Perfect Pyr Pups: How to Train Your Bully Pyrenees Puppy

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Great Pyrenees are the sweetest, virtually loyal, and completely affectionate pups.  These dogs volition brand you lot laugh, and they'll steal your heart.  Simply aren't they stubborn and resistant to preparation? The reply to this is a resounding, no! Despite this pop misconception, Nifty Pyrenees puppies are so fun to train!  Once y'all acquire how to train your pups with positive methods, your training sessions will experience like play and bonding time to both of y'all!

What training do you need to do for a Great Pyrenees? Yous will need to teach your Great Pyrenees puppies a set of bones commands to go on them rubber (for example, "sit down," stay", and "come").  Y'all'll likewise want to teach them good manners (and so, for example, they don't jump on your guests and knock them to the footing), and you'll demand to work on potty grooming, leash training, and possibly crate grooming.  Great Pyrenees dogs respond best to positive training methods.

In this article, you will learn both how to train a Great Pyrenees and exactly what commands and skills you'll need to train her.  I've given detailed instructions and YouTube videos (where available) to make things as easy for yous equally possible.  I've also included resource for other types of Great Pyrenees preparation and problems, such as for barking and m escape.

If you need a super straightforward curtailed guide to training your puppy, check out my step-by-step training manual.

Desire to bound straight to the preparation?

  • Acquire potty grooming.

  • Larn crate training.

  • Learn ternion grooming.

Why Railroad train Your Smashing Pyrenees Puppy?

In that location are several reasons why you'll want to train your Bang-up Pyrenees puppy:

  1. Maintain a peaceful household - Like with any puppy, life is easier and more peaceful when you and your puppy are both on the same page.

  2. Necessary functions – Obviously potty training and leash training are a must for any dog living indoors and in an urban area.

  3. Your dog's size - Your puppy will abound to be a HUGE dog (possibly well over 100 pounds), and then you definitely don't want her to be an untrained adult, jumping on people, or knocking them over.

  4. Your dog's safety – Training your dog may salve her life.  If goose egg else, delight train your dog to take a skilful think (i.e., the "come" command).

For an case of why the "come" control is then of import, run into the video below.  This Dandy Pyrenees is taking on a bull moose.  The entire family is calling him, but he clearly has not been trained to have a good retrieve.  Thankfully, this domestic dog didn't become injure, but he could very easily have lost his life.

If y'all live in an urban surface area, your Great Pyrenees may never accept on a bull moose, but he could take on something just as dangerous, like a busy street or ambitious domestic dog.  Keep your fluffball safe and exercise call back training!

How to Train a "Stubborn" Great Pyrenees

"Stubborn" is non a useful term to put on your dog.  Your Great Pyrenees could only as easily put it on you – "I keep telling Mama I don't want to do her stupid tricks, just she stubbornly refuses to listen!  How can I make it any more than obvious? She never listens, and she only does what she wants to do!"

It's important to realize that a relationship with your dog is a two-mode street.  You tin't merely take what you desire – you take to requite.  If your Great Pyrenees isn't responding to your training methods, then you aren't making it fun plenty for her.  The whole idea backside grooming with positive methods is that your canis familiaris follows your commands because she wants to, not because she has to due to fright, shame, or to avoid pain.

Grooming a Slap-up Pyrenees (or whatsoever canis familiaris) requires a few different things:

  1. Loftier value rewards – this can be food, treats, a short play session with a favorite toy, or some kind of praise or attending from yous, whatever your domestic dog likes most.  Meet my articles on Bully Pyrenees food, treats and chews, and toys.

  2. Exercise – you tin can't expect to have successful preparation sessions if your dog is terribly wound up – she won't be able to concentrate.  Make sure she has had enough do that she tin can focus on a grooming session.  Exercise tin can come up in the form of walks or in the class of concrete play – see my commodity here for toys that Great Pyrenees dear!

  3. Maturity – Dandy Pyrenees may take 2-3 years to mature.  This means that they are babies (despite not looking like it) for a very long time and training will take a lot of fourth dimension and patience.

  4. Appropriate distractions – when grooming something new, you volition need to start with no distractions.  After perfecting the training with no distractions, you will need to gradually outset adding in distractions and training until your dog gets it.  For example, yous'll starting time want to train your commands in a tranquility house.  Then you may want to add a person or ii effectually while training.  Then you volition want to teach those commands outside (seriously, sometimes this feels like starting over).  And so train with someone walking by your yard or in a dog park, etc.  Train until your dog listens in every single state of affairs.

