In my opinion the best way to raise a Fila as a house dog is to give it a place that it can call its own, and encourage it to stay there at all times. When a Fila is a puppy it is easy to let it run all around the house and difficult to discourage it from doing naughty things because it is so darn cute. Keep in mind that cute little 20 pounder will likely mature into a one-hundred-pound-plus freight train of skin, muscle and bone. (Not to mention drool, feet, and tail!) When this huge beast goes tearing down the hall and slam dunks a family member trying to ricochet into the kitchen because it ‘thought’ it heard the clank of its food bowl, it will become a burden to say the least. Where is the fun of having a dog in the house if you are telling all of the 2-legged members of the family not to touch anything that the dog may take as the food bowl, leash, car keys, door bell, etc.?
A 130 pound dog that stays on its bed is a better family member in many ways. First of all, it is easier on the house if the dog is not constantly walking all over the carpet, drooling and dropping kibbles of dog food. The carpet will stay cleaner by having only one or two places that the dog is allowed to sleep. Secondly, if the dog is needed to protect you from a stranger entering the home, it CAN come up off of its bed. It is not locked away in a room or a crate, useless. Thirdly, if the dog is given its own piece of furniture it will not be lying on all of the other furniture. Our dogs have never become confused regarding their beds and the rest of the furniture. After all, the beds that we provide for them do not in the least resemble an armchair, sofa, or human bed. Last, but not least, to be able to tell your dog a command like, “Bedtime!” or “Go to your bed!” is darn convenient and can help to maintain the sanity in a house with several dogs. When I let in over 350 lbs of dog-flesh at one time, it is nice to know that by the time I get the door closed all of the dogs will be on their beds lying down. If raised this way, the dogs never know what they’re missing in the way of being allowed to roam around. A puppy raised this way from the get-go, will have less opportunity to soil the home, chew inappropriate things, and get into the other mischief that puppies get into.
Here’s how we do it. When the pup is brought home at 8 weeks or later, start with the crate that it arrived in. The first night, leave it in the crate in the kitchen, and only let it out to potty when it is quiet. It will probably scream like a banshee, but, oh well! DON’T break down and put it in bed with you. This first night is very important. It is teaching the puppy that there are always worse things that can happen to it. The next night put the crate by your bed and after the pup has gone outside to potty for the night, stuff it in its crate. Turn off the lights and lay down. If the pup whines, tell it “NO!”. If it keeps it up, slap the top of the crate and again tell it “NO!”. With Fila puppies, I find that this usually does it. If not, try tipping the crate on its side and then righting it to throw the pup off balance. Again, give a stern “NO!”. If it still keeps it up, put it and the crate back in the kitchen and abandon it. Once more you will have to deal with a sleepless night, but don’t give in. If you are firm to start with, it should only take a night or two before you get a relatively full nights sleep, and you will have a puppy that will only whine and carry on when it has to go potty, and not just because it likes the sound of its own voice. Just remember, if the pup was doing this in its den, its mother would probably bite it or thump it with her paw; you are not hurting it, only giving it guidelines for living in your den. Of course, if the pup cries in the middle of the night, take it outside and tell it that it is a good pup for waking you up with this important information. When it comes back inside, put it back in the crate and start over.
OK, your puppy is outgrowing that crate now. It probably has done this in a couple of weeks. Next step? Buy another, larger crate. I go directly to the VariKennel 500. It is important to be vigilant at night now. At the first signs of anxiety, take that puppy out. It now has enough room to potty in a corner of the crate and still sleep in another. Luckily this only lasts for another few weeks, until the pup is too large to separate the crate like this. Your pup should be used to the whole crate breaking thing by now, and although it may not want to go inside at night or during the day when you are away, it is not acting like a psychopath in there, or using it as a bathroom.
