New OES Mom.. where to begin?!

He's only had two indoor accidents thus far in the week and I THINK those might have been behavioral.

My MAIN concerns right now are keeping his attention when he's outside so that we can go for walks. He's VERY easily distracted by children and other dogs in the neighborhood and there are plenty of both.

The other would be the way he disperses his food all throughout the house. He'll take it from his dish, then drop it all over the kitchen floor, and even into the living room.

Last night I bought a crate for him to have for "down time" when I'm home alone and he's getting a little wild.
I plan to pick up the classes offered at PetSmart for obedience training, but meanwhile I want to work on calming him down just a tad so that he won't be unruly there.

The young dog

Once the puppy period passes at around 4 to 4.5 months of age, the adolescence begins. It consists of several stages and lasts up to around two years of age. Sometimes it takes more time, other time less. Young dogs are like young humans:

They like action and speed.
They get easily bored when nothing is happening.
They have no self-control at all.
They cannot control themselves when something exciting happens. Like kids who see a firetruck or dogs who smell a rabbit.
Their ability to concentrate over any longer period of time is poor. While kids ´forget´ to come right home after school, the dog forgets what you asked him to do ten seconds earlier. They prefer to be with others the same age or with similar interests.
They will rather play that do other things.
They find cramming boring and it takes the fun out of learning. Young dogs need training, but in short and fun sessions so that they are able to stay focused and not get tired of it. Their needs of activities can be met with short and easy training sessions on an simple agility course, recall training, taking walks in the woods, being with other dogs and play off leash, and so on.
They gradually need to learn self-control, but only little at a time. That´s why we do things stepwise, like expecting the dog to remain gradually longer in exercises like ´sit-stay´ - 2 seconds, 5 seconds, 10 seconds, etc.
Be considerate when the dog is loosing his concentration - allow the dog to get a break in order to get his focus back, help him to continue the training.
Let the adolescent dog meet with other dogs - Important!
Avoid long training sessions, repeating the same exercise over and over, punishment, and so on, so that the dog doesn´t get tired and fed up with training.
Socialization - Social training with people and animals is important. Teach the dog to deal with all kinds of situations in all kinds of environments.
Practice fun activities like tricks, retrieving, searching, tracking, etc.
We must keep in mind that dogs are social beings who need to learn about communication, polite behavior and self-control. Otherwise a life as a member of a pack will become completely unbearable. And they learn, little by little, just like human beings during childhood and adolescence. Who have ever seen a 4 or 6 year old child with self-control? When the four year old gets hysterical, there´s no point in even trying to reason with him or her. The same goes for the six year old child. To try and teach them something during a hysterical fit, is hopeless. We actually need to let them calm down first - before trying to teach them something.

When dog owners come to class with a young dog, a ´six year old´, this dog will easily become too excited - due new dogs, a new place, a new situation, and so on. At the same time, the class require that the dog and owner follow a strict program of exercises, and in a addition the program lasts way too long for a young dog. No wonder that the ´six year old´ will become agitated and even hysterical. Many, many dog owners drop out of these classes and courses because their dogs are impulsive, excited and almost hysterical. They are not ´crazy´ like the owners may be told, but their stress level is at a maximum and self-control level at a minimum. Naturally! Because, they haven´t learned how to deal with these types of situations before. It´s doomed to fail.

Use of violence or force to get the dog to pay attention in such a situation is unlikely to make the dog any better. On the contrary, if the dog wasn´t already in a state of hysteria, he would be if we use force and unpleasantness. It´s not our place to make our demands to the young dog too difficult. If the dog isn´t able to cope with a situation, then it simply isn´t able to cope with it. We can prevent the dog from becoming hysterical by learning to observe him and his emotional state, to learn to see that the temperature is rising and stop what we are doing before the dog has reached the level of stress and excitement where he is unable to communicate and learn.

I had no experience with OES when I bought Shaggy, but I just LOVE OES.. always have.. since Sesame Street!