Preface:
First of all, I recommend approaching this new ownership as something for which little could have prepared you until today, if you have not owned a CSW before. Even in such a case, it is often the case that the more CSW a person has, the more things they have to learn again and/or from the very beginning. In other words, what you didn't have to deal with with the previous dog, you may experience with the new one, or you may be shown problems that you didn't even know about until that day.
The important thing to remember is that you are not alone. Yes, there are also the famous "good vlcaks" (I don't mean dogs with whom a lot of work has been done to have the character they have, but dogs with whom everything went very easily), meaning dogs with absolutely no problems, and it is possible that especially during this rough period at the beginning you will have the need to compare your dog to these “unicorns”, compare yourself to their owners and generally you will have such an unpleasant feeling about the whole situation. In the same way, I count on the fact in the first year of the dog's life I will receive a message from you a few times about how you want to return the puppy to me (for fun, of course, although mainly out of desperation). However, as with any other problems and lives depicted on social media, it is good to know that many people do not talk about their problems with dogs, and if something comes up, it is usually only after it has been resolved. In most cases, however, it is not as loud an announcement to the world as when a person wants to show some merit with their dog, or just wants to show their dog off. So don't be put off by the absence of problems of others. And even if the response to a lot of precarious situations is only "It's a vlcak...", it's always useful to find people with whom you can lovingly complain about your stinkers, and this feeling of belonging and not feeling alone is often one of the pillars of successful survival.
For a breed like the CSW it applies twice as much that it is not a human, nor a humanized breed. All its behaviour stems from legitimate reasons and if it is not the result of a genetic predisposition, either of the breed or from parents, the Vlcak is not capable of sarcastic outbursts, such as doing thing out of spite, etc. If you ever find yourself in a situation where you think the dog did something out of spite, try to look at the situation through all the anger and ask yourself if it was just carelessness on the dog's part, or if it is trying to tell you something (in that case try to look for the basis of various associations that could lead to this situation). As you have surely read and heard many times, the CSW is a very intelligent breed, and part of this intelligence is precisely the ability to associate different activities with results and reactions ("when I want the master's attention, I start digging in the garden, because then he yells at me, I go to apologize and he will pet me”). In the case of a delayed reaction, the association with the result may not be as effective, or it may be zero, depending on the time interval between the activity and the result/reaction (in general, the dog must be yelled at while doing something wrong or immediately after; situation , when you get home from work after 8 hours, find the contents of the bin taken out and scold the dog, in most cases it completely misses the effect and instead of the dog associating the scolding with rummaging in the bin, it will think that it annoyed you in this way by just welcoming you and being happy ). So think of this fact whenever your dog pisses you off.
PUPPY
1) Goldfish short term memory
Puppies are cheerful, lively, playful, tireless and all these qualities are usually enough for their small bodies and heads. It is therefore completely counterproductive to try to explain and teach them something, while their ears leak surplus energy that they need to discharge somewhere. Therefore, it may happen that while some have taught their puppies commands earlier, some later, and activities that cannot be understood as commands may take longer. It is therefore important not only to keep a cool head, but also the tone of the voice, so that the puppy has as few reasons as possible to want to focus on something else or react to something else. One of the most common situations is that you go for a walk with your puppy, the puppy keeps running, sniffing, biting, and when he looks tired, you return home, where he repays you for his adventure with a puddle right on the carpet. At an early age, and later in adulthood, it is good to work with the fact that the puppy/dog can focus on ONE important thing at a given moment. If the puppy is overstimulated by a walk, which is often a rush of new sensations for all his senses, it forgets that it actually wanted to pee the whole time and remembers it again at home, where it already knows the area much better and is therefore not so distracted. For these basic bodily functions, it is therefore convenient to teach the puppy a command that you can use to remind it of its needs, and for training other commands, choose suitable periods when the puppy is calm - a moment before he wants to sleep, after waking up, or after physical activity. In an alert and very active state, it can be difficult to talk the puppy into concentrating enough to get something out of the training.
2) Frequent puddles
Puppies have a small bladder, which fills up quickly due to frequent food intake and thus empties often. So take him outside after the following activities, when it doesn't think so much about his physiological needs, or after which it is stimulated: sleeping, eating, playing, chewing, etc...
3) Getting enraged during play
Your puppy may not express itself in its full scale the first few days you bring it home, but after a while you may notice that you can't practically touch it without getting hurt. Often these provocations to play will take such a turn that the puppy will attack you furiously and you will no longer think that it is a game. Squeaks of pain worked for some, sometimes these sounds irritate them even more. But in their world, it is still a game and the fact that we are not adapted to it with enough body hair is a very complex concept for them. In such a case, it is good to either divert the puppy's attention to something else (a toy), in less intense situations calm exercises work, in the long term it helps for the puppy to have contact with other dogs, ideally of the same age, with whom it will play enough in a way that is natural to it. And if you are trying to solve this situation in your own way, it is again important to pay close attention to the tone of your voice and not to stimulate it further by various yelps and squeaks.
4) Biting
The topic of biting is also closely related to the previous point. Some puppies are very careful, but in general, little vlcaks are relentless piranhas, and the frequency and intensity of squeezing must be regulated manually. So again, use anything else so that the hands don't suffer. Generally, the most ferocious biting period stops around 4-5. months after the puppy has completely changed its teeth. Until then, all that remains is to redirect attention and persevere.
5) Ignoring commands
This trait starts in the puppyhood period, but you may encounter it a few more times even at an advanced age. So in reality it looks like this: you give the dog a command that you know it can do, for example, recall, and the dog pretends not to hear you; it's normal. In such cases, practice and prevention work. Not only do you have to constantly impress upon the puppy the correct response to your command, but at the same time, it must not have the opportunity to act otherwise. That is why many people in such periods choose the help of e.g. long leashes, which give the puppy/dog sufficient freedom of movement, but at the same time the possibility for the owner to have control over the dog even over a longer distance.
