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Disclaimer: I am not a professional dog trainer. All advice here is just my personal opinion and what worked for me and for Roswell. All dogs are different and this may or may not work for you, but I hope it can help!

I asked my followers (you guys!) to send in questions about dog training so I could tailor this post to exactly what you wanted to know. Here are the top questions and my thoughts!

I always get messages about what dogs can’t do because of their breed and I completely disagree. Who says doxies are terrible about running off?! Roswell would never run away from us. But it’s all about training. We started walking with Roswell off-leash probably his first week with us. We would take him to safe places that allow dogs off-leash and practice often. For us, this usually meant walking the beach (in the off season, dogs can be off-leash at many of our beaches). Woods or a walking trail would be a good place to train as well. The beach in the winter was a great place for us because there was rarely anyone else there and it was wide enough to get a lot of sniffs and walking in but would’ve been very hard to run away from us if he wanted to. Luckily, he never really wanted to run away so off-leash training was pretty easy for us.

However, if your dog is running away from you, recall is key (and a must-learn even if your dog doesn’t run away). Your dog needs to learn that they have to come back to you when given the recall command. Teach this by using a high-value reward (for Roswell this means his favorite treat), choosing a recall word, and giving the reward every time they come back to you after you say their recall word. Practice, practice, practice. We never had to do this but using a long leash could help when practicing if you think they will run off.

The key to training virtually anything is rewarding when they do the right thing and ignoring when they do the wrong thing. Being consistent and practicing this often will almost always work. You’ll this as a theme throughout my answers.

Crate training was key for us when Roswell was a puppy. Making sure Roswell felt safe and comfortable in his crate made all the difference. If you’re training a puppy, make sure to have someone to let them out to potty if you’re gone for more than a couple hours or longer than they can hold their bladder. When Roswell was about 1.5 years old, we slowly started transitioning him to staying home outside of his crate. We set up a camera to watch while we were gone, and he usually would go back to his crate to nap, proving to us that it was his safe space. We started slow, leaving him out of his crate for an hour (watching on the camera), then a couple hours, then all day. We quickly realized the only thing Roswell did when we left was sleep, so we knew he was ready.

I think the key for us here was crate training as a puppy and waiting for him to be grown up until we gave him more freedom.

The same way you’d train any dog: rewarding & consistency. Train for 15 minutes every day, you really can’t go wrong.

Roswell was actually harder to train on-leash than off-leash. He used to hate walking on a leash, and that was our own fault because we didn’t do it enough. He was more used to off-leash walks and dog parks. I decided a couple years ago to walk him every single day no matter what, and no matter how long the walks took, to get him used to it. It started off pretty rough – he would just freeze constantly and pull backwards, not wanting to walk farther. We’d walk with treats and reward him for moving forward or staying by our side. Reward when they do what you want them to do! After a couple months of consistent walks, he was great at it. Now he goes crazy if he doesn’t get his daily on-leash walk and he’s a pro.

Potty training was the hardest thing for Roswell and us, so I can’t say I’m an expert here. However, 4 months old is super young; I think you may have a long way to go. Take them out every hour for the first couple months of their life, their bladder is so little and by taking them out often, you’re avoiding potential accidents which would hinder their training. Reward when they go potty outside. Don’t punish them when they go inside, but take them out right away. My personal opinion – don’t pee pad train. Roswell was unfortunately pee pad trained when he came to us, and it was very difficult for him to unlearn that going potty inside was normal. Lastly, potty bells are great! We hung a bell at the door and would ring it every single time we went outside to potty. He eventually figured out that ringing the bell meant going outside to potty and he would ring it himself. You can also grab their paw and hit the bell with their paw every time you leave to train them to hit it themselves.

Roswell is a dachshund and any dachshund owner, or even anyone who has MET a dachshund before, knows you could never get one to stop barking completely. I’m not going to try (and fail) to get him to stop doing something he was bred to do and is a core breed trait. But I do have some tips for minimizing barking. This first tip is going to sound weird but if Roswell is barking unnecessarily, the first thing I do is super calmly ask him to stop barking and “shhh” him. I find that when I’m acting calm, shushing him, and whispering to him, he can usually calm down. I also taught him the command “little woofs”. I use this if he’s being too loud and I’d prefer him to quiet down instead of stopping completely. I taught this by literally making the “little woof” noise at him and saying “little woof”. So I’d whisper a “woof’, say “little woof”, and reward when he did it until he learned that trick.

If you carry your dog down the stairs every single day and every single time they encounter stairs, they are going to intuitively know that’s how stairs work for them. When it looks like Roswell might attempt the stairs if he’s excited, I just ask him to “wait” and “sit” and he knows he needs to wait for me to grab him. I think you first need to teach your dog a “stay” command, or you could try the “sit” command too. When they reach the top of the stairs, always give your command so they wait for you.

Poor baby! We didn’t have this experience, so I’m not sure my advice will be a perfect fit for you. My tip would be to ignore their cries and keep with the consistency of putting them in their crate at the same time every night. However, I’m not sure what I would do if Roswell howled all night for 3 weeks… Roswell cried in his crate for a few weeks, but it wasn’t constantly throughout the night, just here and there. Ignoring it or sometimes shushing him worked for us and he got used to it and learned to love his crate. We also cover his crate with a light sheet so he can’t see us, and always have a fan running to tune out any noises.

Don’t meet other dogs on leash!! Dogs are always more protective on leash and it’s not always safe. Socializing dogs is just like any other training tip – consistency is key. We took Roswell to a dog park almost every day when he a puppy. Of course we were constantly watching him to make sure everyone was safe and playing nicely, but tried to stay away so he learned not to be so attached to us. When meeting other dogs, try to do it in a neutral location, off-leash.

Not really! I definitely know dachshunds are stubborn by nature but when you have a high-value reward, training can be super fun for them. Roswell loves learning new tricks and being rewarded. Roswell’s motivation is food, but I know all dogs are different.

Let me know if you have any other training questions in the comments, and good luck!!