What does kennel cough sound like in a Shih Tzu? A Shih Tzu who has kennel cough sounds like it has a persistent heart honking cough, a sudden dry hacking cough, sneezing, snorting, retching, gagging or vomiting. Watch our short video so see and hear what it sounds like.
Kennel Cough also called infectious trachea bronchi and is a very common respiratory infection in dogs. If your canine family never seems to be coughing or making a choking sound he may have kennel Cough, especially if recently he spent time at an animal shelter or boarding facility or dog park where he was exposed to a lot of other dogs.
Kennel Cough is a form of bronchitis and is similar to a chest cold in humans, and has a number of different causes. The most common of which is the bordetella bronchiseptica bacteria.
Many people think bordetella bronchiseptica bacteria alone causes Kennel Cough, but that’s technically not accurate. In fact, dogs who acquire Bordetella bacteria usually also have a virus such as Aabno virus, distemper, herpes or parrot influenza that makes them more vulnerable to infection.
How Long is Kennel Cough Contagious For?
Kennel Cough is very contagious and dogs can remain infectious for six to fourteen weeks after symptoms resolved. Dog to dog exposure occurs when an infected dog coughs or sneezes and a healthy dog inhales the aerosolized respiratory secretions.
The canine respiratory tract is coated with a protective lining of mucous, but if this lining is compromised an infection can take hold from the inhaled particles.
The result is inflammation of the larynx and trachea and it’s the inflammation that causes coughing. If the healthy dog’s respiratory tract is compromised by stressors such as travel, being housed, in a crowded environment, cold temperatures, environmental pollutants or infectious viruses that could be floating around then bordetella bronchiseptica bacteria
This bacterial defect the chief bacterial agents in kennel cough can enter the respiratory tract.
Bordetella bronchiseptica bacteria are usually accompanied by at least one other infectious agent, usually a virus, so kennel cough is actually multiple infections occurring at once and not just a single infection. This is one of the reasons that the vaccine is oftentimes not effective.
A small percent of cases kennel cough can progress to pneumonia requiring antibiotics in heart disease some type of treatment is needed to reduce the size of the heart and reduce the fluid in the airways.
Humidifier adding humidity to the air will calm and irritated airway, you can put on a humidifier in your pets room or put your pet in the bathroom and turn on the shower.
Remove the dog collar off any irritated airway will benefit from having less pressure put on it. Remove your dog’s collar and use a harness for restraint, avoid putting any pressure on your dog’s throat especially in chronic coughing cases such as in tracheal collapse herbal.
Kennel Cough Symptoms
There’s a number of different herbs that can help with coughing dogs. Stimulating the immune system can speed recovery due to herbs, I like echinacea and goldenseal and they both have antiviral and antibacterial properties.
Tinks are doshas are one drop or pound of bodyweight, twice daily. Licorice root is an effective cost suppressant but it’s something you don’t want to use any longer than five days and don’t use it long-term or cautiously.
Especially if there’s underlying liver kidney or heart disease the licorice root takes your dose is one drop per pound of body weight twice daily dandelion it’s a wonderful overlooked herb to be beneficial for a number of things including fluid and coughing in the Airways the leaves act as a diuretic helping to remove the excess.
Where Does Your Shih Tzu Get Kennel Cough From?
Most cases of kennel Cough occur in areas where dogs are super crowded with adequate ventilation and lots of warm air and a stressed immune system.
A dog good examples of these are boarding kennels, grooming shops and shelters. The universal symptom of bordetella infection is a persistent heart honking cough, a sudden dry hacking cough, sneezing, snorting, retching, gagging or vomiting.
In fact coughing to the point that dogs vomit in response to very light pressure to the trachea, or spasmodic cough when a dog is excited or exercising, are all really common symptoms of kennel cough.
If your dog has a totally healthy cough and then instantly has the spasmodic coughing, you need to be thinking about Kennel Cough. Your dog may also cough up foaming white phlegm or nasal or ocular secretions.
Occasionally there will be other signs of illness such as a runny nose, sneezing, depression, maybe a mild fever. Just like humans that have cold symptoms the duration of infection can be incredibly variable between dogs.
Kennel cough rarely causes appetite loss or lethargy ,so if your dog is showing these symptoms as well, there could be something else going on.
Can Dogs Die From Kennel Cough?
Symptoms usually occur 2 to 14 days after exposure and mild cases of kennel cough. Dogs usually continue to eat and they remain alert. When the condition is more serious there can be lethargy, loss of appetite,and the cold can actually migrate into life-threatening pneumonia.
Just like humans that have colds most of the time it doesn’t require hospitalization, but occasionally things colds can morph into other things like pneumonia.
And while most colds don’t require any type of hospitalization sometimes the infection progresses to a point where that is required. Most of the time severe cases of kennel cough primarily occurred Immunol-compromised dogs are in very young puppies.
Diagnosis of Kennel Cough
Diagnosis of kennel cough include taking a history of the symptoms of the dog in terms of what he’s physically experiencing but also any history of time spent at a boarding kennel, doggy daycare or other facility where there’s lots of dogs.
Bacterial cultures, viral isolation and blood work may be performed to identify the specific pathogens that’s causing the exact type of kennel cough. if the dog has symptoms that are really profound, like requiring hospitalization, which is actually quite rare.
Sometimes x-rays are done to check for pneumonia or bronchitis. kennel cough symptoms usually lasts between 10 and 20 days and can sometimes recur if there’s periods of stress.
most cases resolve on their own without any medical intervention so I don’t automatically recommend that you have to zip off to the veterinarian, especially for unnecessary antibiotics because antibiotics don’t address the viral component of this infection.
I always prefer to let the dog’s body heal itself naturally, during the acute phase of the illness I strongly recommend using a harness to prevent your dog’s collar from aggravating the situation, especially if they tend to pull a lot on their leash when they walk.
If your dog is coughing where he’s gagging and then seemingly he’s retching something up such as cuffing up a hairball, but that’s more typical of tracheal collapse. If the coughing is
more prolonged similar to that but even more forceful that going throughout the day and it happened and started all of a sudden then we’re we’re dealing with something like kennel cough.
Where as in if it’s more of a wet sounding cough and it happens when your dog lays down, or at night and in the morning that’s much more common with the cough that we see in heart disease,
You can also try humidifying the air. I personally add a few drops of pure lavender oil to help soothe the dog’s throat, and also with humidification you can also help decrease coughing spells.
Complete recovery from kennel cough can usually take up to three weeks in healthy dogs and twice as long in older patients, or those with underlying immunosuppressive conditions.
Puppies can also take a little bit longer to recover because their immune systems are not yet fully developed.
Since a serious episode of kennel cough can result in pneumonia, if your dog doesn’t start to improve on her own within about a week, or if the coughing becomes progressively worse, or if your dog sparks the fever, or stops eating those are all really important reasons to make an appointment with your veterinarian.
I also recommend seeing a veterinarian if you have a puppy with symptoms that go beyond typical symptoms of kennel cough. For example, if you see a change in breathing pattern, if your puppy has difficulty breathing, if there’s a loss of appetite or markedly diminished energy level are all reasons to visit your vet.
What Can I Give My Shih Tzu For A Cough?
There are some awesome natural remedies that I use for many many years to speed a dog to recover from kennel cough and reduce the severity of symptoms, including a special brand of echinacea.
You can buy at any human health food store called esperan tox, I also add in Manuka honey. Manuka comes from the tea tree plant, you can buy that at the health food store as well. I use raw garlic as an herb called olive leaf.
Slippery elm can be very beneficial at soothing the throat and I actually used throat code tea which is a brand of human tea which contains licorice which is also great for sore throats.
Added vitamin C can help boost your dog’s immune system and diffusing the essential oils of eucalyptus, lavender and tea tree. You can diffuse those oils that can also help shorten the duration of infection.
Homeopathic kennel cough nodes can also be very beneficial but they’re buying prescription only so you’ll need to work with your integrative veterinarian to secure those.
Many veterinarians recommend Bordetella vaccines, either by injection or by intranasal delivery. Many boarding kennels, doggie day care facilities, groomers and other similar businesses require that dogs be vaccinated for kennel cough.
The reason behind this requirement is to remove liability from those businesses, it bounces liability away from those businesses. the truth is, immunologist Dr. Ron schultz states that Bordetella is an unvaccinated disease and that vaccines are generally ineffective and will not prevent your dog from getting kennel cough.
The infection of course is caused by a wide variety of bacterial and viral agents, so no single vaccine is going to provide protection from all of those sources, nor will the vaccine treat an active infection.
In addition whatever protection the vaccine might be offering wears off very quickly, usually in less than a year. This means your pet will need to be revaccinated every six months.
If you are patronizing businesses that demand this vaccine, on the rare occasion where I must provide a Bordetella vaccine for a doctor travel or to be boarded I always use the nose drop variety. It’s much less toxic, it doesn’t contain the strong edge events that the injectable version has and it has few if any side effects.
Remember your dog can still acquire kennel cough infection, even if she’s been vaccinated.
Related Questions
Is Kennel Cough Contagious To Humans?
Kennel Cough is a respiratory infection that can be transmitted very easily from dog to dog but not from dog to humans. Humans can carry the virus but cannot get a cough from the virus
Can Humans Pass Kennel Cough From Dog To Dog?
The simple answer is yes because kennel cough can be transmitted from a human to another dog from their hands or face, let me explain. The only way a dog can transfer kennel cough to a human is by coughing or sneezing around a human.
he droplets can attach to the human skin and then be transferred to another dog very easily. This is why you should always wash your hands after handling a dog.
Can My Dog Still Get Kennel Cough if Vaccinated?