Surprise! Teething now begins! Between 4 months and 6 months, your pup will be shedding its baby teeth and its adult teeth will be breaking in. For several more months, the pup will be interested in chewing objects to exercise its new set of chompers. Give the pup lots of different types of toys and keep an eye on it. At this time, we will introduce the idea of a bed to the puppy. We use the Durabed (by Duracor, Inc.) which is a supported cushioned canvas platform raised off of the floor several inches by tubular steel. We attach a small chain (unchewable!) at the back of the bed, one end on one leg and the other end on the other leg. In the center of this chain, we have another short chain with a swivel snap on it which we attach to the pup’s collar. This keeps the puppy on the bed at all times. With this confinement, the puppy is not likely to potty on the bed. We place the pup on its bed in the living room when we are going to be in there or the kitchen. This gives the puppy the feeling of being free, without being free. It is still essentially crated, only this crate has no sides or door. We place the pup’s crate in the living room next to its bed and at night about an hour before we go to bed we put the pup out to do its evening constitutional, and then put it in the crate. When we are ready for bed, we just turn off the lights and go to bed. We don’t say goodnight to the pup or make any big deal out of it. That way the pup does not even notice that it is not in our room with us. As time goes on, the puppy begins to understand that its place is out in the living room, and will run to the bed when let inside the house.
At some point in time, usually around 9-10 months, when I think that the puppy will not destroy something during the night, I purposely forget to put the puppy in its crate for the evening. I put it outside to potty an hour before I go to bed and then, when I’m ready for bed, off I go. I make sure that the pup has plenty of toys and chewies to occupy it in case it wakes during the night.
At this same time, I will leave the puppy on its bed during the day if I am only going to be away for a short period of time. If I am going out to weed, fill water pails, or check the livestock, I will casually walk out the door when the pup is preoccupied with a toy, usually to return to a puppy that did not know that I had left in the first place. By the time the pup is one year old, I have put the crate back down in the shop where it will gather dust until the next puppy goes through its training.
Things to remember. Don’t give too much freedom, ever. One year is very little to invest in a perfect house companion that will live 10 to 12 years. Just think how long 10 years will seem if the dog makes a nuisance of itself the whole time! Do make the puppy understand that the only place that it is never bad is on its bed. Discipline it if it is being naughty, but if it runs to its bed, tell it that it is very smart and good. Don’t let the pup free to play sometimes in the living room, and then wonder why it whines when confined to its bed. Do let the puppy out often to play outside and let it wind itself down. Don’t encourage your puppy to be vocal for the wrong reasons. It will bark at strange things when it is older with very little encouragement. It should whine and look uncomfortable when it needs to go outside to potty, it does not need to start yowling at the top of its lungs! We even feed our pups on their beds. That way they don’t get off of their beds to go to the food bowl, and then go astray and start walking all over the house. We keep the water pail full outside, and do not offer water inside for the same reason.
In our home, we usually have two of our girls in our living room at all times. When strangers come over we shut the other doors in the house which contains the dogs that are inside of these rooms. The dogs in the living room sleep on Durabeds. Our dogs know that they are to stay on these beds, and crawling off of them is not an option because they are raised. I find this to be one of the only ways of having strangers inside the home with a Fila.
We have had much success with this approach. Our dogs get this lesson so well, that at a friend’s house or in a hotel room, all we need to do is put down a towel or blanket and tell them “Bed!” and they will stay there for the rest of the night. An example of the strength of this command follows. I had a friend over the other day and he got off of the sofa to play with our new kitten. The minute that he bent over the kitten, our bitch, Ashley, let him know without a doubt that she would not tolerate this behavior. She stood up on her bed and dropped her head, growling very threateningly. I know that if he had acted aggressively, she would have broken the ‘stay on your bed’ rule, but once he sat back down on the sofa, she did her two circles and flopped back down. I can’t say how nice it is to know that my stranger-intolerant dogs are available to protect me when company is over. We keep these two beds against a wall where no one will be walking very close to them, and we tell our guests to ‘just act normal’.
As you can see, it takes some training and lots of diligence to teach the dogs to ‘Go to your bed, and stay there’ but it has simplified my life tremendously.
The largest size Durabed measures 34”x42”, and will easily hold 300 pounds - I can stand on the bed with one of my dogs and it feels stable and secure. We paid $86 for each bed. I figure that this is the cost of a cheap crate, and the bed certainly looks more like furniture than a yucky old cage.
To order your own Durabed we suggest that you try Omaha Vaccine Company, or try their toll free number at 1-800-367-4444. They have the large Durabed listed for an amazing $47.39!! We paid nearly twice that much for our first ones!
Good luck! Lisa :~)
