What dog behaviors should I encourage?

by Nicole S. Silvers, March 3, 2010, dogstardaily.com

Behaviors to Encourage is a post from: Dog Obedience Training Blog

courtesy of www.examiner.com

Dogs can easily become bored and may need more to entertain them than just the occasional chew toy or chasing a ball.  Here are some interesting options to help stimulate your dog’s mind and release all that pent-up energy.

Nina Ottoson toys get your dogs brain working

posted by Nicole Martin, 2/22/10, www.examiner.com

Most pet dogs are chronically under-stimulated, especially in the cold winter months when their owners are less active. Food puzzle toys come in all different shapes, sizes and styles but one of the best that I have found is a line of toys made by Nina Ottoson. They are games designed to truly entertain your dogs body and mind. Available in both plastic and wood versions, there is one to suit every dog or owner. Your dog simply moves the parts to reveal his treats. Except, they aren’t quite so easy. You can gradually increase the level of difficulty so that your dog remains engaged. This search for treats or food bits simulates the hunting behaviors that your dog needs to find an outlet for. The wooden versions are definitely recommended for larger dogs or those who can be a little overzealous in their foraging.

When using toys like this, it is important to start slow and go at your pet’s pace. If your dog becomes frustrated he won’t be having very much fun. Playing with Nina Ottoson toys also provides a wonderful opportunity to practice your dog training commands like sit, stay and wait. Always supervise your dog closely while they are playing and put the toy away after use. These toys are great for cats and ferrets too! Check out the video below to see exactly how they work.

Read the rest of Nicole’s article.

Brain Toys for Your Dog is a post from: Dog Obedience Training Blog

www.aplacetolovedogs.com

This poor guy obviously has no clue as to just how precarious his situation is!

On Dangerous Ground is a post from: Dog Obedience Training Blog

A lot of people are feeling the effects of “cabin fever” this winter with all of the snow we’ve had, so imagine how good it feels to finally get out and see new sites, other people, and generally just stimulate our minds with new adventures.  Well, your dog needs new adventures once in awhile, as well.  Read this article explaining why it is important to take your dog on field trips.

Field Trips: why it’s important to get your dog out of the house

by Rachael Pan, February 6, 2010

Examiner.com

Dogs are highly intelligent creatures and as such, can quickly and easily become bored. Stimulation—both physical and mental—is very important to the overall health and well-being of your dog. Taking your dog on a “Field Trip” is a great way to give him some extra stimulation.

A field trip for your dog is going anywhere new, unusual or rarely visited. Your dog may surprise you with how fascinated he is with something as simple as sniffing (or marking) some new trees, nose-to-nosing with new canine friends, or exploring some different territory. Field trips give your dog something to “think about,” and, when used to stimulate a destructive dog before leaving him alone at the house, can contribute to helping him be less inclined to seek and destroy items in your home.

Read the rest of Rachael’s article.

Taking Your Dog on Field Trips is a post from: Dog Obedience Training Blog

Are you looking for that special Valentine’s gift for your pooch?  If so, you might check out these treats from Kona’s Chips.

You Are Your Dog’s Valentine…

If your precious pooch could pick a Valentine, it would be you!  Let your dog know how much he is loved with a special V-Day treat from Kona’s Chips!

Great Value! Our Valentine toys are hand-made in America exclusively for Kona’s Chips by an expert dog toy creator.  We received special pricing and have passed along the savings to you!
Beary “Be Mine”
Plus 6 Ounces of Chicken Jerky or Turkey Jerky

Your choice of 6 ounces of Chicken Jerky or Turkey Jerky paired with a snuggly red teddy bear toy marked with a pink heart on his chest.  Beary is backed with soft berber fabric and has a tummy squeaker for fun!  Beary measures approximately 6” x 7½” and is perfect for small to medium dogs.  Hand-made in America exclusively for Kona’s Chips.  Your dog will look at you with hearts in his eyes!  Click to view Beary

See more treats from Kona.

Be My Valentine is a post from: Dog Obedience Training Blog

This may seem cute, but it's actually training this dog to nip

Have you ever heard of the famous Marshmallow test done by Stanford university that suggests that self-control is the number one determining factor to whether our children grow up to be above or below average?

If you’ve never read up on that study, it’s fascinating and can teach you a LOT about what it takes to teach puppies to stop nipping and control their emotional urges.

In their study, Stanford university took children into a room and asked a child to sit in a chair with a Marshmallow in front of them.  The instructor then told the children that if they waited for him to run an errand, they could have two Marshamallows when he came back.

But if they ate the one in front of them they would NOT get the second Marshmallow.