According to the American Kennel Club KC Bordetella vaccine is just one of the infections that can cause kennel cough so having your dog vaccinated for Bordetella vaccine doesn’t mean your dog won’t catch kennel cough from one of the other viruses like para-influenza virus.
A really gross topic here but very common behavior problem is people have dogs to eat poop. nWith lots of things we can try to get our dog to stop this behavior, but first I want to go over why do dogs do this in the first place.
How to stop my Shih Tzu from eating poop. You can add natural products like Pineapple or Papaya juice or you can use pills from your veterinarian that will make your dog’s poop taste and smell bad. You can also train your dog to leave poop alone, we discuss all the methods and which is best for your dog.
Three Reasons Why Shih Tzu Eat Their Own Poop
There are a lot of theories as to why dogs eat their own poop there’s none that I’ve actually been scientifically proven, but a lot of the theories make a lot of sense, one of these theories is simply that your dog is hungry.
Hunger – Dogs in the wild that are malnourished don’t get enough food and have been observed many times eating other animals poop or eating their own poop because they’re hungry and they’re just looking for something to eat.
If your dog is underweight or is eating poop check to make sure that we’re feeding him the appropriate amount of food.
Nutrition – Another reason that dogs can eat your poop is the lack of nutrition, and when I say lack of nutrition I’m referring to not getting enough minerals and vitamins and iron in their diet.
So in a dog’s mind if they eat the poop again and they process it again maybe they will get that nutrition that they didn’t get the first time.
Boredom – A very common thing that has been proven and that your dog is bored. He doesn’t have anything else to do in the backyard, you left him alone, he poops, he runs around the yard a few times and now you look for something to do. Instead of digging holes he decides to eat the poop.
So we want to make sure if that is the case that we always leave our dogs with things to do. We wanted people to have a way to say to our dog, this is what I want you to do what I’m not home. Puzzle toys, bones are a great way to do that.
What To Put In Dog Food To Stop Eating Poop
OK so these are three of the large reasons why dogs tend to eat their own poop, so how do we stop our Shih Tzu from eating their own poop?
Luckily there are a lot and lots of things we can try, the first thing I want to talk about is things that we can do that don’t require you to be there.
The first thing we can do is add stuff to our dog’s food. When we feed them we can add a few things and these have been proven to be quite effective.
Does Pineapple Stop Dogs Eating Poop?
First you can try adding pineapple juice to your dog’s food. You put pineapple juice right in the dog food, when it goes through their digestive system and they poop it out for whatever reason it just makes the poop taste bad.
They eat the poop that has been processed through their body with the pineapple juice and they spit it right out. I don’t know if it’s the taste of it or it makes it smell differently and it can smell unappealing.
I tried it with a few dogs and it has stopped them eating it both ways. Some of them just smell it and leave it alone, I have seen others that pick it up in their mouths and spit it right out because the pineapple juice made it taste bad.
You can also add papaya juice which helps digestion by breaking down the protein in your dog’s food.
Another thing to try is MSG, it sounds crazy but it’s actually quite effective. I find it’s more effective than the pineapple juice.
Same thing, when you go to feed your dog you just sprinkle it on top, give them the bowl the next day same thing happens. They smell their poop and the smell has changed so that’s the deterrent. Sometimes they actually have to eat it and the taste has changed and that’s the deterrent.
Another idea is adding an ingredient to your dogs food so it helps him or her to properly and completely digest their food or make the poop smell offensive to the dog.
So you can add: Broccoli, Cabbage & Brussels Sprouts, help digestion and contain a high sulphur content when digested smell very offensive to dogs.
Meat tenderizers contain natural vegetable enzymes which break down protein fibres, using meat tenderizers comes with some negative feedback as it contains MSG And off course there is the “Coprophagia” supplements they are products which produce the same effect as natural products I just mentioned.
If you ask me what would I use out of these options I would definitely stick with the natural option like the broccoli and cabbage or the papaya and pineapple juice because they are natural choices with no side effects.
I might even try the meat tenderizers & be sure they don’t contain MSG but I will definitely
keep the supplements as my last choice.
Both of these things are food additives you can try but how much do I add to my dogs food?
I don’t know the kind of food you feed your dog, I don’t know how much your dog weighs so I can’t give you any dosages for every single weight of dog and every single food.
If you are unsure I would always advise you to speak to your veterinarian and they would be able to tell you what the right amount is for your dog.
These are things we can add to your dogs food but there are pills that you can buy and these aren’t anything you need to get from your veterinarian. You can just get these from a local local pet store or online from Amazon.
These and similar to the pineapple juice or the MSG, you just give it to your dog at meal times, it goes with your body and next day it makes it smell different or taste different.
So these are three items you can just add to the food so when he goes poop when you are not there and he goes to eat his poop these bad smells and tats will put him off from eating his own poop.
These are a few things you can try, you can try them and see what works for you, just because it works for one dog doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to work for another.
Now let me mention these are what you can do at times when you’re not there. It’s going to be a lot easier the times you are there with your dog when he goes to the bathroom.
One thing that you can try when you are there is hot sauce, regular old hot sauces like Tabasco. So just carry it out with you when you take your dog out to go to the bathroom and when your dog poops just cover the poop with the hot sauce before they can eat it.
They will go to smell it and usually the smell is enough to put them off. The Tabasco sauce has such a strong smell and dogs noses are so sensitive that just the smell alone will usually be a deterrent.
My dog has now learned that just the sight of a bottle of hot sauce he goes running because he knows what that smells like, and if they go to eat it odds are they’re not going to eat it again because it’s such a bad taste.
Additionally you need to work on teaching a dog to leave it. That’s very important especially if you have a dog who eats other dogs poop, because all of these things aren’t really going to work if you’re out for a walk and your dogs off leash and he eats some other dogs poop.
One more thing you can do is to keep the yard clean. OK mother dogs will have puppies and it’s not uncommon for them to eat their puppies poop because they’re trying to keep the area clean.
If you are in the habit of letting your dogs poop pile up make sure we are doing our best to keep it clean because if we’re not, it’s almost a dog doing the cleanup for you.
I’m guilty of that myself sometimes. I send my dog out into the yard for a poop and my dog goes to the bathroom in just one section of the yard. I have a gravel area that’s about 6 foot by 5 foot and that’s the only area he goes to poop.
If I’m not good about cleaning it up, then it starts to pile up very very quickly because that’s the only area if he goes. So make sure that you focus on cleaning up the poop so he doesn’t have to leave it up to your dog to do it.
There are lots of things you can try like adding things to your dogs food because it’s a little bit less work on your part. It’s nice if you can just add them to the food and then that does the job for you.
If not, work on some training with your dog. Teach him to leave it, cleaning up and the hot sauce trick that works really well.
You can try the bitter sprays too but I think the hot sauce is more effective. You have to do it one time and then you’re done as opposed to the bitter spray. It works sometimes, yeah it’s unpleasant but it’s not so unpleasant that your dog may pick it up a few more times.
There are lots of stuff you can try and remember to give your veterinarian a call if you are not sure about how much pineapple juice or MSG etc to put in your dog food otherwise try the pills. All or just one of these suggestions can hopefully get your dog’s poop eating habit under control.
Coprophagia
Coprophagia is a fancy word for a very disgusting habit that many dogs have eating their stool. As disgusting as it may seem Coprophagia seldom does any harm to your dog’s, but what causes it, there are three main reasons for Coprophagia dogs.
Number one is medical, number two is behavioral and number three is nutritional. Let’s take a moment and examine the medical issues that may arise that caused coprophagia in animals.
The first reason is exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, the second one is pancreatitis, the third one is intestinal infections, the fourth one is malabsorption syndromes and the last one is over feeding, especially foods that are high in fat content.
Now because of these medical issues, the very first thing you should do when you first notice that your dog starts eating its waste or the waste of another animal is to talk with your veterinarian.
I am NOT a doctor so I cannot go into great detail about these issues but I’m sure that your vet can go into much greater detail than I regarding these medical reasons.
Let’s move on to the behavioral reasons.
There are many behavioral reasons that are hypothesized by experts in the field as to why dogs will engage in coprophagia.
The first behavioral reason is attention seeking behavior. Some dogs when they don’t feel like they’re getting the attention that they need will start eating their dog waste, and as a result owners will often correct them and this negative attention is still attention to the animal.
Some people would suggest that you should simply ignore the problem in hopes it’ll go away but we will talk about some other solutions later on in this article.
The second behavioral reason is mimicry, this is a learned behavior. For some dogs that spend time in a shelter situation may observe another dog in the shelter eating its waste or the waste of another animal. As it notices this it picks it up and adopts this behavior as its own at home.
If you’re a good pet owner and you clean up after your dog every time it goes there’s a good chance your dog will begin to associate this idea that when the waste comes out it gets cleaned up. And so by understanding this your dog will begin to help keep the yard clean and the only way it knows how which is eating the waste.
Why Do Female Dogs Eat Their Poop?
The third behavioral reason is maternal. Now this is an instinctive behavior of mother dogs, they will intuitively clean off the bottoms of their pups and keep their nesting area clean.
Mother dogs will actually often eat their puppies’ poop, and some scientists believe this could be a behavioral adaptation to avoid parasites in the wild. You see, most dogs, and other carnivores will poop away from their dens, so they don’t come into contact with larval parasites in their feces, accidentally reinfecting themselves and increasing their parasite load.
But puppies can’t leave the den, so mothers will often eat their puppies’ fresh feces before the parasite eggs inside the poop become infectious. Puppies will often mimic this behavior, but most will grow out of it by adulthood.
That said, according to the American Kennel Club, about 16 percent of dogs are “serious stool eaters.” So, you should definitely see your vet to determine if the cause of your dog’s coprophagia could be related to his or her health.
