Stray puppies - what to do

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New Yorker, cartoon by Peter Steiner, aka Lassie!

Takes one to know one machadinha you old bitch, or are you an alpha male???

like i am, you may well be in a bar downtown Amdamn, wi fi's free here innit, Straycats on the Bose..
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This is Indian stray dogs we are talking about here....as a friend of mine unfortunately found out no matter what precaution you take...it is best to keep away....

Please do not play with these dogs....you will only ruin your own health and theirs....

Explain please? I am sorry about your friend, i wonder what happened? If you've read my previous posts you can see though that these dogs are all vaccinated, and are sweet natured, how do they pose a threat?

Yes please explain ! The only dangerous thing about India street dogs that I have experienced is heart ache ......

I know what you mean, especially when I read, as I did yesterday, of a local authority poisoning a hundred dogs and chucking them in a truck.

However, realistically, I'm afraid that you are wrong about heartache being the only danger. People do get bitten. Children do get attacked.

Luckily, rabies is rare in this city. From her postings, there is obviously a lot more of it in Birds' part of India. However, I read of a suspected rabies child death in today's paper. An ancillary snippet from that report, a quote from the hospital, "We see about fifteen people a day with bites and gashes."

Love the dogs! But do not assume that they are always harmless. They are safest when at arm's length, and never-but-never get mixed up in a pack of them on the street at night. At least, not unless you are one hell of an alpha male

in bangalore - there're often reports of stray dogs mauling children.
it is also true - many of the stray dogs in the city - are not of the usual indian-stray dog variety - more like mongrels.
and it is them mongrels which, genetically, could have that 'attack' instinct.

concur with nick - avoid dogs in packs - especially at night.
but it is also true - strays are nothing to be paranoid about either.


:brishti

Hey everyone, hope you're all keeping well!

So, we have decided to adopt one of the stray pups, she is a female, a very sensitive yet happy dog and she is about 5 months old now.
She is ok fed, she has all the vaccinations she needs. She is a bit wary of people now as she has been on the streets for long but she has quite a bit of trust for me at least.

I have never had a dog before and i would need some advice from dog owners, how do i potty train her, any special tips on how to treat her as she is so used to being alone or without a family?
I am planning on taking her to the vet tomorrow and get her groomed and get a very cozy place for her at home, lots of toys and comfort.

Dog owners, let me know!!!!

Nice you're adopting the pup, Laanisa (is she in one of the pics?) How come we didn't see that one coming...

Phew, I and no doubt many others could do you a lenthy write-up on puppy training (I have on parts of it sometimes before, you could see if you could dig up those posts), but I reckon you'd be better off doing a web search on "dog training," "puppy training," something like that. There must be many sites to cover the subject; with equally many contradictory approaches no doubt, try and stick with one that appeals to you. See if you can get a book on it, again with different approaches I'm sure, at a decent bookstore (pet stores might also stock them?), or order online. It should and usually will of course also include observations on behavior, feeding, accidents and illnesses, and what have you. I suppose a puppy/dog training course might be a little much to ask for in India, although in Mumbai, who knows. If so, maybe your vet can refer you. It doesn't have to be as serious as it sounds, but can just be a fun way to get to know and understand your dog better, and a decently-trained dog will just make both your lives a lot better, rather than an ill-behaved brat.

Good luck and have fun with it! One essential tip: Make up your mind beforehand what you expect of the dog and what you will and will not allow it, and be consistent. A dog can't understand that it's allowed on the couch the one moment, not the next, etc. Of course the higher your expectations of it, the more effort you'll have to put into it. You want e.g. a sled dog (by way of another exaggerated example), you'll have to work on that. If it's not working out, that's usually the boss's fault, not the dog's. And try to be consistent from day 1.

Tip 2 and perhaps by extension: They're pack animals, and you're the alpha leader of the pack. Try to fulfil this role, it's what they expect of you. It doesn't mean being bossy (though certainly it may sometimes feel that way), it does mean being clear and strict, and not allowing them to take the upper hand. It doesn't prevent you from being playful and cuddly with them, but you will remain that top dog. Unless maybe if you allow them to think that they are, and now you will have an impossible brat on your hands. (Certainly a dog in adolescence will try and challenge your position to this effect.) Remember also you're not doing them a disfavor by being the boss, it's rather the other way around: It is what they want and need (unless indeed if you're planning to let them take over -- again not recommended), and they like to "work" for you (obviously literally or figuratively) and so to be given clear directions, that they can now obey and fulfil and so be happy with their happy boss. Lacking this or indeed you being too lenient or inconsistent can only leave them confused and insecure, and/or just impossible to handle, of course also to your surroundings, who will tend to not appreciate it. If you want an anarchist pet, get yourself a cat

It will also depend a lot on what circumstances you'll be keeping her under, no doubt; I or my family have had both these quasi-independent street dogs in the tropics that would mostly live in the yard and perhaps follow you around on the streets some then go their own way, as well as what you might call more y'r typical European-style house pets; the approaches are of course rather different.

