How do you discipline an Aussiedoodle?
How do you discipline an Aussiedoodle? Firstly, let’s be clear; discipline is a normal part of the pet/owner dynamic. Although they’re intelligent, dogs in general are essentially babies that need to understand boundaries and what is and isn’t acceptable. This includes what’s acceptable in the home, around friends and extended family, other folks’ homes, public places, around strangers, other pets and so on.
Aussiedoodles are an intelligent breed of dogs. Both the Australian Shepherd and the Poodle are highly intelligent breeds, especially the Poodle. That said some level of stubbornness is built into the Australian Shepherd which can translate into some frustration when it comes to training and discipline. It’s not that the breed isn’t smart, rather these dogs just tend to want to do things on their terms. But don’t let that dissuade you as they’re a very lovable, loyal breed.
Well as we mentioned earlier, you need to consider the bond you and your pup have developed or in the case of future pet owners, will develop. Your dog trusts and relies on you for their food, water, shelter, potty breaks, playtime and more. So the worst thing you can do is harm that bond and trust by react in a negative, harsh way towards your pup.
This includes screaming, hitting, excessive time-outs or any other type of action that would erode the bond you have formed. In fact, doing any of those things is the exact opposite of how you discipline an Aussiedoodle or any dog for that matter.
So let’s answer the question: how do you discipline an Aussiedoodle?
Positive Reinforcement
Certainly, you can’t allow your pup to have free reign in the various aspects of your life, but you don’t want to act negatively towards your puppy either, as described above. There are many different approaches to discipline, but there are three main ones we use and recommend. They are
- positive reinforcement,
- timeouts and
- humane buzz collars.
Note that we NEVER recommend spanking, submission/pinning or any other kind of action that could cause physical harm to your pet.
Positive reinforcement is essentially rewarding positive behavior and correcting the negative behavior. Generally, when your dog misbehaves, they’re looking for attention. Let’s look at some examples of positive reinforcement.
Your dog barks at the mailperson
Let’s say every day when the mailman comes by, your dog barks until the mail is delivered and the mailman leaves. Obviously, this isn’t a desirable behavior, so what can you do? First, you’ll want have some treats available to you in your hand or pocket. Next, distract your dog by calling his or her name and standing between your pup and the area they’re facing.
Firmly/sternly but calmly say “no” or “no bark” once. Wait for your dog to stop barking. If they do, give them a treat. If they don’t, wait about 30 seconds and give them the command again. Only give a treat when your dog is NOT barking. Feel free to give multiple treats if your dog continues to not bark while the mail person is around. In addition, you’ll also want to provide positive words of affirmation when you give the treat like “good boy/girl” in a positive voice.
Excessive Leash Pulling
We’ve had an issue with Cooper where he likes to pull hard on the leash when we go for walks. It’s been a bit of trial and error, but we’ve been making progress to keep him close to us and have a relaxed leash. We’ve used positive reinforcement to correct his behavior and it’s starting to show results.
Here’s what we did. Whenever Cooper saw a squirrel or chipmunk he would pull hard. Here’s the process we would follow when he pulled:
- Stop the walk
- Give a firm tug on the leash,
- Got between him and the squirrel
- Gave the command “leave it”
If he stopped pulling we would then give him a treat. If he continued to sit and stay, we would give him another treat and tell him “good boy”.
Of course there were times when following the process above didn’t work right away. And so he didn’t get a treat but we also kept the walk paused until he settled down. Once he did, we would again say “leave it” and then give him a treat and tell him “good boy”.
Chewing on Slippers
If your dog is into chewing or eating things they aren’t supposed to, you can still use the positive reinforcement method. Similar to the other examples, when your find your dog gnawing on something, say slippers, the first thing you do is say “no” and remove the object. Now replace the object with one of your Aussiedoodle’s toys they normally play with.
If they start playing with the toy you can give them a few treats. You may want to leave the original object they were chewing on nearby while you supervisor to make sure they don’t go near it. If they do, follow the same process: “no”, remove the object, replace with an approved toy, give treats if warranted.
The Timeout Method
Let’s look at the same example of chewing on slippers or something else they aren’t supposed to be gnawing on. The difference in this approach is that instead of replacing the slipper with a toy, you would send your pup to timeout.
In this case, when they’re chewing on the slipper, you’ll want to sternly say “no”, remove the object that your dog is chewing on and bring them to their designated timeout area
Boundaries and Behavior
Let’s say your dog is learning the boundaries of what’s acceptable behavior and tries to sneak into a room they’re not supposed to be in and it takes some effort to get them out.
What you’ll want to do is give them a firm command “no, timeout” and guide them to a room away from everyone. For instance, you could take them into a bathroom or a spare bedroom. This needs to be done immediately after the negative behavior happens. If you wait much longer, your pup won’t understand why they’re being disciplined and the timeout will be for nothing because doggo will not associate the timeout with the behavior.
Once your Aussiedoodle is in timeout, you should only leave them in there for 3-4 minutes. Anything more than that doesn’t do any more good to get the message across. When timeout is over and you let them out, don’t do anything out of the ordinary. Just go back to what you were doing as of the incident never happened.
In any case, the worst thing you can do is yell at them or worse, hit them or wrestle them down into submission. As mentioned earlier, these actions will harm your relationship with your puppy and erode.
The key with this disciplinary method, like most, is to be consistent with it. If you’re not consistent, then this method will not show any type of meaningful results and both you and your pup will be frustrated. The more consistent you are the more your dog will get the message that the behavior is not acceptable and will be avoided.
Buzz Collar
This we consider as a last resort. Now to be clear, the buzz collar is most definitely NOT, a shock collar. As stated earlier, we don’t condone harming your pet or any animal in any way.
A buzz collar goes around your dog neck and has a buzzer/vibrator on it and also emits a tone. The collar comes with a remote control that lets you apply the vibration at the appropriate time. There are different levels of vibration settings; we recommend starting on the lowest so you don’t startle your dog too much. If the buzz has no effect, you can increase the level until it’s obvious your pup notices the vibration and the beeping sound.
Let’s say your Aussiedoodle is chewing on slippers or shoes. You can say “no” and apply the vibration. If the collar is on correctly and set to the correct level, you should see your Aussiedoodle react to the vibration. A single press of the button or two should get the point across and the negative activity, in this case chewing on slippers, should stop.
It may be helpful for your dog to see that you’re pressing a button and causing the vibration. This will help the dog associate the remote with the bad behavior so that in the future, you won’t even need to press the button. Just merely showing the remote can dissuade the behavior as your puppy will associate the remote with the vibration and negative behavior.
Again this is a humane device that in no way harms your dog. But it does act as a great way to remind your dog that what they’re doing is not acceptable. You may want to even add in some positive reinforcement to really break the bad behavior. After you use the remote and the bad behavior stops, you can put the remote away and grab some treats, give your dogs praise and show them that not biting the slippers is a good thing.
Closing Thoughts
We hope this article helps you answer the question: how do you discipline an Aussiedoodle. Remember, disciplining your pet is a form of training, but should be done in a loving, but firm way. You need to have a lot of patience, especially with a puppy or with trying to break an ingrained behavior. The more you discipline your dog in the ways described in this article, the more likely your dog will break the undesirable behavior.
Like any type of training, it will take time to see the results and there will probably be some trial and error. Not just for fido, but for you as well. Keeping a positive attitude and ensuring your being a firm, but fair pet owner will go a long way in the disciplining process.
Remember, you are your puppy’s world. They rely on you for everything in their life so disciplining them responsibly is a key aspect of being a good pet owner. The end result will be a stronger bond between the two of you with a more well behaved pup.
Cheers!
