You can see exactly what search terms people use to find your Youtube channel or website. Some of these are pretty hilarious. My video How to Keep Your Dog Entertained and Out of Trouble comes up as the number one Youtube search result for “how to get your dog high.” My day was totally made when I realized that.

And some of the search terms speak to universal experiences that all dog owners can relate to:
“new puppy regret”
“new puppy sleep deprivation”
“got a new puppy can’t get anything done. “

Some are disturbing:
“dog teen makeout”

And some are just weird:
“putting your puppy in the laundry”

However, most are in the form of questions, so I thought I’d answer a handful of those questions today. Most of these questions require more detailed answers than I can provide in this video/post, so you will find links below to other 3LostDogs videos and articles that will provide the full answers you seek.


“Are Labrador retrievers supposed to be crazy as puppies?” LOL. Is the sky supposed to be blue?

“Why does my bulldog puppy get psycho hyper?” Because he’s a puppy.

“Why are puppies insane?” I don’t know. I’m sure there’s some genetic, evolutionary reason for it but I don’t know what it is.

Is My Puppy CRAZY? A Short Guide to Puppy Behavior


“New puppy! Now what?” Congratulations! Your biggest and most important tasks for the next few months will be house training and socialization. Advice for both at the links below.

A Beginner’s Guide to Adopted Dog Ownership
43 Tips for New Puppy Owners
I Just Got a New Puppy – What Do I Do With It?
Housetraining 101: The Basics


“Do you have to let your 4 month old puppy sleep in your bedroom?” No, but it does help minimize the stress that your new puppy is experiencing. He’s in a new place and away from his mother and littermates for the first time in his life. Sleeping near you is reassuring.

“What do little puppies do?” They poop and they pee and they bite.

“How do you get a new puppy to like you? Yahoo answers.” You play with it, feed it, be kind to it, and give it time to adjust. As an aside, please don’t get your dog care information from Yahoo Answers. The amount of bad advice that comes out of that site is mind boggling.


“Can I crate my dog for 8 hours?” No. Well, I’m sure you are capable of keeping a dog crated for eight hours but if your questions is SHOULD you crate your dog for eight hours, no. (Sorry. Sometimes my inner grammar Nazi breaks out of its cage)

“Is it awful to crate a puppy all day?” Yes.

“Does crating a dog make them over hyper?” Not inherently. But crating them too much might. I imagine if you were locked in a box all day you’d end up with a lot of energy to burn, too.

“Are dog crates good or bad?” Dog crates are good. But the phrase “too much of a good thing” definitely applies.

Dog Crates: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly


“How do I keep my dog from guarding his food?” The reason your dog is guarding his food is because he’s insecure and he’s afraid someone’s going to steal from him. You have to condition him to believe that people approaching his food bowl is a good thing, not a bad thing.

The Real Solution to Resource Guarding and Food Aggression


“Is dog growling always a bad thing?” No. Growling is never ever a bad thing. Growling is not aggression, it’s a dogs way of avoiding aggression. The last thing you want is a dog who stays silent when he’s uncomfortable and goes straight to biting.

The Truth About Growling Dogs


“Why would a dog yawn and have sweaty paws?” Sounds like one stressed out dog to me.

Do You Recognize These 6 Signs of a Stressed-Out Dog?


“What can you give your dog to chill him?” I don’t know… cold water?


“How do you get your dog to listen to you?”
“What do you do with a hyper dog?”
“How do you get your hyper dog to calm down?”
You buy my training kit, “Give Your Dog a Brain: How to Get Your Out of Control Dog to Chill Out, Focus, and Do What You Say.”

Or you check out these free resources:
Dog Behavior Problems: Hyper Dogs


“Leave food out multiple dogs?” Probably not a good idea. In fact I wouldn’t recommend leaving food out for a single dog. It can lead to guarding and overeating and boredom and all kinds of unpleasantness.

Keeping the Peace in a Multiple Dog Household


“How to stop my dog’s destructiveness?” Your dog is destructive because he’s bored. Play with him. Exercise him. Give him lots of things to do.

Solving Dog Behavior Problems


“What is the number one dog that will turn on you?” Chihuahuas. Shifty little bastards, they are.

Chihuahuas Are Evil: How to Keep Your Pint-Sized Pooch From Turning on You

In this episode, we’re working on basic manners with a pack of puppies.

It turned out that the Jack Russell wasn’t stubborn. He was afraid of heights! With all his sniffing, he was trying to tell his owner that he was nervous. With a little extra practice learning how to safely perform the contacts, the sniffing stopped and the team lived happily ever after, winning lots of ribbons and titles in competition.

As humans, we sometimes suck at listening to what our dogs are saying. It’s why so many dogs end up with aggression or fear issues. It’s why so many kids get bit in the face by the family dog while their distraught parents insist, “I don’t know what happened! Fido just attacked without warning.”