The fourth behavioral reason is dominance behavior. Some dogs are trying to assert themselves as the alpha dog, and so what they’ll do is they’ll adopt the attitude of “I’m top dog so I’m gonna eat your waste” and that’s how they will assert their dominance over non dominant dogs.
The last behavioral reason that dogs engage in coprophagia is reinforcement behavior, basically what this means is that the dogs begin to develop a taste for the waste.
Dogs will begin to eat their waste, they’ll develop a palate for the waste and once they realize that the dog waste is actually pleasing to them they will continue to do it. They do this because it lights up the positive reinforcement centers of their brain and they continue to do this behavior somewhat compulsively.
Alternatively, the coprophagia could be due to anxiety or environmental stress. For example, according to the American Kennel Club, if a dog is severely punished when it poops in the wrong place.
It might get the wrong idea and assume it was punished because it was pooping. So in the future, it may eat its feces to hide the evidence.
The final reason that dogs will engage in coprophagia is nutritional. What this means is that you may be feeding a low-quality food or it has inadequate nutrition for them or it’s simply an unbalanced diet altogether.
What you can do is upgrade your food to make sure that your dog is getting all of the nutritional requirements that it needs and that it has a balanced diet.
So what can be done to stop Coprophagia?
There’s no one reason that anyone seems to agree on but one that absolutely works every single time is to clean up after the dog. Why does this work? First of all if there’s no waste in the yard there’s nothing to tempt your dog to eat it, so it’s very important that if you want to stop Coprophagia that you clean up after your dogs every time.
When I used to work in a clinic many years ago we would get the question all the time about “what can I do to stop my dog from eating its waste?” Vet clinics do have some products that they can give you to help make the waste unpalatable but what is often cited as a means to make waste unpalatable.
There is one thing that all pet owners need to be worried about and that’s parasites. Now if you take your dog for a walk along your neighborhood or you take them down to the dog park and your dog engages in Coprophagia by eating the waste of another animal your dog could come in contact with parasites such as roundworm or hookworm.
And in the case that your dog is eating your cat’s waste right out of the litter box, there’s a chance that your dog could become infected with a parasite known as toxoplasma gondii which causes the disease toxoplasmosis in your dog and can be very dangerous to pregnant women.
In light of this it’s often suggested that you train your dog to avoid the waste altogether. If you notice that your dog is going towards waste they need to know the leave it command, you can teach them leave it but it’s going to require a great deal of persistence on your part and consistency over time to teach them this command.
So that they do not go near the waste when they listen to you and they do not go near the waste you need to reward them as positively as you can, it would not hurt to also add a recall command into the mix.
Related Questions
My Dog Ate Poop How Do I Clean His Mouth?
Your dog has eaten some poop so how should you clean their mouth? To get your dogs mouth clean we brush their teeth with hydrogen peroxide and baking soda.
The tools that you’ll need are a toothbrush, hydrogen peroxide, cup of water baking soda and a bowl to mix everything in.
This segment is about brushing your dog’s teeth with hydrogen peroxide and baking soda, the reason why you would use hydrogen peroxide and baking soda is because the hydrogen peroxide is about killing bacteria in the poop and then the baking soda is about freshening the breath.
The item first that you need is a toothbrush. Most people are always going to use a child’s toothbrush because it’s small, it’s not as bulky and it’s easier to maneuver inside of a dog’s mouth, especially a little dog like a Shih Tzu.
But if you have a larger dog and you need to cover more ground feel free to use an adult toothbrush.
Some dogs aren’t a big fan of putting foreign objects into their mouths so if your dog is one of those people, feel free to use your finger mouth just like you use a toothbrush. Nice and simple and as long as you get it on their teeth you should be just fine.
What you want to do is take your bowl and mix some hydrogen peroxide, not a lot, I would say maybe a bottle top full. Add in some water to dilute and then add in your baking soda and stir it together.
You want it to get to a nice thick consistency as you mix it together, once you have it you’re going to scoop it up onto your toothbrush.
How to get your dog to sit still
This is kind of tricky because a lot of dogs aren’t always a fan of getting their teeth brushed so the more that you play with your dog’s mouth the easier and or fun experience this is gonna be for them. All you want to do is make sure you have some treats and practice.
Take your finger or toothbrush and go all in the mouth, lift the lips behind and make sure that she understands that putting her hand or something in her mouth is not a scary thing. The more you do this the happier you will be and the easier it’ll be on your dog.
How To Get Her To Open Their Mouth
Take your hand put it on the bottom of their chin, thumb on one side forefinger on the other and then just take your forefinger on the back of the lip and go all the way back. She opens her mouth or at least will give you a nice pretty smile for you to do what you need to do.
Again if you have a big dog who’s not gonna sit as still ask a friend to help and then always have treats so that this process can go smoothly.
You really want to make sure you get all the way in the back of the teeth, that’s the most important since that’s where all the poop gets embedded so lift up all the way in the back and then do the same on the other side.
You don’t have to worry about hydrogen peroxide being dangerous, you can drink it as a human as long and we’re using such small amounts that it will not bother your dog but it would be different if they drink an entire bottle
If your dog is not a big fan of the baking soda paste and doesn’t really enjoy the taste go to your local pet supply stores where they will have toothpaste for dogs as well as scope and breath fresheners if that’s something that you’re really looking for to help freshen your dog’s breath.
The beautiful thing about getting the toothpaste from a pet store is that as long as you get it on the teeth then you’re good to go, it will do all the scrubbing and bubbles and making your dog’s breath clean for you.
It also comes in all different kind of flavors, chicken and beef flavors, your dog is sure to love.
So that’s how you brush your dog’s teeth with peroxide and baking soda after they have eaten poop.
Now puppy biting is easily in the top 5 things I get asked about. Usually people reach out desperately and ask, “How do I stop my Shih Tzu puppy from biting me?” Here’s the thing: you don’t want to stop a puppy biting.
How to stop my shih tzu puppy from biting. Getting a puppy is one of the most rewarding experiences you can have. And you know what that means? Puppy biting. Desperate calls come in all the time about this one thing and the solutions may surprise you.
I know, it’s frustrating but people misunderstand what it’s all about and come at the problem all wrong. Most of what you see on the internet or have people tell you completely misses the point.
Let’s start with why puppies bite. Play biting and fighting is absolutely one of the most important developmental pieces for your Shih Tzu puppy.
The only things puppies do more than bite is poop, pee, and sleep.
That tells us that it’s important and there is a reason why Mother Nature has programmed them to do it so much.
Shih Tzu puppies play bite because they must receive feedback for their bite pressure, this gives them the skill of monitoring and adjusting the force of their jaws. That process is what develops “acquired bite inhibition” or ABI.
What Is Acquired Bite Inhibition?
Good ABI is what makes a safe dog in adulthood. This can only be done in the early stages before it’s locked in forever.
There are presently no methods to alter this after adolescence. Thus play biting for puppies is not only natural, it’s absolutely necessary.
If you were to observe your puppy playing with another puppy, they’d bite the other one during the course of play.
Puppies bite so they can receive feedback on the force of that bite. This is why they have such sharp teeth—so they can get a reaction with their relatively weak jaw muscles.
An adult dog that has never adequately developed ABI will not know how to monitor and adjust the force of their jaws when they have big adult teeth and big adult jaw muscles.
Consider this scenario: a dog is asleep in the family room and a toddler accidentally steps on it. A dog with good ABI won’t even make contact, whereas a dog with poor ABI might bite that poor kid, maybe even badly. In this case an ounce of prevention is worth a kiloton of cure!
So the bottom line is you don’t want to stop puppy biting because then the bite training stops too. Okay so what do we do about it? Well first, we focus on intensity before frequency.
In the correct progression you will see a reduction in the intensity before you see a reduction in frequency.
This is a training master key. Biting will get softer and softer before actual incidents of biting diminish. Force MUST be trained before frequency.
They’re separate variables in the brain and force has a time limit on it whereas frequency does not.
Second, provide meaningful feedback. The first part of that is to socialize your puppy. Dogs do the work of feedback 50 times faster and better than we do.
Get your puppy to off-leash puppy classes or playgroups as soon as possible. You can do this after the second round of shots.
You can also have other puppies over to play—lots of them. A good puppy class or a series of playdates will make a tremendous difference in your puppy, not just with the biting.
The second part of your feedback game is that your puppy has to believe that humans are super sensitive.
Every time they bite you, you cry out. Don’t cry out like a puppy, and don’t try to yip like a puppy. You’re not a dog, you’re not fooling anyone. You’re a grown adult, act like it hurts (which it probably does). Loudly say, “Ouch!
That hurt!” Here’s the secret to making that work. The internet tells you to cry out but never fills in the rest of the strategy. First, do not jerk your hand (or whatever body part) away. Quick movement is stimulating and that triggers chase drive.
They’ll just go harder for it. Instead, leave it there your puppy needs to be the one to back off. Second if you say “Ouch” loud enough and sharp enough, your puppy should buck their head back. Immediately start praising and allow them to re-engage.
If they’re softer tell them “good puppy.” If not keep up the feedback. Ramp it up a little with tone and volume without making it scary. “Good [praise and sharp sounds when biting] “good boy good boy that was fantastic that was fantastic”.
This commentary needs to be both binary—right and wrong—and constant. One or two times ain’t gonna do it. It takes weeks to do it right. It’s a progression and we just talked about progressions in a previous article. And remember you’re not trying to stop biting with this strategy.
You want to see it getting softer and softer and softer over time. Also make sure to cry out even if they grab your clothing or hair; your puppy doesn’t know the difference between these and skin and should eventually be gentle with both.
“Ouch! Ouch! Good, good boy! Thank you!” “Good puppy, sweetheart. Good puppy. Oww-ouch! Good puppy. Good.” If however during a session your puppy is too jazzed up and is not responding to the work then leave, simple as that.