6) Separation anxiety
Having a little puppy at home is a great thing. You'll want to be with it every day, all day, and when God forbid it starts crying, you'll feel sorry because it's a little puppy. But it is important not to see a puppy as just a helpless cub, but as an adult dog that it will grow into very soon, and to imagine all the things it can do as an adult. That's why you have to socialize being in solitude from a young age. The puppy will lash out and whine, but you must be firm. If it learns to be independent at a young age, it can mean less danger to both it and your property. Therefore, heed these tips:
● Do not leave the dog unsupervised and unsecured. If you don't want to invest in a cage, at least reserve a room for it in the apartment, house, or properly secure the garden. Vlcaks are not only master escapers, but they are also destructive towards themselves and their surroundings out of frustration.
● If you want to get a cage, get one that your dog can't hurt himself in and can't get out of. One successful escape will mean that it will attempt it despite you securing the cage better. This can cause injury and/or loss of teeth. Hand-made ones are ideal, in which the dog will have enough living space and which have a very good durability.
● If you want to leave the puppy/dog free at home, remove all important and expensive things from its reach, disconnect the appliances from the available sockets and, if possible, turn off the fuses. It happened more than once that the dog tried to bite the cable. It usually hits the one that is not currently under current, but whether it was intentional or just a coincidence, no one knows and why take the risk. Also prevent it from accessing the garbage. It is ideal to define a room where it will have absolutely nothing to destroy.
● Keep the garden secured with a sufficiently high fence (vlcaks are good jumpers) and if they start attempting to climb over it, equip it with an anti-jackal rotating poles. If the dog has a tendency to chew and unravel the mesh fence, you can stretch an electric fence wire around the perimeter of the property. Also prevent access to various tanks, swimming pools and similar important objects.
● Garden kennels are an alternative for leaving them alone outside the house. Again, it is recommended to invest in high-quality durable materials, strong enough so that they cannot be bent/bitten in any way and to design the kennel in such a way that the dog does not have the opportunity to try to escape at all (females are small and narrow, they can fit through a 17x17cm opening, some even smaller). At the same time, keep your dog's health in mind and give it the opportunity to not spend a long time on the cold ground.
● Never leave your dog alone with a collar on. This can become an unpleasant, even fatal obstacle when trying to escape, when the dog can get stuck on something and then hang itself. Better to look for the fugitive alive.
● If for any reason you leave the dog somewhere tied by the collar, do not tie it near the fence. It may try to jump over and then hang itself from the rope. So let the dog have a clear area along the entire diameter of its reach, where it has no chance to crawl under anything, jump over, or get stuck on something. The bind should be one that cannot be chewed through (a chain, not a fabric/rope leash).
7) Guarding food
It is possible that you bring home a small puppy that starts to growl at you as soon as you approach it during the meal. This growling is not a threat, but only a warning, so control any emotions and do not try deal with it with force. Feeding is a moment of peace for both dogs and people, so don't bother the dog unnecessarily at the bowl, teach it that walking past it or petting it while it's eating does not mean you're going to take his food away. Do not reach into his bowl under any circumstances, do not try to take food from its mouth (I’m talking about food that was willingly given to the puppy as a meal, not strange objects it finds outside), on the contrary, show it that if you approach the bowl with your hand, it means that you want to add food into it. If it growls at you, speak to it in a calm voice, and you can stroke the puppy here and there, for example on the back, so that it understands that it does not need to defend its food from you. If it is calm, praise him slightly and do not bother it for long. You can also try feeding it from your hand, but this may not go well before it learns to take from your hand without using its teeth. You can hold the chew bones in your hand at first until it learns that it doesn’t need to feel threatened by you again.
ADULT DOG
1) Same sex aggression
Unfortunately, this is an aspect that most of us struggle with. This approach to the same sex occurs in each animal individually, and even if there are dogs that do not have such an impulse, they are rather rare exceptions than and it is definitely not a matter of whether you have chosen the right puppy out of the litter; therefore, it is also recommended that in case of so-called late bloomers (dogs that do not display SSA yet) the owners should not forget about this just as well. It just may kick in later. Ignoring can be taught to some extent, but not well enough that you can 100% rely on your dog in this regard in any situation. That is why it is necessary to be constantly aware of your surroundings and who is moving in it, and to be able to recall the dog in time and safely ensure that there is no accident, or have a dog secured as a precaution in case a passer-by cannot be seen in time (long leash and/or a muzzle).
2) Intolerance of other breeds
Vlcaks are a breed that still communicates in a rather primitive way compared to more domesticated breeds. They can therefore perceive some breed as threatening, because, for example, they have their ears down or their tails up, despite it being their natural physiology. While for dogs it is one of many variations and shapes, vlcaks perceive it as threatening signals and not every vlcak lets such challenges go off easy. It is therefore important that the puppy has quality socialization with dogs of all possible shapes from an early age, but never at the expense of quality.
3) Prey drive
There will also come a time when your young dog will most likely run after game for the first time. Again, it's not something that manifests in small puppies who tend to stick to the pack on a walk, but once it comes down to it, there's no going back. As soon as the dog runs away from you for the first time, it is very difficult to convince it not to do it again. It is a natural urge that is difficult to suppress. Completely getting rid of it is not possible. This means that every walk-in nature will be a lottery, so it is advisable to secure the dog sufficiently and only let it out in places where you are 100% sure that no doe or hare will run from anywhere, preferably on fenced plots.