  5. Fourth dimension – training can take a very long time.  Your dog might pick up on some commands quickly, and struggle with others.  Some types of training, such as training your Pyr to finish barking all the time, may take a lot of time and try because barking is so natural for her.

  6. Consistency – you will need to do short preparation sessions (5-15 minutes) pretty much every 24-hour interval, and ideally, multiple times of day.

A quick but very important annotation – if you are using treats or nutrient to train your dog, give her very tiny bites.  You do not want your canis familiaris to get overweight as this is peculiarly difficult on this breed's health.  For more on this topic, see my commodity on feeding a Great Pyrenees .

Training Commands Your Great Pyrenees Puppies Must Know

These are the commands your Peachy Pyrenees must acquire for her own rubber and for the safe of others when she gets to be a very big dog:

  1. Sit/Stay – the "sit" command is very helpful as a calming control.  If your dog is doing something you lot don't want her to do or is overly excited, getting her into the "sit" position tin can be incredibly helpful.  The "stay" command is absolutely vital.  You may see situations where you demand your canis familiaris to stay, rather than pursue something that could be dangerous to her.

  2. Go out it – this is an incredibly important control.  If your canis familiaris is approaching something that could be dangerous to her or if she is bothering a person or some other beast, "get out it" is the command yous give for her to dorsum off and leave the person or affair solitary.  "Leave it" is frequently followed by the "come" command.

  3. Come – this control is, in my opinion, the most important command you'll ever teach your canis familiaris.  A skilful remember is the best affair out there to keep your domestic dog rubber.

  4. Off – this is an important command that'southward given to tell your canis familiaris not to bound on someone or something.  One time a domestic dog learns this command actually well, the command will usually get obsolete.

There are and so many other proficient and fun commands you can teach your puppy, but these iv are the absolute nearly of import.

For help on how to teach these commands using positive training methods, run across the Great Pyrenees puppy grooming video below for an introduction:

If you desire step-past-stride instructions for every control in this article and many others, check out my grooming transmission.  I've made this guide as helpful and concise as possible - no fluff here!

How to Potty Railroad train a Great Pyrenees Puppy

Footstep ane: Command Your Puppy's Environment

The offset matter you need to know nigh potty grooming your Great Pyrenees is that it may have several months.  A lot of people think potty training happens in a week or 2, and for some dogs, this is the case – I had a puppy like this once.  Merely these dogs are the exception, not the dominion.  Most will take much longer than that, and you also might think they are trained, only to have them relapse and starting time peeing in the house.  Totally normal – they're but non there all the same, and demand some more help and patience.

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The biggest secret to successful potty preparation is controlling your puppy's environment.  The easiest mode to do this is to put your puppy on a harness and ternion, and tie the leash to your belt or adhere it to your belt buckle with a carabiner.  This insures that your puppy's environment is always controlled (she's right side by side to you), and you can foreclose bad habits from forming.

If you tin't have your puppy attached to you, you'll want a puppy proofed surface area because you still need to control her surround as much every bit possible.  This could be a room, like a kitchen or laundry room, or a corner of a room blocked off.  A puppy gate can be a wonderful investment for keeping your puppy in a room while all the same assuasive her to meet or hear you around the business firm.  I recommend a taller gate, like this one at Amazon.

When your puppy is very immature and small, you could even keep her in a puppy pen, like this ane at Amazon. I recommend attaching a couple of pens together to make it bigger or using a pen extension panel similar this one.  A crate is besides an option – more on this in the side by side section!

Step 2: Teach Your Puppy Where to Become Potty

Puppies don't know where they are supposed to get to the bathroom.  Information technology's upwardly to you to kindly teach them that "outside" is the place to go.  The easiest way to do this is to forestall your puppy from going inside the house.  Y'all want her to associate going to the bathroom with beingness outside.

To make this association, y'all'll demand accept your puppy outside every hour.  If she'southward agile, y'all might want to accept her out every half hr in order to preclude an accident.  Stand up outside with her and give her some fourth dimension to sniff effectually.  Initially, she won't empathise that you want her to go to the bath.  Give her plenty of time to go.  Sometimes she won't need to go. And, yes, sometimes you'll take her out for twenty minutes, then she'll go every bit soon as you bring her back in and set her on the carpet. We've all been there.

When your puppy does get outside, praise her.  You don't want to interrupt her going to the bathroom or end her in the middle due to too much excitement, so practice a gentle praise.  You can utilise a word hither – like "potty" – and then she'll outset to associate the word with the action.  I tell my puppies, "Proficient potty!" when they're going and and then I say it again when they're done in a more excited voice.  I give them a tiny treat immediately afterwards they finish, while I am proverb "Skilful potty!"