Don’t put the puppy somewhere else for a timeout; that’s non-instructive and it’s not fast enough. YOU be the one to get up and leave. This is how puppies do it with each other. A hard bite produces a yelp and play stops momentarily.
Well, nobody wants that so they learn to monitor and adjust. If you—the Playmate of the moment— gets up and leaves unceremoniously that’s a big thing to a puppy. Come back in 30 to 60 seconds and try playing again.
This is precisely one of the reasons we don’t let our Shih Tzu have free reign of the house yet. They exist in gated off rooms for a while and earn more space over time. In the meantime, you have to be able to get away when the puppy is too intense.
You also can’t keep labeling play biting as bad behavior—it’s not. It’s inconvenient for us humans, but we don’t call it bad behavior when a baby poops its pants or cries at night. You know this is part of what you signed up for, inconvenient as it is.
Puppy biting is natural and necessary! Don’t waste the opportunity you’ve been given to create a safe adult dog. As you work you should be seeing the ABI progression. You’ll notice your puppy’s biting getting softer and softer over the weeks if you’ve given consistent, timely, and appropriate feedback.
The play biting will eventually just be soft mouthing. At this point it is appropriate to start addressing the frequency of incidents. We can begin addressing the number of incidents because we’ve cultivated a dog that thinks differently about the way they use their mouth.
You should ideally have been integrating obedience training into your puppy work all along the way anyways, so it’s a simple manner to use incompatible behaviors to stop the mouthing.
By now the mouthing behavior is more about controlling their environment than it is trying to elicit feedback, so now you can focus on polite behaviors, redirecting, building impulse control, engaging them in interactive and instructive play, and simply continuing to give good representative feedback on their behavior.
Chew toys for quiet time comes back into play here. If you’re a follower of this blog you know that we have preached the gospel of creating a chew toy addicted dog. Settling down with a toy is emotionally satisfying and teaches them to learn to occupy themselves.
Gentle tug for playful opposition and energy expenditure is also one of our favorite teaching tools.
This provides an opportunity to build manners, impulse control, and more motivating reward structures. Also make sure you’re using good food handling to short-circuit nipping.
By about 18 weeks the brain chemistry starts changing and your window for learning acquired bite inhibition will start closing. Don’t wait! By six months it will be pretty much closed and the strategies we talked about won’t work any more.
If you have an eight or nine month old dog jumping up and grabbing your arms or sleeves, and you haven’t done that work already you’re gonna be in a pickle.
You’ll need different methods to fix that because off leash classes, crying out, or walking away won’t work anymore.
Now you can really only focus on a frequency and the force of biting is what it is. Contact a qualified trainer or behaviorist near you to help you out. Now let’s do some myth-busting!
There are a lot of solutions offered by articles on the Internet and well-meaning friends, and most of these are total rubbish.
Let’s dissect them. Using leave it or drop it— these prevent any opportunity to learn bite inhibition because they’re not providing the right kind of feedback. These are important to learn on the side but useless for play biting.
Use these for mouthing after they’ve mastered their bite inhibition. This only works if they’ve had specific lessons on the meaning of that phrase away from the situation they’re biting in. It also stops the bite training altogether, so it’s no use for us at all.
Tap them on the nose—this is great if you want to teach your dog that you’re a bully. Also great for creating a head shy dog.
However, it does nothing for bite inhibition. Actually you’ll probably get some relief from the biting though because the puppy will just stop interacting with you altogether.
Stick your thumb in their mouth and smash their tongue against their teeth—oh my god! This makes no training sense whatsoever. It’s abuse.
Please stop doing that. Using a squirt bottle—do we squirt babies in the face when they’re doing something that annoys us?
Using a muzzle— this prevents all mouth interaction and pretty much guarantees a hard biter as an adult. Also it means no eating, drinking, playing with toys, or anything else related to just being a puppy. It’s lazy and irresponsible.
Redirecting to a chew toy—Puppies aren’t trying to relieve teething pains when they play bite. As you’ve learned they bite to learn ABI. You might get a temporary respite but it’ll be short-lived and you missed a teachable moment.
Chew toys are awesome but they’re for chewing during quiet times. Chewing is relaxing and it does relieve teething discomfort but play biting serves a whole other purpose. Don’t waste the opportunity.
As we have already said puppy biting is a perfectly normal behavior. It’s a normal behavior but it’s not pleasant for us humans, so we want to teach our puppies not to bite us right?
Well, we do but not quite so fast. First thing I want to talk about is the teeth, because puppy teeth and adult teeth are very different and there’s a very important reason for this.
Puppy teeth are very sharp. they’re like little tiny needles and it hurts when they bite you. adult teeth are very dull, they’re more powerful, they’re not as brittle as puppy teeth but they’re more dull.
Teach Your Shih Tzu Puppy Bite Inhibition
There is a reason why puppy teeth are so sharp and that is because they need those sharp teeth to learn bite inhibition. Bite inhibition is what allows your dog to have a safe mouth, not to be a danger to you, other people and other animals.
If we were to take our puppies and leave them with their mother and their litter mates for six months, we wouldn’t have to have this issue of teaching our dogs bite inhibition.
What would happen would be our puppies would be biting each other and when they bite down on another puppy hard they would yelp.
If they don’t yelp the dog that was bitten too hard would snap at the other dog, this is how puppies learn how hard to bite from each other.
This is why puppies have such sharp teeth, because they’re so sharp even just a small amount of pressure hurts, so if that small amount of pressure hurts and causes another dog to Yelp they learn to be gentle with that sharp teeth.
when they get their adult teeth they now think that that gentle pressure hurts even less so there’s a reason why puppies have puppy teeth. They fill out around 6 months and then the adults teeth come in, that’s also a big time for destructive chewing.
Because we usually separate the puppies from mom and litter mates at 8 to 12 weeks it now becomes our duty to teach our dogs bite inhibition, and if we don’t teach our dogs to have a soft mouth you’re living with the danger.
So I stressed this and why it’s so important, especially for people with large dogs or dogs with powerful jaws. It’s a safety issue, we have to teach them as a puppy to bite softly because otherwise as an adult dog they’re going to be dangerous.
So the question is usually how do we stop puppy biting?
Reduce The Biting Frequency
Before we reduce the frequency of the biting we need to reduce the pressure, so what we’re going to do is to them teach them how to bite softly.
That’s essentially what bite inhibition is, it’s biting soft. And we do this through a game we’re going to let the puppy chew on us.
We have them on our lap or playing with them and he starts nibbling on our finger, and then he nibbles on our arm and we let them do it just as long as it’s not hurting. It’s going to be uncomfortable of course, but it’s not terrible pain.
What we do is we wait until he bites down a little harder than he’s been doing, the second that he bites down too hard we react and show him that what he did wasn’t comfortable.
We don’t show him we are angry but we do show him it wasn’t comfortable. You can try and yelp at him with a really high pitch like puppies do.
Your puppy will react, he will realize that he hurt you and he’s gonna be confused, and then you go back to playing with him.
You continue with this and if he bites you too hard again you will react the same, eventually he will get to know how hard he can bite you without hurting. This is what he would have done naturally if he had been left with his mother and brothers and sisters.
This is a slow business, remember puppies have the puppy teeth until they are about six months old, so you’re doing this over the course of six months. Essentially teaching the puppy how soft to bite, how powerful his jaw is.
OK, so right now we’re working on reducing the pressure of the bite. Once we have the biting under control, where the puppy now knows how hard he’s allowed to bite down and how powerful his jaws is we now need to work on reducing the frequency of the bite.
How Do We Reduce The Frequency?
There are a couple things that we can do, the first thing we want to do is redirect the puppy. You should have toys in every single room of your home to redirect the puppy to bite the toy rather than you.
Carry toys in your pockets so you are never without one, so when he comes running up to you and grabs your pant leg, we don’t get angry or mad we just very calmly grab his collar, pull him off and give him a toy.
Shake the toy around in front of him to get his attention from biting you to biting and playing with his new toy. Puppies love movement so if you can get them more interested in the toy rather than you he will learn much quicker to bite the toy rather than your hand.
I will hear people say that “I try to redirect him but he doesn’t go for that toy” If he’s not going for that toy we need to look at why not. Maybe the toys are too boring, we should rotate our toys so he doesn’t get board. I have lost count of how many toys I own for my dog but he never gets them all at once.
There’s a big chest and every day we rotate, 5 new toys come out and five go back in so the toys are always new and always exciting. By the time you cycle through all of them he thinks it’s a brand new toy coming out.
So number one is if your puppy’s not interested in toys, either we need to buy some new ones to get them more excited or if you have a lot of toys start rotating them.
A very exciting thing for your puppy are puzzle toys, especially those with food in them. It doesn’t have to be a lot of food, just enough to get them off your pants, to get them to stop biting you.
Whatever it is when you put down a little puzzle toy with food, food is a number-one priority and resource for dogs.
Use toys with food in them, even if it’s just a small amount because this treat is a higher reward and higher priority to your dog than your pant leg.
Another thing you can do is setting up the puppy to see that when he bites you, something bad happens. One thing that is very affected are the bitter sprays, what you do is before you play with your puppy spray it on your pant legs and your hands.
I don’t want you to be ruining your clothes so test it out on a small area first. Most of them are water-based so you can put it on pretty much anything without risk, but just test in a small area first.
You can put it on your body, you can put it on your hands but be warned it tastes really bad so don’t get it in your mouth.
You can spray it on your hands so when the puppy goes to bite you they will get it in their mouth and they won’t like it. That’s one way to reduce the frequency of the biting.
Another way is to use a hot sauce. You put a little bit of hot sauce on your pants and when they go to bite you and they get that super spicy hot sauce, it stops them.