Well THANKS Machadinha, I have been reading up on the internet, youtube and puppy training. I have bought a large crate for her with blankets and toys and bones.

I understand its going to be a struggle to teach her to be house trained but I've got a fair bit of time on my hands now and help so I hope it will go well.

I am picking her up tomorrow and I have an appointment with the vet and later a grooming saloon.
Wow....am too excited and scared. Got the collar today
Will post a pic of us later this week

Cheers Laanisa, and have fun with it again.

The housebreaking as such is really quite easy to do (although I've had a dog who had great difficulty learning it).

I tell myself to give you some tips and I suppose you'll need them speedily. The thing is I'll be busy with some stuff these days, so we'll see.

Another thing is at 5 months your dog is no longer really a puppy. This will make a lot of things a little different to you. I'd need to wrap my head around it some, and at some of it could only take a guess.

You say she's been traumatized by her interactions with humans. This may well stick with her for life. You'd really need a pro (or someone who just knows their dogs) to look into this. I'm not into the "dog whisperer" kind of approach btw, far from it. (Although I would agree with his basics, and he no doubt understands it very well, but this whole overdone kind of thing, well, yuck, it's just not my sort of thing.)

Like I said, besides her perhaps being afraid of humans, she may well just be confused by them: Being fed the one moment, mishandled the other. I'd say treat her well, let her earn your respect, be gentle but clear with her.

I don't know, I hope to give you more later. Read up about it what you can in the meantime. Some of this stuff of course can't be learned from books; keeping really my "own" dogs (rather than those I grew up with etc.), I was lucky to have a friend who really knew the way (and might well have never chosen to keep them otherwise). She taught me basically all I know about it.

ps And so just to give you a little more right now, I did some writing here on housebreaking and stuff. See what you make of it. This does apply to a real puppy btw, it is going to be a little different for you. But you can hopefully extrapolate it to your situation: New puppy.... no sleep.

Great news! Again one off the road! In my experience dogs that have lived on the road will very quickly just go outside to do their business, that is of course if they can go out when they want. Most dogs in shelters will avoid to soil their own cage, even if they have to wait for very long, which happens way too often :-(.

If I were you I would go slow on the introduction of scary things like groomers. She has to learn to feel totally save with you. Once you knows she has security with you she will find it easier to trust other people.

ps Another of those essentials and it's probably too late now, but better late than never:

You see a lot of these totally ill-behaved dogs not listening to anything.

What their owners do wrong is repetitively shout commands at them that have no consequences. What you're teaching the dog here is it doesn't matter what you say. Nor even and indeed does their name mean anything, etc.

The idea of it is to give a command, now they should listen to that. Don't repeat the command if they don't.

(And indeed, try and use their name and certainly initially only when it should be consequential. It will become meaningless to them if you cutely use it all the time. When I say "initially," I mean with a young dog, or one you've just acquired. It may not be so much of an issue as they get older and/or you've become well-acquainted, but it is not generally a good idea. Look, my dog and see below I didn't finally prohibit much or was very fussy with. But I'd seen her grow from a small thing in my hands to one who couldn't stand up anymore. It's another thing to consider btw, you've already chosen this dog so that's good, but the goodbye is painful.)

This is of course much easier said than done, any dog owner will be driven up the wall by a pup who won't listen. (My most beloved dog would just sit her butt down and refuse to move. So here's you trying to teach her to wear a collar and walk on a leash and stuff, and she some 8-10 weeks old. So what do you do? Beats me, indeed, even until today. I guess we worked it out somehow. She grew up to be a most well-behaved dog, btw; I've had it where friends after a dinner night would say Oh I never noticed you had a dog with you. But a stubborn little thing she was, LOL Man, the many times me and my friends went out looking for her as a pup, only to find her at the local snackbar.) Still though, to keep shouting your commands at them when they won't surely won't help things.

Well. And such. You have any money for a non-professional dog trainer to come over? How's it going at all, anyway? I had been thinking and like Birds said, with a dog grown up on the streets, they won't be much taken to soil your quarters anyway. As hopefully you've been finding.

Hello!!
Well, in the end we adopted another younger rescue pup for a number of reasons, the main reason being that the pup i had in mind initially had grown very wary and scared of men as she'd been out on the streets for 6 months already, my partner is not accustomed to having a pet and agreed to having a pup to "please" me (He's a good man) so I felt it was important to have a dog that would love him as much as me. Secondly the family of dogs have a fairly good life as they are living in a building complex with a jungle behind it and are treated well.

So we now have a little beautiful pup named Freddy Floyd and after an initial hard week of power struggle, and insecurities from both sides he is now potty trained, extremely playful and happy and the biggest joy.
The Indian breed really is very clever and easy to train, he is so affectionate, he loves all people and his main joy in life besides eating on our furniture is to be in the car and sit with half his body outside watching the street life
Will try to post a photo if I can figure out how to make the pic smaller as they are too large for this site
Love and thanks for all your suggestions and advice!!!