Below is a video of a woman taking her Great Pyrenees puppy out to become to get to the bathroom – this puppy is so cute!

I would non tell this puppy to "Go potty" the way the woman is, unless her puppy already knows what this means.  Yous don't want to give your dogs commands that they don't sympathise.  Y'all want to initially say the command while your dog is going, and then again immediately after with a treat, until she learns.  Then you can tell her "Go potty" later on, when she knows what you're requesting.

The woman praises the puppy when she goes to the bathroom – both during and after – which is great, simply she does not include the word "potty" in her praise.  This domestic dog will likely eventually learn what "potty" means, simply it will take a whole lot longer than if she was trained the way I've outlined above.

Stride 3: Learn Your Puppy's Tells

It won't be long until you commencement to meet your dog'due south "tells."  Dogs do sure things when they take to become.  I had ane puppy who scratched on a blanket right before she went on it.  I learned quickly every bit before long equally she started rearranging that blanket, she needed to get out.  I had another puppy whine when he needed to become – he was super easy to train because he did this from the start and I knew to take him out.

The most dramatic "tell" I've always seen has been from one of my older dogs, Doogie, when he was a puppy.  Whenever he was nigh to accept a bowel movement, he looked like he was having a seizure.  He would throw his whole body around in the most bizarre way, and he would fling himself into walls.  The offset couple times, I was absolutely terrified, trying to effigy out how to help this ½ pound puppy, thinking he might be dying or in serious trouble.  He just had to go was all.  I don't retrieve he knew what was happening to him, and this was his reaction.  He outgrew this later a few weeks.

Step 4: Take Your Puppy Out During the Night

When your puppy is really young, you volition accept to take her out a few times at night – every three hours is a good dominion of thumb.  This is just considering very young puppies don't have float control withal, nor have they formed the habit of not going to the bathroom at night.  I know this sounds incredibly stressful, but don't worry – it's brusk lived!  You only demand to do this for the first few weeks.  If you have family living in the house with you, yous tin take turns.  Subsequently the kickoff few weeks, your puppy will be old plenty to have improve bladder control and she volition larn the addiction of belongings information technology in all night.

This is about it for potty training.  Potty preparation is actually very piece of cake, but it does require a lot of patience and dedication.  Crate training your puppy tin really assist expedite the time it takes to potty train her – more on that below.

Crate Training a Great Pyrenees Puppy

I need to start this section out by stressing that crate training isn't for every canis familiaris.   Some dogs volition never exist okay with being locked in a crate.  If that's your dog, you will need to effigy something else out – a puppy proofed room with a gate or very large pen is a great alternative.  Crate preparation, however, is e'er worth a try.

Crate preparation is useful for many reasons, including:

  1. Controlling your puppy'south environment – you learned above how important this is for business firm preparation.  Well, crate preparation makes this a lot easier to do.  Puppies mostly don't want to go to the bathroom where they sleep, and so crating them can foreclose bad habits from starting.  They're much more likely to hold it!

  2. Providing your pup a secure place to rest – puppies like having their own space.  A crate oftentimes serves as a dog'due south sleeping accommodation.

  3. Giving yous liberty – sometimes it'south difficult having your puppy leashed to y'all at all times.  Yous will somewhen need to leave the firm, for 1 affair!  Crate grooming your dog also allows y'all to melt, sleep, make clean firm, etc. without having to worry about your puppy.

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The cardinal to successfully crate grooming a Great Pyrenees is to make the crate an incredibly fun and happy place for your dog to be.  You want your domestic dog to acquaintance the crate with happy feelings. Your puppy needs to view the crate as her personal bedroom, non equally a prison or muzzle.

Don't leave your puppy in the crate for more than iv hours at a time.  If yous work during the day, you will need to come abode at lunch to practice your dog.  If that is not an pick, discover someone else to come over to help while you're gone during the solar day.  Most towns take plenty of canis familiaris walker services.

Step one: Pick the Right Crate for Your Pyr

There are so many crates out there to choose from, just an ideal crate has a few special features:

  1. Pocket-size enough your Pyr can treat it like a bed – this is so your dog doesn't want to pee in the crate.

  2. Big enough that you don't need to keep buying new crates every bit your Pyr grows – otherwise this could get pricey very quickly!

  3. Easily cleanable – if your Pyr does have an accident (bladder control does have fourth dimension to develop), you don't want to be messing around with constantly cleaning a crate with a material bottom or a crate where y'all take to crawl within to clean it.

