Havanese Puppy Training 101: Ups and Downs

Are you a new owner of a Havanese puppy and feeling a bit overwhelmed with where to start with training? Learn from our successes and mistakes in this comprehensive guide.

Callie, like all Havanese dogs, is intelligent and eager to please, making her relatively easy to train. But that doesn't mean 'no effort.' Consistency, patience, and positive reinforcement have been key to successfully training our little Callieflower.

Even at 8 weeks, when we brought her home, we did our best to begin establishing routines for her. Part of this came as we learned her high and low energy times of day, and part of it has been using opportunities to shape her day around our human routines. We do our best to be consistent. This helps our little love loaf understand what is expected of her.

Sleep: As with any baby, sleep sessions at first can be erratic and hard to schedule. Long puppy naps during work-from-home days were welcome, but Callie would frequently be up for an hour+ at 3am. City sirens and car stereos also were new for her, and would often cut a good sleep short. But over the first 3-4 weeks our Havanese hugmuffin picked up on our day/night cues. Another month, and she got totally in the groove. So all is good...until we went on vacation.

Potty: Small dogs have small bladders, and small puppies have even smaller ones. A rule of thumb we learned from our vet is 'divide her age in weeks by two. That equals the number of hours between pee breaks." So at 8 weeks, the longest she could hold it was 4 hours. It's best not to hold fast to that rule, though. Other factors like how much water she's drank, exercise, and when she's eaten impact her need to 'go.' Build a potty routine: go out first thing in the morning, after meals, after naps, and before bedtime. For city dogs, this means acclimate your pup-pet to the city sidewalks, traffic, pedestrians, and other dogs. That's a lot of distraction and new stimulation. You may be lucky enough to have a backyard, terrace, or roof deck that you can use for 'outdoor restroom' training without the overwhelming experience of city streets.

Crate Training: it may seem ok to let small dogs have a run of the apartment while you're out, but I recommend building up to that over the first year. Set up your doggo 'apartment-within-an-apartment' to be comfy and inviting. We put a nice fuzzy dog bed inside ours, and made sure it is big enough for her to stand as an adult. Thankfully, adult havanese dogs only grow to 8-12 pounds, and don't need a huge crate. At 9 weeks, we started by giving a treat just for entering the crate, then extended how long she had to sit in the crate to get the treat, then would leave her in the crate for short bits to allow time for the human to take a shower or fold laundry. By 12 weeks we would purposely put her in her crate for 40-60 minutes a day, even if we were in the apartment. By 16 weeks, she was comfortablely crated for 2 hours while we're running errands.

Socialization: This is another crucial aspect of training your Havanese puppy. Switching from farm to city life was overwhelming for Callie. The first few weeks we had to carry her outside. Even just a few minutes was a lot for her. Havanese are good with kids and humans, so exposing Callie to different people wasn't difficult. But we delayed socialization with other city dogs until she had all of her vaccinations. Keeping social interactions positive helps prevent fear and aggression issues in the future.

Training our little Callie-grapher is an ongoing project. It takes time, so we've learned to be patient with our puppy and us. We celebrate small victories and try not to get discouraged by accidents, torn socks, and nipping. If you're struggling with training your Havanese puppy, consider enrolling in a puppy training class or working with a professional dog trainer for guidance. Hopefully these training tips and techniques will help set your Havanese puppy up for success and build a strong bond based on trust and respect.