Video: Keep Your Hyper Dog Entertained And Out Of Trouble

Want more? Check out 14 Quick and Easy Ways to Keep Your Dog Occupied

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14 Quick and Easy Ways to Keep Your Dog Occupied

Boredom: The leading cause of doggie destruction in the home. When you don’t have time to entertain your dog, use some of these games and (mostly) homemade dog toy ideas and let him keep himself busy for a while. Most of these can be thrown together on a moment’s notice, but for the toys that require freezing, you might want to make them in batches that will last several days.

1. A kiddie pool filled with sand and hidden dog toys and treats.

2. Paper towel/toilet paper tubes with peanut butter smeared inside.

3. Cottage cheese containers or empty yogurt cups with about an inch of chicken broth frozen at the bottom. …read more

6 Dog Training Motivational Hacks

I’m willing to bet that at some point in time, the words “I just don’t have time to really train my dog” have come out of your mouth.

I’m also willing to bet that time is not REALLY the reason that you can’t seem to get much training done. Because whether you’re training Sparky to be the next Skyhoundz world champion or teaching him that your arm is not, in fact, a chew toy, significant progress can be accomplished with just a couple sessions of FIFTEEN MINUTES per day (okay. Maybe a little more for Skyhoundz). Surely, even the busiest of us can do that.

Speaking from experience, I know that the real issue is almost always a simple lack of motivation. You know what you’d like your dog to do (or not do), but actually getting out and making that happen can be a challenge.

“Motivational hacks” for …read more

No Need to Overreact – Growling Dogs

My border collie-ish dog Merlin and I were at a morning practice session at my agility club. We’d been working for a long time, and Merlin, getting bored, decided that he’d rather go hang out with the other dogs. He took off after the nearest dog and got in her way. “Come play with me!”

The other dog (let’s call her Sierra) did not appreciate my obnoxious pup’s invitation and gave a sharp growl. No big deal, just her way of saying “get out of my face, punk. I have …read more

2 Shelter Dog Myths That Just Won’t Die

These are a couple of myths about shelter/rescue dogs I hear all the time, and am pretty tired of hearing. Why are these two so prevalent? Maybe it’s because rescuing a dog from a shelter is a cool thing to do right now, and these myths help make it seem even more like an even more exciting and rewarding thing to do. That’s my theory, anyway.
This would all be okay, except that they do more harm than good to the rescued dogs in question. …read more

Slot Machine Dog Training

“Argh!” groans the dog owner. “I don’t want to have to give Sparky a treat every single time he does something right. That seems really ineffective. He’s gonna get fat and I’m gonna go broke buying all these hot dogs.”

This dog owner is absolutely right. It is ineffective to treat your dog every time he does what you want. Not only is it unhealthy, but Sparky is liable to get bored quick.

When you are first training a new command, you will use a treat every time. But that’s just in the beginning. It’s like a soda …read more

7 Habits of Highly Effective Dog Trainers

Some people are just really good at dog training. They get results and seem like naturals. Does this mean that the rest of us mere mortals cannot hope to be as good as they are? Nope.

Ask any one of these “naturals” how they got so good and they’ll probably tell you “with lots of practice.” And whether they are pros with hundreds of clients, agility handlers, or 12 year old kids training their pet in the backyard, they all tend to possess the following seven habits. I could probably turn each one of these into a blog post by themselves, but for now, here’s an overview.

Good trainers…

1. are clear and consistent
Imagine being taught the rules of a new game in a foreign language. Hard enough, but your teacher constantly changes the rules and even changes the meaning of words. This is what your dog faces when you don’t use consistency in your training.
Before you start your training sessions, get an image in your head of how you want the session to go. Think of what voice/hand signals you’ll use and the exact behavior you want the dog to perform. Once you’re actually training, concentrate on delivering your cues clearly. Use the same cues every time.

2. know what their dog wants
Because sometimes liver treats aren’t enough. Whenever you’re training (or even just hanging out), watch your dog and ask yourself “what does my dog want right now?” Maybe she really wants to go sniff that fascinating tree. Maybe she can’t wait to get to the dog park. Turn distractions into rewards. Once she does what you ask, reward her by letting her have the “distraction” for a while. She’ll learn that doing what you want gets her what she …read more