

Spend several sessions with each kind of activity or task until you are confident that your pit bull fully grasps the concept of the task and does it almost instinctively. For harder and more complex tasks, break it down into parts. For a tasks like “fetch the stick”, break it into two parts such as first getting to dog to go to the stick and only after he has mastered that part, bringing the stick back to you. A reward such as a treat for each completed step will keep your pit bull interested in the task.

The second trait you must posses when training a pit bull is patience and a willingness to work with the dog. Not having patience will lead to failure in training and even danger to the trainer. You should take it as a fact that your dog will not do everything right on the first try, or the second, or the third, or the fourth. It takes many attempts and lots of hard work to get a certain desired behavior.

Be creative and have a friend help. Give examples to the dog of what it should do when a certain command is given by imitating or having a friend imitate that command when it is given. Dogs are good at learning behaviors by example so using examples will increase the chances of success and speed up the process.

If you have patience, creativity, and consistently train your pit bull, you will be rewarded by years of friendship from a good and loyal companion. Having this in mind, it is really worth the time and effort to train your dog as it will bring you years of joy and satisfaction.