To help you avoid all this drama, here are some signs that indicate a dog is getting frustrated and/or freaked out. Fortunately, dogs are pretty easy to read once you know what you’re looking for.


1. Excessive shedding. Have you ever noticed how when you take Sparky to the vet, the fur starts flying? When dogs get nervous, they tend to shed a lot more than usual. Their coat might even get staticky!


2. Wet paw prints. Do your palms get sweaty when you’re nervous? Chances are, your dog’s do too. Dogs have sweat glands in their paw pads. If your dog’s feet are sweating enough for you to notice, it’s a sign of extreme stress.


3. Refusing to eat. I’ve had super-skinny shelter dogs refuse to take treats from me. They’re so stressed, they just can’t eat. Sometimes in training classes, nervous dogs lose interest in the delicious chicken or liver treats that their owners brought. Any time your dog refuses to take food that she would normally scarf down without thinking, you need to assess the situation and figure out what’s bothering her.


4. Stillness/freezing/holding his breath. This could mean that the shit’s about to hit the fan! If stillness is accompanied by:

-tense muscles/stiff legs

-ears pinned back

-licking his nose

-mouth closed with the corners of the mouth pushed slightly forward

and/or

- looking at the source of his discomfort with wide, unblinking eyes,

the dog is saying “back off.” If this warning is ignored, a bite could be imminent. When people say “Fido just attacked without warning!”, what usually happened is that Fido displayed a sequence of behaviors similar to the one above, and was ignored. To humans, this is all very subtle behavior. But the dog thinks he’s being loud and clear. If you EVER notice your dog doing this when interacting with a person or dog, you need to drop whatever you’re doing and get him out of there ASAP.

Check out this video for an excellent breakdown of this warning behavior. The video really shows how subtle it is and how fast it happens:

5. Yawning, lip licking, shaking, stretching, and a million other seemingly insignificant behaviors. As social creatures, dogs evolved with a complex system of behaviors designed to diffuse and deflect tension. These behaviors are called calming signals. Calming signals include:

Turning away, yawning, lip licking, shaking off like she’s trying to dry herself, scratching, stretching, blinking repeatedly and/or slowly, dipping the head, sneezing, lifting a paw like a bird dog on point.

Calming signals are subtle behaviors dogs offer when they are in potentially uncomfortable situations. It’s their attempt to calm themselves and others. If a dog yawns or sneezes at another dog or human, he’s saying something along the lines of “chill out, dude! It’s all good.”

Quick demo of the lip licking and yawning signals:

The lip lick:

The shake off:



6. Snffing and acting “distracted.” These are calming signals as well, but they tend to annoy people more than the others do. Just like the Jack Russell who was trying to avoid the contact obstacles, your dog might use these to avoid unpleasant situations.

Do you have a cell phone? Ha. What am I saying. Of course you do. So you know how, when you get into awkward situations, you pretend to text to deflect the tension? Well, snffing and acting distracted are the dog equivalent of pretending to text.


But what if Fido really is distracted, and not nervous? How do I tell the difference? Not to get all New Age on you, but you have to look at the whole dog. Because you’re right: sometimes Fido really will be distracted (sniffing), or not hungry (refusing food), or he may have an itch (scratching). The real warning sign is when it’s combined with other calming/stress signals.

So Fido keeps sniffing the ground. Look at his body language. Is he relaxed and comfortable? If you offer a treat, will he eat it? Does he acknowledge you when you talk to him? Then he’s probably fine.

But what if he’s sniffing the ground, and he’s shedding a lot? Is his tail tucked low? Is he ignoring you? Does he sneeze, scratch, stretch or yawn frequently? Something’s wrong.

The bottom line is that you have to get to know your dog. Learn all his quirks. Figure out what scares him. Figure out what makes him uncomfortable. Any time you notice him getting stressed, it’s your responsibility to either get him out of the situation, or take a step back and work through the problem with him. As a result, Fido will trust you and look to you for help whenever he gets into a situation he can’t handle.

Jack Russell photo credit

Damn. That actually sounds like it would be kind of cool… but I digress.

Do a Google search and you’ll see statements like this:

“The truth the pet experts don’t want you to know!”

“Top ten dog training secrets revealed!”

These messages have more to do with clever marketing techniques than clever dog training techniques. If you do a little digging into the methods that these gurus claim are so secret, they always turn out to be the same stuff that the rest of us use. (Either that, or it’s something so off-the-wall that it prompts reactions like, “WTF? Dude, were you high when you came up with that?”)

The bad news is that there is no secret training technique that will turn your dog into a perfect angel in ten minutes.

The good news is that all the information you need to turn your dog into a perfect angel, with a little bit of work, is out there. And the truth?

The real truth?

The experts really do want you to know how to use it.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go buy a trench coat.

Silly dogs. Don’t they know that it’s your job to make them use their brains and not the other way around?