  4. Roomy and easily accessible – you don't want your dog feeling like she's in a muzzle.  She should never feel like she'southward in time out.  She should be in her happy place in her crate.

The simply crate I've found and then far that meets all of these recommendations is Midwest Homes Double Door Folding Metal Crate – you tin see it here on Amazon.  I recommend getting the largest size (48 inches) so your puppy can keep using it equally she grows.  In the concurrently, the crate comes with a divider panel so y'all can make your puppy'southward infinite as small as you want.

You'll start out by putting the divider in the crate and starting your puppy'south crate space off modest. This way she'll feel like the crate is her home and bed, and she will try not to pee in it.  You can afterwards motion the divider further from the crate wall to give your puppy more space as she grows, and once she learns that the crate is her bedroom, you can remove the divider altogether.

The Midwest Homes Crate likewise has a super durable tray as a floor then that if your puppy does pee, you can simply slide the tray out, quickly clean it, and slide it back in.  In one case your puppy has stopped peeing in the crate for awhile, I would suggest putting in a blanket or bed to make information technology more than comfortable for her.

The crate has a one- and a two-door variety.  I recommend the ii-door variety because introducing your puppy to the crate will be easier – you lot tin leave both doors open so the crate is an open and not-threatening infinite.  The double doors also merely makes information technology easier to get your puppy and other things in and out of the crate, and it'due south easier to fit the crate in whatsoever infinite yous might want to keep it – if one door is blocked, the other will nonetheless be available.

This Midwest Homes Crate comes already fully assembled.  You merely have to unfold it.  Information technology folds back down for very easy storage.

Now let's get into the nitty gritty details of how to crate train your Peachy Pyrenees puppy!

Step two: Exercise Your Pyr

To reduce anxiety, you will want to wear your dog out a flake with some expert exercise before you introduce her to the crate.  You want her to be relaxed and open to training.  You don't want her to exist at her most hyper. Take her for a walk or play with her some - for toys recommended by dozens of Swell Pyrenees owners, check out my article here.

Step 3: Introduce Your Pyr Very Slowly to the Crate

Remember, the key is to get your dog to LOVE her crate.  Don't option up your dog and put her in the crate.  That could exist stressful for her.  Just put the crate out and let your dog explore information technology on her own.  Let her look at information technology, walk around it, and sniff it.   Leave both of the crate doors wide open so she can see it is an open up and inviting place.

Step 4: Make the Crate a Fun Place to Enter

Now you're going to want her to associate the crate with fun.  You tin can use toys, chews, or tiny pieces of treats or nutrient for this step.  For ideas on what to use for your puppy, encounter my articles on toys, chews and treats, and nutrient.

Play with a toy with your canis familiaris for a minute and so toss the toy into the crate.  Keep doing this to go her comfortable with going in and out of the crate.  You lot tin can even reach in the crate while she's in there and get her to play tug of war with you while she'southward standing in the create.  Throw some tiny bits of nutrient or treats in there (be conscientious not to overfeed) to make the crate seem extra fun.

After she has had a bunch of fun in the crate, try closing just one of the two doors.  Go on giving her tiny treats and playing with toys in and out of the crate, letting her become used to it with simply one door open up.  When she seems happy and comfy with this, endeavour closing the other door.

Give her lots of treats, tug-of-war play, and/or praise.  Just keep the crate airtight for 10 or 20 seconds than open up it again.  You want to do all of this very slowly.  You don't ever want her to feel stressed or trapped in the crate.  Always let her out immediately if she wants out.

You'll need to keep repeating this training with your dog over time.

Step v: Slowly Increment the Corporeality of Time Your Pyr Stays in the Crate

Once your canis familiaris is comfortable in the crate, put her in at that place during your relaxation time.  Sit down next to her while she's in the crate and let her chew a os in there or play with toys in in that location.  Permit her out when she wants out.  She will slowly be okay spending more than and more time in the crate.  Eventually, you will exist able to leave her in in that location without you around.

How long will that take? Your dog may love her crate in one training session, or it may take several weeks.  And some dogs will never be okay with the crate.

Beneath is a video of exactly what you don't desire to practise.  This is a Great Pyrenees puppy who is locked in a crate and conspicuously stressed out past it.

If your dog cries, whines, or barks in her crate, let her out immediately!  You lot need her to honey being in the crate. I can't stress enough how much you need to make sure this crate doesn't seem like a punishment to your canis familiaris.

Below is a video by i of my favorite dog trainers e'er, Zak George.  This puppy is manifestly not a Bully Pyrenees, but Zak shows everything I've described in the training above.  Look how easy you can make information technology!