Whether or not the children were able to resist the inner urge to just gobble up the Marshmallow or not, was an incedible predictor of how successful those children’s lives would be, how much money they would earn, and how happy their marriage would be.

The reason this experiment was such a big predictor of these childrens’ future success, is because there is one trait that all successful people have in common… the ability to delay immediate gratification because they realize it earns them long term gains.

Well guess what, this applies to dog’s as well!

The better your dog is at remembering to keep his emotions in check, and realizing that waiting can get him BIGGER rewards, the happier and easier your life with him will be.

Luckily for us, we can build delayed gratification, or what i call, “Urge Control” into our daily training excercises.

Build Urge Control Into every Day
Activities With Your Dog

When we weave the concept of Urge Control into all of our puppies training drills, the result is a dog who remains much more calm and emotionally stable in situations like:

• Staying calm when the doorbell rings
• Not rushing to gobble up food dropped on the floor
• Staying off counter tops
• Not nipping during a game of tug a war
• Being less aggressive on a leash towards other dogs
• Remaining indifferent when children accidentally irritate them
• and a host of other situations

One of the simplest ways I recomend people teach their dog’s Urge Control is when they first get their puppy and are working on how to stop his nipping.

Understanding Why Your Puppy is Nipping

The thing you need to determine when teaching a puppy how to stop nipping, is the main driving factor for why the puppy is nipping in the first place.

In most cases a puppy is nipping for one of two reasons.

1. He is teething and finds relief from nipping and chewing on items.  In this case, I recommend using a technique that I call, Cataloging Chewables which is all about how to stop destructive puppy chewing.
2. He still thinks nipping is a fun way to play with you just like he did with his litter mates.

With puppies that are nipping because they think it’s a fun way to interact with you, we need to set up an environment where we take what the puppy wants (interaction with us) and hold it hostage against them.

This means that we set up a new rule for our puppy that he can fully understand.

The New Rule = “Playtime STOPS when you nip”

This means that you can play with your puppy all you want, but the second he nips you, or mouths you harder then you are comfortable with, simply stand up, and ignore your puppy.

It is not necessary to yell, swat or say no.  The fact that you’ve given him the cold shoulder is sending him the strongest signal possible.  Nothing else could be communicating your new “rules of engagement” better then by taking the thing he wants more then anything else in the world, (YOU) away from him when he nips.

Now Here’s What I
Want You To Do Next

Because this Urge Control drill is so effective, I want you to go practice it on your puppy right now.

Most clients of mine see a dramatic change in their dogs behavior within a matter of minutes.

After a handful of times of getting up and abruptly ending playtime with your puppy when he nips, you’ll see the little wheels start turning in his head as he realizes that you only stop playing with him when he nips.

Try to ignore your puppy for about 15-20 seconds after he nips before you resume playing with him.

If you’ll go spend some time today practicing this drill you should see nearly instant results.

But Your Work is NOT Done!

Urge Control is something that needs to be built into all aspects of your dogs life.  Urge Control needs to be a rule your dog lives by, not just something to stop only nipping.

Sure it can be used for just that, but it can be something so much more when applied to all areas of your dog’s life.

So after you go try out this Urge Control technique on your dog, and see for yourself how effective it is, I want you to come back and sign up to receive a copy of my Hands Off Dog Training program that can show you how to finish up the other areas of your puppies training that need work.

You can pick up a copy of my Hands Off Dog Training program here.

How To Stop Puppy Nipping Using "Urge-Control" is a post from: Dog Obedience Training Blog

3 Steps for Teaching Puppies
What NOT To Chew On

If you’d like to learn the specific training routines ALL puppies

should go through to learn how to NOT chew on things he shouldn’t, you can find those lessons in this training program: Hands Off Dog Training Formula

Today I’d like to introduce you to a concept that I don’t hear anyone else talking about for how to get your dog to stop his destructive chewing.

I call this dog chewing concept: “Cataloging Chewables”

What lots of dog owners don’t realize is that over a 90 day time span you can help your dog build a mental catalog of all the items in your house that he is ALLOWED to chew on… … plus a list of all the items he’s NOT allowed to chew on.

Puppies Don't Know The Difference Between Rawhide Bones Or Shoes Until They're Taught

You have to realize that to your dog… a creatures who’s natural instinct is to chew on things… that it would be VERY hard to be able to tell the difference between chewing on something you allow him to chew on like a rawhide bone; and something you don’t want him chewing on like your expensive leather shoes.

Or what about the difference between a ‘Stuffing Filled’ plush toy, or down pillow? Or a rubber Kong toy, and the rubber on the bottom of your tennis shoes. You can see how this can be hard for a dog to figure out.