There are a few reasons a dog would refuse food:

1. Lame treat selection
Don’t try to use none of that commercial petstore crap. Please. Training treats are how you pay your dog for his work. Beggin Strips, Milk Bones? These are not suitable paychecks. Try real food like cheese, chicken, liver, or hotdogs.

2. Your dog is not hungry
Maybe you need to reduce the amount of food he gets at meals. Try holding your training sessions around your dog’s regular feeding times. Either before mealtime, or instead of a meal all together. This way Fido will be hungry and motivated to earn his food. After all, a dog with a job is a happy dog. A dog who gets to work and earn his dinner is going to be much more content than one who sits around all day waiting for you to fill his dish.

3. Stress
When a dog is very anxious or nervous, he’s not gonna be so interested in food anymore. I work with a lot of dogs in shelters, and many of them are too stressed out to take treats from me. They just can’t eat. Your dog’s reaction to food can be a good indicator of his internal state – if he’ll accept treats just fine in your home, but you take him out on a walk and he ignores those same treats, then you have to look at it from your dog’s point of view. What’s going on? Is he just excited because he doesn’t get out enough? Is he afraid of the crazy barking dog down the street?

4. The environment is more interesting than your food
This kind of relates to the previous example. Only this dog isn’t nervous, he’s just excited to explore his surroundings. When you take your dog to the park and there are people to meet and squirrels to chase and trees to pee on, Fido may not care so much about treats. I have another video that talks about how to turn these distractions into training rewards.

5. Your dog is a recent addition to your family
In this case, let me say congratulations on the new dog! But yeah, this goes back to stress. Changing homes is very stressful for many dogs. Your new friend is busy adjusting to his new home and figuring out where he fits into the family, and he maybe doesn’t care so much about sitting and offering a paw in exchange for a bit of hotdog. Give him time.

.6. Your dog would prefer a different reward
Hard to believe, yes, but some dogs have hobbies that don’t involve the pursuit of food. So here’s a novel idea: ask your dog what he wants! What does Fido really love? Does he have a favorite toy? My border collie Merlin is completely obsessed with frisbees. If he had to choose between never eating again, or never playing frisbee again, I honestly think he would choose to starve. So, he gets frisbees as his training reward. My other dog Jonas is rather needy, and he kind of uh, worships me a little bit. He will work all day for some kind words and a pat on the head.

I guess the bottom line to all this is simply… get to know your dog. Figure out what motivates him. Figure out what stresses him out. Figure out what his hobbies are. Food training is great but it certainly is not the be all and end all of positive dog training.

Check out these other posts:
Video Series: How to Teach Your Dog Practically Anything
Video Post: How to Use Teats in Dog Training
Slot Machine Dog Training

Now that the series is finished, here are all five parts neatly in one place for your viewing convenience.

The out-of-control-dog project/Dazee the pit bull
Is your dog crazy? Hyper? A total nut who never listens to you? You ain’t alone. The most common questions I get as a dog trainer have to do with out-of-control dogs. Seems that a lot of people are at their wits’ end with dogs who:

-Get anxious, stressed or overexcited in distracting environments.
-Go nuts when the doorbell rings or if they even suspect they might get to go for a walk.
-Pull on leash when taken for said walk.
-Can’t focus and ignore their owners, either because they are too nervous or because everything else is SO MUCH MORE EXCITING!

I’m putting together an online training course that will teach you how to get your dog to chill out, focus, and do what you say. It’ll have an ebook and worksheets, as well as video, which is where Dazee comes in. Dazee is staying with me for a week. I’m doing some training exercises with her, which will be put on video and used in the training course to show you how it’s all done.

Targeting
Targeting is simple; you hold out your hand and your dog touches it with her nose. Not the most flashy trick, but it is a very useful trick. It’s also quick and easy to teach:

Step one: Hold a small treat between your fingers and hold your hand out flat. When Fido goes to sniff the treat and touches your hand, praise (or click) and reward.
Step two: This time, hold your hand out flat without a treat in your fingers. Wait for your dog to touch it, then reward.
Step three: Now it’s time to add the vocal cue. As Fido touches your hand, say “touch” or “target” or something. Repeat a few times to give Fido time to associate the word with the action, and then you can start using the word as a command.

Some ideas for how to use targeting:

-Teaching your dog to come when called. Gradually have your dog target your hand from farther and farther away.

-As a form of luring (see How to Teach Your Dog Practically Anything P2: Lure/Reward) Have your dog target your hand instead of following a treat.

-Getting your dog to stop jumping on visitors. Having the dog target your guests’ hands gives them a way to interact without jumping.

Clicker practice. If you train with a clicker, it’s a great way to practice your timing.

Helping overexcited/anxious dogs. Targeting gives them a simple distraction to focus on.

Intro music is “Funky Junky” by Jason Shaw at Audionautix.com. Used with permission.
Outro music is “Nerdfighteria Island” by Hank Green. Used with permission of http://DFTBA.com