When it comes to owning a chihuahua, buying it, and bringing it home is the easiest thing to do. But you see, the real work starts after. After all the excitement of owning a chihuahua wears down, real work must begin. This is because, just like every other dog, training your chihuahua is required to fit well into their new environment.
With a new chihuahua in the house, you’ll have to spend time training it on the dos and don’ts of its new home. While this can be really difficult to do, it will pay off in the long run.
In this article we will cover:
- What you should know
- the best way to train your chihuahua
- improving mental stimulation
- what to teach your chihuahua and tricks to help you
- How to handle your chihuahua
What You Need to Know
You should put in mind that chihuahuas have a unique personality and their temperament is unique too. Chihuahuas tend to have a strong bond with their owner, they enjoy their time with him/her, they go wherever their owner goes. Even so, when a chihuahua is not properly socialized with his environment there are some aggression issues to expect, such as:
- Despite their small size, chihuahuas can be so dangerous if they are not trained properly.
- Can be shy with strangers
- Show aggressiveness toward other pets.
- Snappy with kids
- Out of control when they feel noises outside.
Luckily you can control all these unwanted behaviors with good, early training.
The Best Way to Train a Chihuahua
When you bring a new chihuahua home there is a basic training to start, the first thing you have to do is to take control of the household. Here are some crucial basics when training your dog:
- You have to establish limitations and show your dog that you are the Alpha
- Mealtimes- feed your chihuahua at set intervals. Never give meals or food when your dog wants to eat. Because when you let him decide when and where to eat he will receive wrong signals and may think that he is the leader.
- Walking- always use a leash, not a collar, and never let your dog dictate the directions you are going to go. Walk your dog twice a day or more.
- Furnishings- you must set limitations and never let your chihuahua lay or sleep whenever he wants. You have to determine his space and what furnishings the dog is allowed. And never respond to his barking or whining.
- Entering and exiting- to establish yourself as the leader of the household, never let your dog enter or exit before you. This may seem trivial, but it plays a crucial role in showing the dog who is in charge.
The goal here is to show your dog that you are the leader here, this way your chihuahua will be able to listen to you what will make training so easy and fast.
Improving Mental Stimulation
A lot of people think that chihuahuas have a small amount of energy this is why some chihuahuas never get enough exercise and emotional stimulation. In fact, chihuahuas have incredible energy, they can play for a long period of time. Therefore, don’t worry a lot about their ability and start coaching them the basic commands such as, sit, stay, go, come, and so on.
Educating a chihuahua will reduce the chances of having a disobedient dog, and it will also avoid boredom and remove a lot of bad personality treats that a lot of animals have in their genes.
There are many things you should take into consideration before starting training a chihuahua. Firstly, you need to be patient and creative. Second, you should do a deep dive about chihuahua temperament in order to teach the dog the basics commands easily.
Despite their size, chihuahuas have a big, strong character. In fact, chihuahuas have the ability to be the Alpha of their pack if they recognize that there isn’t any leader in the household, For this reason, proper training is so important. Before teaching your chihuahua anything make sure that he is obeying you instead of manipulating you around what he desires. Also, another advantage of training your chihuahua is that you strengthen the bond with him.
Chihuahuas are smart, they love physical activities and exercises that stimulate their brain. To guarantee good responses from your dog whenever you start an exercise, you should never forget proper handling and encouragement. Please note that rewards and praises play a very crucial role in training your chihuahua.
What to Teach Your Chihuahua and tricks to help you
As we said before training a chihuahua requires patience and effort. So please avoid training when you are tired or angry, and always make sure that treats are available near you before starting any lesson.
Basic commands
To make teaching basic commands to your chihuahua easy for you, put your dog on a table as it can be very exhausting if you have to bend all the time. The basic commands that you should not ignore are: sit, down, come, stay, heel and rollover.
