Scaring or bullying a puppy into behaving the way you want him to will cause more harm than benefits. This is one of the biggest mistakes made by most dog owners. Your puppy does not understand why you would be scolding him, when three hours ago, he tore up an entire box of tissues.

Your Cairns terrier puppy's attention span is very short. He doesn't remember that three hours ago he misbehaved. Nor does he understand that tearing up a box of tissues is a bad thing. It was sure alot fun for him at the time.

It is important that you understand that when you train your puppy, that behaviors you do not like are corrected immediately as soon as you see the behavior you do not approve of. Otherwise, you are confusing your puppy, and he's not going to receive the dog training that you are trying to provide him.

A good rule of thumb in training your puppy is if you do not catch him in the act, ignore it. Chances are it won’t be repeated anyway.

It took me a couple of months to train Happy Jack not to take toilet paper off the roll and tear it into bits. He did understand that it wasn’t acceptable behavior, but it was too much fun. So during that phase, and it was a phase that passed, we kept all toilet paper rolls on the toilet tank lid where he couldn’t reach them.