And the technique that most people try to use to fix this behavior is simply a ‘reactive’ behavior. If they see the dog chewing on a shoe they yell at the dog or swat the dog.

So picture what that must be like for the dog who doesn’t really understand the difference between leather shoes and rawhide bones. Or the difference between down pillows and stuffed plush dog toys.

The dog thinks both objects are basically the same… and can’t tell the difference in the beginning between two similar objects… and on top of that, so he often times just doesn’t understand why he gets swatted or yelled at for chewing on something sometimes, and NOT in trouble other times.

All your dog thinks is that you are VERY inconsistent… and he wishes you wouldn’t yell at him randomly like you do for no reason at all

If you doubt what I’m telling you here, and you think your dog really can tell the difference between similar good and bad chew toys, let me tell you a story that helped me finally believe this concept.

How To REALLY Train Dog’s To
Discriminate The Difference Between Objects

I had just ordered a new Advanced dog training DVD and it was talking about how to teach your dog what is called ‘Object Discrimination’… or how to train a dog to bring back an object to you that you call by name.

In this drill the end goal was to be able to place three very different objects out on the floor each a few feet away from each other; call the object by name and have the dog bring that object back to you.

First the DVD talked about how to train an animal to bring one object back when it was sitting by itself… which was fairly easy for my dog Bauer to learn how to do.

But then they had me put 2 different objects out on the floor and it was MUCH more difficult for Bauer to figure out which object to bring back.

I had to call an object multiple times until he brought the right one back, and then give him a treat for doing so. Then I’d call the other object and only reward him when he brought that one back.

And the most amazing part was watching the dog try to figure out how to do the task right. You could literally see the wheels turning in his little brain.

Retrieving specific objects by name is an advanced concept for dogs

He was constantly experimenting with different possible solutions for getting a treat. First he tried bringing back the toy he last brought me, then he tried alternating between which toy he brought me.

He’d try only bringing back toys on the right, and then only toys on the left.

And it took several days for him to figure out the names of the toys and what I was trying to get him to do.

And I share this story with you to help you realize how much harder it is than YOU realize for a dog to tell the difference between different objects. And how unrealistic it can be to just expect your dog to know the difference without some conscious training effort.

So what you need to start doing is take the next 90 days and start teaching your dog and help build up a mental Catalog in his mind of all the objects it’s OK to chew on and all the ones it’s not OK to chew on.

How do you do this?

Dog's need to practice resisting the urge to have things they want

Step 1) First teach your dog the “Leave it” command like I show you how to teach in my Hands Off Dog Training program with my then little Golden Retriever puppy. As well as the Drop It command.

Teaching your dog to “Leave it” is NOW going to be your way to tell your dog to NOT touch something. And the training process of teaching him to Drop It automatically instills in your dog a realization that when he obeys your command he get’s rewarded.

Step 2) Once your dog will willingly leave an object he was chewing on alone or drop it from his mouth, you now need to give him a reward.

And the best type of reward in this situation is a reward that satisfies his chewing urges… and more specifically you want to give him a toy with his preferred texture of chewiness at that time.

So how I taught my dog to stop chewing on rubber shoes, was first tell him to “Drop it” or “Leave it” when I saw him chewing on a shoe… which he would eagerly do, because he knows he get’s rewarded for that.

Always give your dog a replacement item to chew on that has a similiar texture

Then I would grab an appropriate rubber dog toy that I thought might be similar in texture, walk it over to him, remove the rubber soled shoe from his environment and place the rubber toy in his mouth, and tell him he was a good dog for chewing on the ‘Appropriate’ chew toy.

If you’ll do this consistently, and always tell your dog to leave certain objects alone, and always replace them with an appropriate ‘Chewable’ object, your dog will start to develop a mental catalog of

all the items it’s OK to chew on in your house, and leave the NON ‘Chewable’ objects completely alone.

And if you’re interested in learning about all the ways to put this principle of Cataloging Chewables into action, like how to do it when you aren’t home, and how to do it when you can’t see your dog, then I highly recommend picking up a copy of my Hands Off Dog Training Formula program.

Hope that helps, and please send me any questions or feedback you have so I can answer your questions or share your success story with other subscribers to this newsletter!

Articles About More Traditional Techniques:

How to Stop Puppy Chewing | Only Dogs and Cats – Do and Don’t training your puppy stop chewing. Use puppy or dog toys.

Ten Tips to Stop Puppy Chewing Before Your House Looks Like a … – You can’t stop puppy chewing by punishing him for something he did several hours ago. Dogs live in the present. Your pup can’t connect the fact that he chewed up your shoe two hours ago with your being upset now that you’ve just found …

Puppy Chewing Technique: Cataloging Chewables is a post from: Dog Obedience Training Blog