The final and the most effective thing is what I call a reverse timeout. We grab the dog and we put them into isolation where there’s no food or any toys. You can put them into a bathroom, a closet or hallway but only for a very short period of time.
Reversed Timeout Is The Opposite.
Instead of us taking the puppy and putting them into timeout, we go into timeout. So we’re playing with a puppy and he bites us really hard, what we do is we don’t react, we just stand up and we leave the room and we leave the room for 10 seconds.
We’re not mad, we’re not angry, we don’t yell at the puppy, we get up and we leave the room for 10 seconds, then we come back as if nothing has happened.
When you come back into the room give him some praise, but if he does it again just leave the room. What you are teaching your dog is that if he bites you are going to leave and playtime is over.
Remember this is the second part, this is when we’re working on reducing the frequency of the behavior. In the beginning we’re not getting up and leaving because we’re teaching the puppy by addition, once he learns by an addition and we’re trying to reduce the frequency.
The reverse timeout is very powerful because your dog wants to be with you, the reverse timeout is powerful if you have a good bond with your puppy and he wants to be with you.
Shih Tzu’s are social animals, so as long as you have a good bond with them then timeout is a very effective tool.
So instead of us taking the puppy and putting him in timeout, we’re leaving, we’re teaching the puppy that when you bite us all plays is over.
Remember your little eight week old puppy is just that, he’s eight week old so he doesn’t know any better.
He doesn’t know he’s not supposed to bite, he doesn’t understand that biting is not something that humans like, he just knows how to be a dog.
He only knows how to be a puppy, so you’re going to have that patience with this. You’re not going to teach your puppy to stop biting in a day, you’re not going to teach him bite inhibition in a day.
It’s gonna take a few weeks or even a couple of months to guarantee that your dog has a safe jaw, has a safe mouth, has good bite inhibition and then to reduce the frequency.
By six months, generally speaking you shouldn’t have any issues with puppy biting you anymore because by six months, and once the adult teeth come in they will have outgrown this stage of learning.
That’s about the age they would outgrow it natural living with a group of dogs with their mom.
So puppy biting takes work, it’s not the most pleasant thing and it hurts having a little puppy teeth biting into your hand but in the long run its worth the effort.
Like humans it is not uncommon for dogs to vomit from time to time, however, as dogs are dependent on their owners and can’t say anything handling such situations is not always easy.
What to do if my Shih Tzu vomits? The first thing to do is not panick, vomiting can be caused by a number of things and not all of them are dangerous. We have put together a list of common reasons why your Shih Tzu might throw up and what you can do to help.
When dogs vomit their abdominal muscles contract very strongly several times before the food is actually ejected from the mouth, this completely drains the energy from the body and your pet may look very sick.
Along with throwing up frequently your Shih Tzu may show symptoms including pain, distress, weakness and a lethargic attitude. Some of the causes of vomiting in Shih Tzu include dietary indiscretion, sudden change in diet plan, habit of gobbling food, intolerance to a particular food, some kind of allergic reaction ingestion of obstructing objects, acute inflammation of the stomach and parasites.
As we have said previously, if your dog is bright and alert and only vomits a few times you can treat the problem at home and there is no need to call your veterinarian. However, if your pet appears really sick and vomiting does not stop after 24 hours, call your vet immediately.
Treatment
Withhold Food
When your Shih Tzu vomits it is important not to serve any food for at least 12 hours for a puppy, and 24 hours for a full-grown dog. This allows the inflammation of the stomach lining to settle down to cure your dog’s vomiting, plus withholding food gives the gastrointestinal tract some rest and time to recover. There is also little chance of throwing up if your Shih Tzu is not eating anything.
Offer Ice Chips
Due to vomiting there is a high chance that your dog may become dehydrated, most dogs have trouble keeping water down when they start throwing up frequently, in fact gulping down water may cause the stomach to revolt bringing the water right back up.
Instead of water we recommend serving ice chips which most dogs love to eat. Ice chips will prevent your dog from becoming dehydrated and are far better than clean water in this situation, plus the coldness of the ice chips will make your pet feel much better.
Give Your Shih Tzu Ginger
when your dog starts having bouts of vomiting, try a ginger remedy for relief. The common native property of ginger will quickly calm down the stomach and stop your dog from throwing up. Apply a thin layer of honey on a piece of sandwich bread, next lightly sprinkle ginger powder on the honey and then feed the bread to your dog.
Just one dose of ginger will make your dog feel good. Another option is to simmer one tablespoon of freshly grated ginger root, or 1 TSP of ginger powder in 1/2 cup of coconut milk for about 10 minutes. Store this solution in a container and give your dog 1 to 3 teaspoons every 1 to 2 hours.
Give Your Shih Tzu Bland Rice.
After the initial few hours of fasting you can begin to introduce small amounts of bland food like white rice to your pet. Avoid giving pet food for a day or two as such foods may immediately upset his stomach again.
Combine 1 cup of cooked white rice and 1/4 cup of canned coconut milk, give it to your dog in an amount appropriate for his or her size. Feed 1 to 2 tablespoons every three to four hours too small dogs, feed half cup every three to four hours to medium-sized dogs and feed one cup every three to four hours to large dogs.
Continue this routine until the vomiting has completely ceased, then you can begin to reintroduce small amounts of your dog’s regular food.
Give Your Shih Tzu Chicken Broth
After a day it is important to serve some nutritious food to your pet to ensure faster recovery. Nutritious food like chicken broth will even help deal with early signs of mild dehydration, making chicken broth at home is very easy.
Put a pan of water on the stove to boil, add a couple of chicken bouillon cubes and cook until the chicken cubes dissolve. Allow the broth to cool down to room temperature then serve the broth to your dog in small amounts a few times during the day.
Please Note – Only use boneless chicken when preparing food for a sick dog
Give Your Shih Tzu Baby Food
After the initial fasting phase you can even offer baby food to your pet. Such food is easy on the stomach and will not induce further vomiting. Mix one part of any meat based baby food with two parts of cooked white rice add 1tsp of probiotic yogurt and mix it in well, give your dog small amounts to eat at regular intervals.
Some Reasons Why Your Shih Tzu Might Be Vomiting
There are a variety of reasons and scenarios that affect how we determine why a dog is vomiting. First, we need to consider if this is an acute problem…did it start today or is it a chronic problem…has it been going on for weeks?
Then we need to perform a physical exam and get some history on our patient. Unfortunately dogs don’t tell us if they got into something or what hurts. We have to do a little detective work.
Let’s consider an acute episode. Obviously your veterinarian is going to perform a physical exam to determine how urgent or critical your pet is. During the exam he or she will likely ask you a variety of questions.
For example: when did the vomiting start? Did they vomit food…bile… or is it just gagging or retching? Environmental changes should be considered…Are there any toxins or chemicals in the yard? Most people don’t think about the fertilizer recently placed on the grass or the rat poison put in the garage.
Have you noticed your dog chewing on any plants? Puppies will eat almost anything. Both indoor and outdoor plants such as Sago palms, oleander and lilies can be very toxic.
Dietary changes are another often overlooked factor. Did you change to a new brand of food? Did you give any recent treats or table scraps? Does your dog play with sticks, eat rocks, or chew on plastic or toys? These are all very important questions.
When you take your Shih Tzu to see your vet, some of the questions may vary based on the dog’s age, breed, and lifestyle. For example, A 9 month old Labrador Retriever that chews everything in the yard is a high risk to have ingested a poison or possibly swallowed an object and may be obstructed.
A different example is a 7-year-old Great Dane that is trying to vomit but nothing is coming up. This breed is very susceptible to a problem commonly referred to as “Bloat” where the stomach actually twist on itself and becomes distended. Both of these examples are very different and both are considered emergencies.
After completing the physical exam, your veterinarian will determine the most appropriate testing required. Initial diagnostic tests may include, X-rays, to look for a foreign body, an obstruction, possible bloat, or even cancer.
Blood work can be very valuable in diagnosing conditions such as pancreatitis, liver disease, kidney failure or possibly a toxin ingested such as antifreeze or rat poison. Additional testing such as ultrasound and endoscopy may also be recommended.
We also mentioned chronic vomiting, that which has been going on for weeks or months. Many people don’t call their veterinarian because it is simply a couple times the first week and their dog is otherwise acting normal.
Only after several weeks do they call. The veterinarian will perform a physical exam, ask many of the same questions and possibly perform the same test as done in the acute episodes.
Diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease, liver or kidney failure, and cancer can all seem mild in their early stages. However, once in their advanced stages, they can be much more difficult to cure or even treat.
With respect to treatment, there are many scenarios that will affect what your veterinarian decides to do. They may administer IV fluids and medication for cases of pancreatitis or kidney failure.
There are products such as activated charcoal that may be given to help absorb any toxins. In cases such as a bloat or obstruction, emergency surgery is necessary.
The bottom line is simple, if your dog just started vomiting, you need to call your veterinarian immediately for advice, don’t wait.
The Difference Between Acute And Chronic Vomiting
Vomiting is a really common problem in dogs but there is a difference between vomiting and regurgitation and you need to know the difference. To a layperson they probably sound exactly the same thing, but they certainly aren’t.
Regurgitation is when food is brought up pretty much intact, so when your dog eats something and it comes straight out again. It’s just literally regurgitates its food that’s been swallowed, then brought up again.
Regurgitation can indicate things like esophageal problems, but also dogs are actually very good at regurgitation. If a bitch is feeding a litter of pups it’s the things she’ll do naturally, she will regurgitate some of her food to feed the puppies.
The interesting thing is that dogs have a voluntary muscle in their esophagus which is a voluntary muscle. This voluntary muscle is a muscle your dog can control themselves, unlike muscles in the intestines which work away by themselves.