Housebreaking
It’s difficult to housebreak any dog, but with a chihuahua, it’s even more difficult. When all the joy wears down, housebreaking your chihuahua will be one of the main problems you need to overcome. This becomes very crucial because you will not want it to have accidents all around the house.
Before you housebreak your chihuahua, you must designate a particular area of the house to it. Confine it to that part of the house. If you give your chihuahua full access to everywhere at home, he will defecate everywhere. And the bad news is that once it starts that habit, it will be difficult to break.
By limiting its movement to that particular spot in your house, you’ll be teaching it that there are places it cannot go. By confining it to that spot, you can reduce the access it has to other rooms when you are not at home.
The major aim of house training your chihuahua is so that it can defecate outside. To do this, you have to train it when it is still very young. You put newspaper down in a designated area, and he will begin to learn.
But since the aim is to get it to relieve itself outside, go for short walks with it, especially after a meal. Ensure it does not come in until it has relieved itself. Be sure to reward it when it does. Very soon, he will begin to understand that he has to go outside to relieve himself.
Once this happens, take away the newspapers. This is because, as long as your chihuahua continues to see the newspapers, he will continue to use them.
Teach Routine
To effectively train your chihuahua, there is a need to establish a routine for it for everything it has to do. Establish a routine for feeding it. It must get used to a particular time you feed it. Let it get used to things that happen when it is about to be fed. Let it get used to the plate you use in feeding it.
You must establish a routine for walking your chihuahua too. Let him know when you’re about to take it for a walk. Get him excited about it. Also, he has to know when it’s time for him to settle down for the evening.
Your dog can be playful throughout the day and restless. But you have to train it so that it knows it is bedtime. It has to be so trained that it calms down when it is time to settle down for the evening.
You have to be very consistent with these things and with establishing routines because your chihuahua needs to adapt.
Clicker Training
When training your chihuahua, you can decide to go with clicker training too. Clicker training is most times used to train guards and service dogs, but it works well with normal dogs too.
You start by buying a clicker and making your chihuahua get used to the sound. You click it and give your chihuahua a treat. Soon enough, it will begin to equate a click with a treat.
To begin the training, start with simple commands. Normally, a chihuahua will either sit or lie down, and you can start the training from there. Study your chihuahua carefully. Once you see that it is sitting down, click and then give it a treat.
Go up from there and begin to introduce the more difficult commands. For instance, if you need your chihuahua to go somewhere in the house, place a mat or dog bed there. Then click and give it a treat. Once it looks in that direction, click and treat again if the dog goes there to sniff the area.
Step by step, adjust the behavior required for clicks until the chihuahua is lying down in the area you want it. Now, start repeating those commands verbally while you click and treat.
Who’s in Charge?
You must teach your chihuahua respect. You must train it to a point where it learns to obey you. Start with the simple commands and work them up to the complex ones. Your chihuahua should be able to listen when you tell it to stop. It all depends on the training.
How to Handle Your Chihuahua
Being the leader of the household doesn’t mean being aggressive to your dog. Instead, you have to be gentle with your dog, this is the first rule in handling chihuahuas. In addition, remember not to use choke collars because their necks are fragile and can get easily hurt. It es recommended using a harness, not a collar to protect the chihuahua’s trachea.
You should keep exercising your chihuahua on a daily basis, keep it as a priority if you want to have a healthy dog. If your schedule doesn’t allow you to go outside for walks, then running around the house is enough exercise for a chihuahua.
You should note that chihuahuas are very sensitive to cold weather, for this reason always let them wear a sweater whenever you take them outside when it’s cold. Furthermore, there is another fact you should take into consideration, which is joint disorders, and fractures are not uncommon issues with this breed. This is why you must never allow them to jump from a high place, as they may hurt their joints because of landing impact.
Last word
Chihuahuas may have a mean reputation, but they can be nice creatures too when you give them the right training. It all depends on you how your chihuahua turns out. Train them well, and they will turn out okay. Fail with the training, and you have a mean chihuahua with a bad temper.
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