# Puppy Advice ( Warning contains cute pictures )



## Diegothevizsla (May 8, 2018)

Hi everyone! 
My girlfriend and I are picking up our Wirehaired Hungarian Vizsla Diego on the 17th May and are both extremely excited. It’s a pleasure to be on this site and all advice and tips on everything would be welcomed! We’ve done a lot of research and are deciding with the BARF diet, starting with a couple weeks after he is settled in. The main thing I would be interested in hearing are how everyone went about training the basics like sit, stay and heel. Should this start from day one?I would like to be able for him to walk to heel without the need of a lead ( although I’d always have one on myself ). Referring to the pictures he’s the pup in the black collar 🙂


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## TennesseeJed (Oct 24, 2017)

Hey Diego!

Congrats on your new boy! He is a very good looking guy! Mine is now at 6 months old, and it has been an absolute joy having him! I picked Uncas up a little before he has 8 weeks old, and immediately began crate training after he got settled into his new home. He did remarkably well with it, and did not whimper or whine a bit in his crate training. With Sit, Stay and Heel, I used many treats in rewarding him whenever he did something that I was trying to teach him. With these dogs, consistency in your training is key. They are extremely smart, and having him do what you want him to do each time is important. I didn't do that so well and I later sent him to obedience school at 4 months, where they really worked with him on those commands. Uncas was pretty hard headed when it came to heel and stay, so I think it took me longer to get him to understand what I wanted. So, I think it kinda depends on your pup too. Good luck!


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## texasred (Jan 29, 2012)

Walking off lead at heel, is something that takes tons of time.
Maybe the wirehairs get it easier than the smooths, cause the smooths get distracted even when on lead. 
Lots of treats, and repetition when training a young puppy. As they get it down you use less treats. 
Just fixing to start my 10 week old on the idea of heel. She will be on lead, and I will use a wooded spoon with peanut butter rubbed on it.
It keeps me from having to bend over all the time. And she should get the idea of where I would like her to walk, by placement of the spoon.

She currently knows Down, Stand, Here, and Spin. 
I won't teach Sit until later.
When I say she knows them, it does not mean she would always do them without treats.
With treats she is great, but keep in mind they go through a teenage stage. At that stage they tend to see just how much they can get by with, and get selective hearing.

Enjoy your pup.
Training is not a race to the finish, but more of a journey in time.


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## einspänner (Sep 8, 2012)

Welcome to the forum! Diego and his siblings are too cute and it's always nice to have some more wires around here for company.

There are some great threads with training advice, so rather than rehashing the details, I'll refer you to browse through the Puppies and Training and Behavior subforums or use the search bar. I also found youtube to be a great resource and I highly recommend reading up on clicker training as it was a highly effective training method.

My dog picked up sit within an hour or so after I got her at 11 weeks old. It's fairly simple to lure them into sitting with a treat. Luring didn't work out so well for anything else though.  Timelines of course will vary based on lots of variables, so don't put too much stock in any of this.

We worked on stay regularly starting around 13/14 wks. If you train consistently you'll see good progress here, but expect this to be ongoing, months long work.

Likewise, heeling is an advanced skill that you will train over many months. Aim first for him to not pull constantly, then for loose leash walking, and then refine to a heel. Off-leash heeling is almost a separate skill IMO or at least it requires a greater degree of impulse control and awareness of where their handler is. Once Diego understands roughly that heeling means to walk next to you, it isn't a big leap for him to do that untethered, so at that point and probably not before is when I'd start training for it. Mine actually heels better off-leash than on.


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## tknafox2 (Apr 2, 2013)

Your baby is Adorable!! He looks like he is going to be a fuzzy one, that little face !!

My pup ( also a wirehair) was 2 1/2 and fully trained when I adopted him... but I trained him to recall to my whistle, with treats.. It is extremely valuable in the field..
It was so much easier than calling come, or here... just a whistle and a treat .
I can whistle softly and he comes running!!


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## gingerling (Jun 20, 2015)

I recall meeting our first WHV about 10 years ago..they are great playmates for smooth hairs..and fell in love immediately with just so how totally in synch their appearance is with their actual personalities...V's are so..wiry. You will understand this soon enough!

Anyways, take it slow, let him bond to you without too many expectations..work on potty. The easiest way to train a V is to recall that they are preternaturally (that word again, it's so fitting) intelligent and aware (even at that age) as well as their instinctual need to please. So, as he is going about his day and doing all the things you eventually want him to do on command, put a word to it and tell him..as in "Sit!"..as he's parking his butt, or "Come!" as he toddles over to you. He will associate the word with his behavior..which is really the essence of good training...so in short order, you'll see he starts listening to you without much formal "training".

But when you get him home, just enjoy him and get to know him, don't start anything too formal, he's dealing with enough just transitioning and settling in, you don't want to stress him out further with "training"...other than working on pottying.


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## TexasBirdDog (Aug 30, 2017)

texasred said:


> Walking off lead at heel, is something that takes tons of time.
> Maybe the wirehairs get it easier than the smooths, cause the smooths get distracted even when on lead.
> Lots of treats, and repetition when training a young puppy. As they get it down you use less treats.
> Just fixing to start my 10 week old on the idea of heel. She will be on lead, and I will use a wooded spoon with peanut butter rubbed on it.
> ...


I couldn't agree more. First of all, training starts as soon as you bring the pup home. They will need to learn their place(crate if you're using one). They can learn a lot at such a young age. I picked my pup up at 9 weeks of age because my breeder didn't want him flying any younger than that. So, I had to wait an extra week from all the other new owners. It was torture. But when I went to get him it was worth it. He even did awesome on the flight home.

First thing when I got home was to take him to the backyard where I want him to eliminate. He's never had an accident in the house that wasn't my fault. Not letting him out enough times. They need to go out about every hour at that age. Even still, that was only twice. He wants to go outside to "his spot" now. 

I gave him a day or two to adjust to his new home and surroundings, then went straight into training. First, it was "sit", then "down", and what "no/stop" means. At that age, everything is new, so they can sometimes be very distractable. Sometimes they're hyper-focused on treats or a toy that they'll train more easily. Cash picked up on these things very quickly. Every time I walked him, I would practice teaching to walk on a loose lead. This is a part of the training that takes patience and time. They are excited and want to run. Vs just want to run, it's what they do. So, training them to walk calmly on a loose lead can sometimes be a challenge. Once this is mastered, you can start training "heel". Whether that's a walking position for you, or a finish command meaning you say "heel" and the dog goes to your heel and sits until he's released. At 4 months I started training "whoa". This is something he knows, but challenges. At 7 months, it's still a work in progress towards mastery.

He's about to start training more on birds. So, the "whoa" command will be more of a focus. Once he's bird crazy and doing well, I'll start conditioning him to gunshots. You want him to be bird crazy and very excited/focused about birds. That way they associate gunshots with birds and everything meshes well. They will eventually get excited when they see your shotgun because they know birds are in the future.


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