Most of the muscles inside us are automatic muscles, and one of the exceptions the rule is the muscle of the esophagus of a dog which is voluntary. In other words, dogs can decide they are going to regurgitate their food which they can do very easily.
That’s regurgitation but vomiting is different, vomiting is a forceful contraction of the stomach that expels all the contents of the stomach which include partially digested food.
Often vomit will happen after meals eaten, not instantly but is a much more concise violent kind of vomiting, where your dog kind of puts the whole body into bringing up the vomit.
It is quite common in dogs, it’s one of the more common reasons why dogs have to be brought to the vet, and one of the reasons is that dogs have evolved as scavengers, and what that means is that they’ve evolved to be very quick to eat something that they find.
What happens then is the body automatically assess what’s landed in their stomach and makes a sort of decision as to whether that’s good or bad. If it’s bad they will vomit and they’ll get rid of it, so dogs are quick to vomit compared to some other species.
Vomiting is a serious sign and vomiting can be split up into two different types. The first is acute vomiting, in other words dog vomit once, or twice, that’s called acute vomiting.
The second type is chronic vomiting, that’s where after three days your dog is still vomiting, so the two are very different things.
Acute Vomiting
Acute vomiting is short term where we don’t have to worry about too much because as long as dog remains bright and well in themselves, it may just be part of their natural function of expelling something they don’t want from the stomach.
So if your dog vomits once, generally as long as they’re bright and cheerful and in good form we wouldn’t do too much, apart from withholding their food. Just offer them water for the day, just a bit of a gap between their food and then instead of their regular food give them something that’s highly digestible.
For example, some scrambled eggs with boiled white rice, or even a special tin of low residue bland diet that your vet can supply you with.
So for simple case of vomiting simple withholding of food and then bland diet for 24 hours will be enough to fix most problems.
Chronic Vomiting
If your dog’s been vomiting for two or three days, but still bright and cheerful but it’s been for two or three days this is a chronic vomiting case and you do need to take them to the vet. Your vet will check over your dog carefully, often they’ll need to do certain tests to rule out some of the serious causes of vomiting.
An examples of a tests they might do would be a blood test that will tell them about your dog’s level of hydration as well as some things like whether their internal organs are working properly.
Things like liver disease, kidney disease, pancreatic disease could all cause vomiting. Blood tests will check for all those things and hopefully reassure you that those organs are all working normally.
The vet may also recommend x-rays, a common cause of chronic vomiting would be a foreign body which means something stuck in the intestines. Some dogs have a habit of picking up stones and rocks and if swallowed can cause your dog to vomit.
Stones can get stuck inside your dog but an x-rays will show them up as a big white area, you’d also see a pattern of gas around the stone. X-rays will show anything stuck inside your dog where there’s a foreign body.
Once your vets examined your dog and they’ve done blood tests to make sure everything is working normally inside, and the x-rays show that there’s nothing stuck inside your dog it’s then a case of giving treatment.
If you want to rule out the more serious causes you’re down to things like viruses or nonspecific irritations of the stomach, which can cause repeated vomiting. That’s often treated with drugs to calm down the stomach acidity and to block the vomiting reflux.
There are exceptional cases where once the bloods and x-rays are all normal and the dog has given the treatment and they still continue to vomit, then it can get more complicated.
If there are no obvious signs then your vet might suggest an endoscopy of your dog to take biopsies of the stomach, to see if there is any other strange reason why your dog can be vomiting.
Related Questions
The color of the vomit can give us some clue about its origin.
Shih Tzu Vomiting White Foam
The most common causes are indigestion or excessive exercise after a meal.
Shih Tzu Vomiting Yellow Foam
A symptom of acidity in the stomach, common in dogs that do not eat adequate food.
Shih Tzu Vomiting Green Foam
Generally due to your dog eating grass, although it can also be gastritis or an allergy.
Shih Tzu Vomiting Brown Foam
As in the previous cases, it may be due to indigestion, gastritis, or by coprophagia (ealing poo) which is a common problem with puppies.
Shih Tzu Vomiting Red Vomit
A red color in vomit indicates the presence of blood so this is not a good sign. If you see red in your dog’s vomit don’t hesitate to go to your vet.
Potty training is a little bit more involved than most people imagine, but today I’m going to show you the four steps you need to take in order to make the process as smooth as possible.
How to potty train your Shih Tzu. Potty training your Shih Tzu can be a challenging task, but with the four elements of potty training that I’m gonna show you you can have a fully potty trained puppy in no time at all, and here’s how.
How To Potty Train Your Shih Tzu Puppy
When it comes to house training your Shih Tzu puppy there are essentially four elements.
Number one, supervise.
Supervision is key, if your dog has an accident somewhere in the house and you miss it, you’ve missed a training opportunity. And disciplining your dog after the fact is unfair for their learning.
Interrupting them while they’re having an accident is actually the most effective way to let them know that they’re making a mistake. Keep in mind, you only have one second to give your dog feedback after they’ve made a mistake for them to truly understand.
So after you’ve caught your puppy in the act and you have interrupted their behavior you can scoop them up and head outside. Remember, no harsh corrections are ever needed or warranted in these situations, so if you can’t supervise your puppy, put them in a crate.
The Second Is Schedule.
Most puppies will need to pee after sleeping, after playing, after eating, so be prepared to take your puppy outside often in the beginning. And as you take them outside be sure that you’re using your leash and show them exactly where you want them to go.
The third key, feedback.
Be sure that you’re able to praise your puppy when they go outside and be sure that you’re able to stop them if they have an accident inside. Any missed accidents inside are missed training opportunities and it’s actually rehearsal of the wrong behavior. And this can really work against you.
Let’s think about it this way, in your absence your dog is still getting feedback. When your dog has to go it doesn’t feel good but when they do go, they instantly feel relieved. And remember, dogs do what’s rewarding.
If there isn’t anyone there to tell them that they’re wrong then they’re likely to think that they’re right. And rehearsal of the wrong behavior will only set them up for failure in the future.
Key number four, responsibility.
Once your puppy understands that they need to go outside to go potty, it’s time to put the responsibility on them to let you know that they need to go there. You can teach your puppy to sit and stare at you. Or you can teach them to ring a bell.
Or if they have grander musical aspirations, you can always teach them how to play the tambourine. Those first two methods are sure-fire ways for your dog to get your attention to be led outside.
So keep in mind these four key elements of house training, supervise, schedule, feedback, and responsibility. And that’s all I have to say about that.
The Four Different Housetraining Methods To Suit Your Lifestyle
When we say potty-trained a Shih Tzu, we are referring to housebreaking, house training, crate training, and potty training. Basically they all mean the same thing but might have different meanings to different people.
As with all training, we believe in positive, gentle approaches that do not include harsh punishment. Your puppy should be started on potty training the minute you bring him home, does he understand what to do?
Will he cooperatively pee and poop where you tell him? The answer is simple, probably not. Two decisions you will need to make before embarking on house training or housebreaking, are location and words to use.
First decide where you want your Shih Tzu puppy’s bathroom to be, most choose a location outside but it could be indoors on puppy pads or even a dog litter box which is useful for those who live in apartments or condos and do not have immediate access to the outdoors.
If you want him to eliminate in a particular part of the yard, always take him to that location, stay with him and praise him with his favorite treat when he goes.
Whichever location you choose, it is important to be consistent. Deciding that your dog should go outdoors, but provide a pad indoors for those times that you can’t take him outside to potty, sends a confusing message to your dog and makes house training more difficult.
Secondly, it is important with any training to have words to use that your puppy will understand. Just as we teach the word sit, we also need to use a word command for elimination. You might say, do your business, or go potty or do your duty, whatever works for you.
House Trained a Shih Tzu Puppy Schedules
Scheduling and consistency are very important in potty training your new pup. Young puppies will naturally need to eliminate after certain events, after eating or drinking, after playing, upon awaking from sleep and other times, but at least every one and a half to two hours.
Before I go on, I would like to point out that more dogs find their way to pounds and rescue agencies each year, because they never mastered pottying in the place deemed appropriate by their owner and because the owner never took the time to properly learn potty training.
For potty training or house training to be successful, the single most important thing that a new owner must learn to do is observe their puppy. Puppies display telltale signs that they are interested in eliminating, to house-train a Shih Tzu you need to pick up on their body language.
Sniffing, circling, squatting, with that said how many puppies get into trouble for leaving little surprises all over the house?
Observation is so important, simply being around the puppy is not enough. Puppies are very good at telling us things, and that is what we need to notice in order to train.
How To House Train My Shih Tzu
How To House Train My Shih Tzu
One of the easiest things you can do to set up your new pup for house training success is to feed them on a consistent schedule, you should also be feeding your puppy a high-quality food as well.
It’s our responsibility as people to show our dogs where they can, and can’t go. And house training is a months-long process, but it’s a good opportunity for you to become consistent and that is a telltale sign of a good teacher.
You see, dogs aren’t born knowing where they should and shouldn’t relieve themselves. house training success is fastest achieved when you get really good at controlling your dog’s environment and supervising them really well.
Our overall goal is to teach our dogs that our house is their house. See, instinctively dogs don’t like to do their business where they live and sleep, but it can take a while for them to generalize an entire house as their primary residence.
You first want your dog to understand that there is one area for their living space, before expecting them to generalize the whole living room, the kitchen, bathroom and so on until they’ve learned that the whole house is their house.
You do this by slowly giving your dog access to the rest of the house under heavy supervision over time, along with taking them outside very often.
So what are the best ways to control your dog’s environment?
I’ve found that the best way is by actual attaching a leash to you, this way your dog can’t wander off into another room and you’re in a better position to kind of take cues from your dog that they might want to go outside.