How to Ternion Train a Great Pyrenees Puppy

Simply similar with every other type of puppy training, you want leash training to be fun.  Your puppy should never dread the ternion or be stressed out by information technology in any way.  The video below shows a perfect instance of how you lot should first introduce a leash and harness to your new puppy:

E'er use a harness and not a collar.  You volition need to railroad train your domestic dog non to pull, but in the meantime, you don't desire her to be uncomfortable or feel like she's choking from the neckband.

Make the kickoff ternion session calorie-free and playful.  Drape the harness on your puppy outset and encounter how she reacts (like in the video to a higher place).  Slowly move to putting the harness on, giving treats ofttimes.  Go along your canis familiaris distracted from the harness with treats, toys, and praise.

And so practise the same with the leash – drape it on her, let her get used to it.  Finally, you can attach the leash to the harness if she seems happy with that – proceed with treats, toys, and praise.  Practice the sessions at least once a day until she'southward totally familiar with the leash, and comfortable wearing it while you walk effectually the firm.

When y'all're ready to start walking your puppy outside on the leash, take information technology slow.  The rule of thumb is v minutes of exercise for each month of historic period one time or twice a day until the puppy is full grown.  For example, if your puppy is ii months former, you tin walk her 10 minutes once or twice a twenty-four hour period.

Equally your puppy gets older, she might starting time pulling on the leash.  This is not a skillful habit to let slip by as your puppy volition somewhen exist large enough that you may have problem decision-making her.  See trainer Zak George's video below on how to railroad train your puppy to stop pulling on the leash:

You lot'll want to start training with no distractions around and work up to a more and more distracting environment.  Yous desire to prevent your domestic dog from pulling rather than correcting her after she pulls.  Then, you employ treats (or whatever your dog's preferred reward is).  As before long as it seems similar your canis familiaris might pull on the leash, you become her attention with the care for or the "look at me command," which prevents her from pulling – then give her the treat.  You really only do this over and over, which is very irksome at first, but gets easier and easier.

In the video in a higher place, Zak George adds in the lark of another dog.  The dog he'south training is very distracted by other dogs, lunges at them, and yanks her owner over to see them.  If your canis familiaris has this problem (very likely), you'll proceed training her the same way.  Keep getting her attention on you rather than the canis familiaris.  Start with a "expect at me" and and then inquire her to go into a "sit" or "downwards" position – reward, reward, advantage.

If you are unable to become your dog's attention, she's not fix to be that close to another canis familiaris nevertheless, so back upwards and first once more.  Go as far abroad as you lot need to in club to exist able to get her attending, and so work up more closely to the dog.  Once you've trained her to exercise that, you'll desire to add more than distractions.  You lot'll railroad train her around moving dogs, barking dogs, cats, people, whatever it is that your canis familiaris finds distracting.

Like all training, this may go quickly or it may seem to take forever.  Consistency, patience, and never giving up are the keys to this type of training.

Special Training for Great Pyrenees Problems

Because Great Pyrenees are livestock guardian dogs, they are prone to very specific issues related to their guardian roots.  I have a whole commodity on this topic that goes into great detail on all of these problems and tendencies here.

One example of this is that you might find your Smashing Pyrenees barks a lot, and I mean A LOT.  Many will tell you that there's cypher you lot can do to prevent this because it's then natural for them, only that'southward just non true.  If you desire to know how to reduce this barking, check out my article, Train Your Smashing Pyrenees to Stop Barking.  The solution is grooming through positive methods.  Surprised?  I didn't call up so.

You as well might find that your Great Pyrenees is an escape artist.  These dogs instinctively desire to roam, and therefore are very proficient at figuring out means to escape your 1000 to practice so.  They may spring your fence, dig under it, or basin right through it.  There are two approaches y'all can have to forestall this – modifying your fence and/or training them to respect the fence every bit a boundary.  I explain in great detail how to practice both of these things in my article, How to Keep Your Pyr in the Yard or Pasture.

E'er End Great Pyrenees Training Sessions on a Fun Annotation

No matter what type of training y'all're doing with your dog, you ever want to stop it on a fun annotation.  Usually this means with a reward – a treat, play, praise (I do them all at in one case!).  Yous want her to feel proficient almost the session, and this is a corking manner to reinforce those good feelings.

And so, because y'all have made it through this entire blog grooming, I am going to cease on a fun notation with you and advantage you (and me) with this adorable Great Pyrenees puppy compilation.  Enjoy!

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