Baby gates are a great way to control where your dog can and can’t go, you could also get a puppy playpen and this will give your dog a fair amount of room when you want to break from heavy supervision from time to time.
No matter how you decide to control your dog’s environment, make sure you go out of your way to ensure that they’re having a great time in whatever environment you choose.
A crate is a nice way to give your dog a cozy place to hang out when you can’t really supervise them. Now, since a crate is pretty small relative to a big room your dog is less likely to do their business inside of the crate, and they’ll be more likely to accept it as their primary living space.
Remember, dogs don’t like to do their business where they live and sleep, understand though the crate is not a dog sitter it’s just a way to keep your dog safe and out of trouble for short periods of time when you absolutely can’t supervise them.
But you want to introduce the crate delicately in order to make sure that your dog enjoys being inside. First let your dog explore the crate, open it up, let them smell it, let them check it out not forcing them in the crate at all.
Give him a treat just to create a positive association while being in the presence of this crate, try and get him to go inside of the crate voluntarily because you don’t want to force him in the crate. You want him to want to go in the crate.
Try and put the Treat in a little bit farther and wait for him to go in all by himself, again keeping the door open. Letting him know he can come and go at least at this point in this training. You’re just trying to get him comfortable with being in the crate for a little bit longer.
Close the door with your puppy inside but don’t just walk away and leave them alone, give them another treat. It’s a good idea to just kind of hang out with your dog for a little while he is locked in the cage, especially those first few training sessions.
The crate should be big enough for your dog to be very comfortable to move around in but not necessarily take several steps in a row. After your dog is starting to make the connection that this is where they hang out, you can then begin to enlarge the crate. To be clear an oversized crate is absolutely fine after your dog has gone several days without having an accident in the crate
In the beginning, place the crate near your bed so that your dog is less likely to have anxiety when you go to bed at night. It’s normal that your puppy might keep you awake sometimes in the middle of the night and yeah, you’ll have to get in the habit of getting up and taking them outside.
Hey, that’s just part of having a puppy, it’ll get better though and later you can move the crate into another room if you want to. A good rule of thumb for how long your dog should be in the crate is roughly one hour per month of age.
However, you really want to avoid having any dog stay in a crate for more than four or five hours at a time, at any age with the exception of overnight. This is why it’s important to have additional puppy-proofed areas available, like a puppy proof laundry room or bathroom where you can tolerate potty accidents.
Before leaving your dog alone for many hours at a time, do your best to give them age-appropriate exercise. Now, since many of us have jobs that require us to be away from the house for more than eight hours at a time, make arrangements to come home at lunch and let them out and play for about thirty or forty-five minutes if possible.
If this isn’t practical for you though, you might need to enlist the help of a friend, family member, dog walker or doggie daycare.
Potty Training Your Shih Tzu To Go Outside
In general, I recommend about once an hour. Make sure you take them outside immediately upon arriving home or waking up. Be prepared to stay outside for five to ten minutes, it’s okay if they don’t go each time but it’s important that you continually give them the opportunity to go.
Now, in cases where they’ve been left alone for two or more hour
make sure you take them outside immediately upon arriving home or waking up.
When are you waiting for your dog to relieve himself be boring, just let him check out the environment because you don’t want to distract him.
When he finishes going that’s when you reward him big, It’s as though going potty outside unlocks the most fun version of you to your dog.
You can reward them with a great treat, or even a short play session creating positive associations. This way will make your dog actually want to go outside to do their business.
If your dog does have an accident inside, don’t punish him. This is about as effective as punishing an infant for going in their diaper. Your dog isn’t to blame for this accident, either you weren’t consistent enough or you didn’t control the environment well enough so just do a better job next time.
What do you do if you catch your dog in the act of going inside?
If possible pick them up and rush them outside otherwise clean up the mess doing your best to eliminate any odors and do a better job of following the steps I’ve outlined.
Submissive or Excitement Urination
Some of you might be wondering about submissive or excitement urination, that’s where your dog pees when they get a little nervous or extra excited. Typically, most dogs will outgrow this by the time they’re 12 to 18 months of age, but if you prioritize socializing your dog they’ll probably get there sooner rather than later.
In general, I’d recommend against using puppy pads unless you have a unique situation like maybe you live in a high-rise apartment where it’s impractical to get your dog outside very often.
That’s because dogs generally develop a preference to whatever texture they experience, most often while relieving themselves. So, if you want your dog to go on grass full-time just introduce them to lots of grass and give lots of praise when they do their business in the right place.
When Is Your Dog Completely House Trained?
Most people celebrate house-training success a little bit too prematurely, so how will you know when your dog is completely house trained?
Well, I’d say that once they go one to two months with absolutely no accidents and can go several hours between potty breaks, you’re probably out of the woods.
Regression is likely, especially in the first year or if you move or your dog experiences another major change to their environment.
If this happens, just take a step back and go back to basics. Whether you have a puppy or an adult dog remain vigilant for six straight months without letting your guard down, dogs are relinquished all of the time because of issues with house training and other problem behaviors.
Dealing With Problems
Puppies are so easily distracted by the environment around them, whether it’s a sight or a smell or a sound, maybe a leaf blowing by. Maybe there are dogs barking in the background.
But this can completely make the puppy forget about the fact that they’re out there to go potty. They can totally forget that they’ve actually got to go. Taking advantage of some natural training opportunities with your puppy is a real help.
So the first time out of their crate in the morning is a great time to start your potty training. You’ll have biology working for you and you’ll know that your puppy really likely has to go.
Potty training after a fun play session or shortly following a meal are also really great times to know that you’re going to invest a little bit of time into your puppy potty training.
First things first, any time that your puppy goes outside it’s really important that you go out with them and that you have them on-leash. You need to be able to guide the process and help them avoid any distractions, but you also need to really know whether they’ve actually gone or not.
So if you’re able to, try to find an environment with the least amount of distractions, whether it’s environmental sounds or smells or whatever. You can also choose this time to show your puppy exactly where you want them to go potty in the future, so take advantage of this.
Because you’re out there with your puppy on-leash, it’s easy to redirect them if they start to get distracted by a vehicle that drives by or some kids playing in the distance, you can just guide them around with your leash.
Now, you want to be as boring as possible when you’re out there with your puppy. The last thing you wanna be doing is engaging them in play or using any sort of exciting language.
The other challenge is if you’re moving around a lot with your puppy, there are all sorts of interesting smells that they’re just discovering now, so try to remain in a small area.
Don’t move around too much and that way your puppy will quickly become bored of the sights and smells and sounds in this little circle you’ve created and they’re more likely to go potty then. It’s really important that you give your puppy an appropriate amount of time to go when you’re out there.
Maybe it’s four or five minutes, or maybe if they’ve been really distracted and you’ve been guiding them away from these distractions over and over again, maybe it’s six or seven minutes. But it’s important that you don’t remain out there for 30 minutes.
You’re gonna give your puppy a handful of minutes let’s say and what’s really important is if your puppy doesn’t go, what you do next. If your puppy doesn’t go, you’re gonna bring them right back inside and directly into their crate.
Be careful that you don’t let your puppy sort of meander around the kitchen or wherever because that’s the opportunity that they may have been looking for to go potty. So you’re just gonna put them directly back in their crate.
You’re gonna wait a couple of minutes and for those couple of minutes, you’re gonna keep a close eye on your puppy in that crate. If your puppy has an accident indoors, you’re going to be there to supervise them. You can actually mark that moment for them with an oops or a hey and it an interrupt that process entirely.
After those couple of minutes are up, you’re gonna take your puppy out, take them directly outside, and then wash, rinse, and repeat. Follow the steps that we talked about a little bit earlier and just do it over and over again until your puppy realizes that the only place that’s appropriate to go potty is outside.
Remember, puppies are going to do whatever it is that they find rewarding. So if they’re continuously making mistakes in your home, that’s not their mistake. It’s actually your mistake.
Shih Tzu Puppy Playpen
Now a puppy Play Den solves a big conundrum when raising a puppy. For starters, we know that puppies should not have free-range of the house, especially while you’re gone. We need to prevent potty and chewing mistakes.
Many puppy experts recommend toy-feeding your puppy in their confinement space to habituate them to it, to teach them to enjoy being alone, and to help them become chew toy trained. This greatly reduces the likelihood that a dog will chew on inappropriate items or develop distress or anxiety later on.
But: we also know that a puppy usually needs to go potty soon after they eat. Plus, most of us working stiffs will have to leave the puppy for a few hours at some point. So how do we reconcile long-term confinement, toy-feeding, AND potty training?
All of these loose ends are resolved with a Puppy Play Den. The puppy Play Den was first suggested by the world-famous trainer, behaviorist, and vet, Dr. Ian Dunbar in his landmark book, “Before and After You Get Your Puppy.”
The plan was later picked up by Open Paw, which created the textbook for planning and care of shelter animals.
The Purpose of a Long-term Confinement area as far as puppies are concerned is two-fold:
One is prevention.
Errors increase the likelihood of more errors, so we confine the puppy to an area that precludes chewing and potty mistakes around the house when we cannot supervise them.
Two is pro-action.
We want to maximize the likelihood that the puppy will learn to use the provided toilet, to chew only chew toys, and to settle down calmly without barking. Prevention and pro-action are your best friends.
Most behavior problems are predictable and therefore preventable. Don’t wait for your puppy to make mistakes. You’ll just be running after the puppy doing damage control and you’ll always be playing catch-up.
It’s much better to preemptively set the stage and short circuit problems before they appear. The basic components of the Play Den are A Waterproof floor. A crate or comfortable bed Hollow, stuffed chew toys, water, And a doggy Toilet, not pads, in the farthest corner from the bed (we’ll go into detail with the toilet in a second).
An Optional add-on is an X-Pen that you can use to surround the individual pieces if the room is too large, or cannot be safely puppy-proofed.
Let’s drill down on the individual components.
STEP ONE: LOCATION
Figure out where you’re going to set up your puppy’s Play Den. Ideally, this could be a kitchen, bathroom, utility room, or section of a room sectioned off by an exercise pen. Ideally, you want this close to the outside door so you can get them outside quickly when it’s time to take them out of their Play Den.
It’s good to establish going outside to potty as part of the routine any time the puppy is going to spend time with you.
TWO: BEDDING Give your puppy a crate or a bed.
Plastic Crates are the preferred tool here. You can take the door off. You can even take the top off for an easy to clean bed with high sides.
A typical dog bed may encourage chewing on the wrong thing.
In a pinch, a towel can take the place of more easily chewable bedding.
THREE: STUFFED CHEW TOYS:
We’ve recommended before, as do many puppy experts out there, that toy-feeding your puppy in their confinement space is hugely beneficial for teaching them to enjoy being alone and to help them become chew toy trained.
This greatly reduces the likelihood that a dog will chew on inappropriate items or develop distress or anxiety about being alone later on. Toy-feeding and work-to-eat toys are the fastest and best methods. These include Kongs, Buster Cubes, Squirrel Dudes, Barnacles, or Atomic Balls.
Confinement prompts your puppy to focus on their stuffed chew toys, leaving little time to worry or bark. We’ve talked about how to deploy these toys before in our Kong article, but remember any brand or configuration will work mostly the same.
No matter what, though, it’s important that these are the only sources of food or chewable available. Do not use a food bowl.
FOUR: a bowl of freshwater – Pretty self-explanatory.
FIVE: YOUR DOGGY TOILET Listen: Ditch the puppy pads.
I know I said previously that you can use pads but I personally don’t like them and this is why.
Puppy pads do very little to help potty train your puppy. They just prolong the process and potentially create bad habits. Instead, we recommend a home-made toilet. Understand that puppies form three soiling preferences: Olfactory, Substrate, and Spatial.
If they smell poop or pee, even someone else’s, it’s a toilet to them. Smell triggers potty behavior. Dogs form a preference for the surface they like to go on. For a puppy, this is your opportunity to teach them what you want them to go on.
If you don’t pay attention to this, they’ll form a preference that may not be what you wanted, such as your hardwood floors or your area rugs. They also will also come to prefer going in certain places according to landmarks.
This component won’t be in place until you take them outside, but getting the Olfactory and Substrate dialed in will absolutely streamline the outdoor process. This is why I hate puppy pads.
Based on these three preferences pads just teach your puppy to prefer pads which will hinder your work later on. And if you remove the pads, they’ll find something else in the house to go on that feels similar to them like bathmats, rugs, or even in the spot where the pads used to be according to a spatial preference they formed if the pads were used too long.
On a side note, though, pads might be a good solution for people that cannot or do not want to outdoor train their dogs. Disabled dog owners or people that live in high-rise apartments might actually want to pad train their dog. Just be aware of the ramifications and go into it intelligently.
Otherwise, making the toilet is a snap. You can just get a cat litter pan, baking pan, or plastic gardening tray, and line it with whatever substrate you intend to have your dog go on.
If you have a lawn outside, use a sod; if you have gravel outside, use some of that in the toilet; and if you have only pavement outside, use some concrete pavers in the toilet.
This type of toilet works super. Whenever your puppy is with you, you’ll be taking the puppy outside. But on those occasions when they need to spend time in confinement the toilet will keep the potty training on track and aligned with your household needs.
Try to have short play and training sessions hourly. If and when you cannot pay full attention to your puppy, this is the time to put your puppy in their Play Den with proper chew toys and their self-training toilet.
This is just like putting a baby in a playpen or crib when you can’t supervise them! Keep in mind that any potty or chewing mistakes your puppy makes are potential setbacks that anticipate more to come.
If an inexperienced puppy is allowed unsupervised free run of your home, potty, and chewing mistakes are guaranteed. And your puppy could become hyperactive and anxious.
As we said, problems are predictable and preventable, so steer that ship where you want it now, instead of just being at the whim of fate. Of course, once your puppy has mastered their household manners and enjoys time spent by themselves, they can potentially enjoy the full run of your house and yard any time you want.
How To Teach Your Dog To Ask To Go Outside
We have several puppy potty training articles on our blog, and one of the common questions that people ask us is, “How do I get my puppy to let me know “when they need to go outside?”
I’m gonna teach you exactly how to do that, and this method isn’t gonna require any bells. The only bells you’ll be ringing are bells of joy.
It wasn’t long ago that we had to teach our Shih Tzu some potty training and in this section of our article, I’m going to show you the exact method we used to have our Shih Tzu have an easy and reliable way to ask us to go outside to potty.
Puppy potty training accidents can be unpredictable so here’s a dog trainer hack. We know that after your puppy’s been in their crate all night that they’re gonna have to go. So here’s what I want you to do.
You’re gonna grab your puppy’s leash, you’re gonna go open your puppy’s crate and pick them up. Clip-on their leash, and then head up to the exterior door that you’re going to use to take your puppy outside to potty.
The reason we picked the puppy up is that we don’t wanna risk the chance that your puppy’s going to have an accident when they come out of their crate, between their crate and that exterior door.
So the best thing you can do is pick that puppy up so that they don’t have an opportunity to make that mistake, and then you can take them up to the inside of that exterior door.
Now, what most people do at this point is to take their puppy directly outside, but here’s the trick. At this point, we want you to set the puppy down and hang onto the leash.
Your puppy’s really got two choices. It’s either have an accident on the floor, which we’ve talked about in previous potty training articles. You know, it’s not the best outcome, but it gives you an opportunity to tell the puppy that that’s not what you want, or your puppy’s gonna indicate.
They’re gonna maybe sniff, or they’re going to maybe go towards the door or they’re gonna look to you. They’re gonna look a little bit uncomfortable, and that’s the moment you mark with your, “Do you want to go outside?”
And this is the foundation for this skill that your puppy needs to come to you to indicate that they need to go outside. Now, this isn’t the kind of skill that will be learned in one session. You’re gonna need to plan the same routines a few mornings in a row, as well at other times of the day.
You need to be really supervising your puppy and very aware if they start to indicate that they need to go potty, and maybe those signals are sniffing or looking to you or scratching or whatever they might be, you’re going to learn them in those morning sessions.
If your puppy indicates they need to go outside, you need to pick them up and immediately take them out. It’s beneficial to have your puppy come and find you to let you know that they need to go outside rather than them being stuck waiting at the door or while you don’t know that they need to go outside.
So remember, set your puppy up to be successful by starting this first thing in the morning when you know that they need to go. If your puppy happens to pee in the house, make sure you mark that moment with an, “Oops,” or a, “Ah,” or something to mark that precise moment that they have made a mistake.
The reason we love this method is it gives your dog the responsibility of letting you know that they have to go outside now and saying that, you need to be supervising. So whether they make a good choice or a bad choice, you’re there to let them know.
Potty Bell Training For Shih Tzu
Potty Bells are pretty popular, they can be pretty useful and the way I like to teach it requires a little bit of explanation.
Some dogs you can just put the bells up and there are people indicate to them that they want them to ring the bells and then they go outside and then the dog figures it out. Dogs are brilliant, that’s fantastic if you’ve not figured it out cool if not, do it this way.
I would recommend doing it this way just to make sure you’ve got the actual foundations and the actual behaviors that we really want. If it works for you that’s great, it’s not a big deal. So we’re going to start by teaching the dog nose targeting.
Once they know how to nose target onto our hand we’re going to ask them to nose target onto the bells. And then we pair nose targeting with the bells with going outside until you get to that last step you’re not gonna hang up your bells.
They’re gonna be put away somewhere near the door but they’re not gonna be out all the time if we put them out all the time before the dog really understands what they’re doing, what they’re getting paid for then you run the risk of making a behavior go extinct by not paying it.
If they don’t have enough of the reinforcement history with that behavior then it’s gonna go extinct quickly.
So if the bells are up and they jingle it and no one’s home or they jingle it and you don’t hear them then they will learn it doesn’t work and stop using it.
To make sure we’ve got a big strong behavior they understand exactly what they’re doing and exactly what they’re getting paid for then we make it look more and more like real life so we’re gonna start with nose targeting.
Hand Targeting
We taught our Shih Tzt this method when we lived in an apartment so that she would not need to come and find us and stare. The stare could mean anything and we are not as smart as she is, and I say that because she understands our words but, we don’t understand any of hers so we needed a way for her to be able to tell us through other means of what she wanted.
The first step was to teach her what the word touch meant. The way we went about this was we would place our hand in front of her and tell her to touch, then gently move our hand onto her
nose.
When her nose touched our hand we gave her a treat, we said the word “touch” to her and when she pouched our hand we said “good girl”. We repeated this several times and then stopped moving our hand so that she would have to move her nose to make the connection and when she did she was given a treat.
Once we felt comfortable that she knew what touch meant we went ahead and placed a bell on a wall in a position near the door that would be easy for her to reach. Now we would wait till she needed to go outside and when she was a puppy this wouldn’t be very long.
When she was ready we brought her to the bell and placed our hand near it, and asked her to touch and tried to get her to accidentally hit the bell. When she did she got a treat and some praise. then we took her right outside to do her business and then right back in.
We wanted to be sure that she associated ringing that bell to only go outside to relieve herself, not for playtime. After a few days she associated ringing the bell with needing to go outside, she never rings the bell to play.
By doing it this way it was a strong connection for her that the bell was just to do her business and that was it.
All right Shih Tzu owners, good luck with your potty training, if you have an alternate solution, we’d love to hear about them. Keep practicing, and we’ll see you next time.
