 If you want your pup to carry something around, try it the easy way first. Stand close to your dog with their toy and play with it, and don’t let them have it! I know, it sounds mean, but trust me, when you drop it and they start carrying it around it’s pretty cute.  TIP: Don’t reward your dog’s new trick by giving him a treat – then he’ll just learn to spit out the toy as soon as he’s picked it up! If you absolutely need it back, make sure they know the command Drop It.
2 Comments
Dapper Dog Training traveled to the NYC Pet Show and manned the booth - but we also took a walk around to see what the best offerings were. One of these booths had a new take on doggie-halitosis. Using a natural seaweed from Sweden, the powder can be put in your dog's food AND swallowed and is completely safe. This is not a paid endorsement on my part, this is just a great, safe product! Here is the website: PlaqueOff for Dogs And here is the scientific study: PlaqueOff Scientific Study  I just love the fugly pug faces...
Take your dog to the beach instead of your back yard this summer! Listed below are some Dog Friendly links, and some easy vacation rules for beaches http://www.petfriendlytravel.com/dog_beaches http://www.dogfriendly.com/server/travel/guides/beach/ beach.shtml And, if you can’t take your dog away to a beach, think about Prospect Park swimming hole in NYC, or an indoor swimming pool just for dogs at Water4Dogs! www.water4dogs.com  Beach Etiquette for Dog Owners
- Always keep your dog leashed when there is a leash law - Always clean up after your dog by using a poop bag or pooper scooper - Do not let your dog visit with other beach-goers or dogs, unless welcomed - If using an official off-leash area, your dog needs to be well-behaved and must listen to your verbal commands. In an off-leash area, always pay attention to your dog. Meet Buzz. He’s a King Charles Cavalier. So Cute! He’s 2.5 months old and perpetually looks grumpy when he’s happy.  He’s learning how to roll-over   Here’s how you teach it:
1) Your dog needs to lay down first (if he doesn’t know it yet, catch him when he’s playing with a toy) 2) Point your finger while hiding a treat in your hand 3) In a circular motion, show your dog what direction to roll over. Try to point at his ear, then his behind, and then his other ear 4) Do the pointing slowly, and when your pup rolls on his back in order to get to the treat you can then point to the floor on the other side of him so he completes his circle 5) When he rolls over all the way say ‘Yes!’ immediately and reward your pup! 6) HINT: Every dog has their ‘angle’, you just have to find it. Don’t get too close to their mouth, or too far so he has to get up to get to your hand.  Meet one of our students Clark!
½ English Bulldog, ½ Frenchie. On the 2nd lesson, Clark learned how to leave some food alone. Here’s how you teach it: 1) Put food in your hand and close your fingers so your puppy can’t actually get any of the food out of your hand. Put your hand where your pup can smell it and say ‘Leave It’ over and over again until your puppy gives up. When he does, immediately say, ‘Yes!’ and give him a treat from your other hand (NOT from your ‘Leave it’ hand – that’s important). 2) When your puppy is good at Step 1, put the food on the floor, and say ‘leave It’. If your puppy goes for the food, cover with your foot and say ‘Leave It!’ 3) Practice until perfect ☺. You shouldn’t have to put your foot over the food after a few tries. 4) Hint: the food your put on the floor should be a big piece of something. That way if your puppy accidentally eats it, you can get it out of their mouth easily.  I'm going to be starting to chronicle of a few of our puppy projects. The first to come is Clark, a 1/2 English 1/2 French Bulldog! He's growing super fast, and learning some skills...like Leave It, which he learned in approximately 4 minutes. . .  I'm sure everyone out there has now seen the youtube video of the guilty dog!! Well, I think the video is very cute myself and it definitely is. But for you guys out there who really want to know if dogs can look guilty? Consult with a dear friend of mine, Julie Hecht, who studied dog psychology in Hungary. Here's the video first (since it's very cute, indeed; Here is the link: <<<<Denver The Guilty Dog>>>>  Now, Here are some excerpts from Julie's blog entry; The takeaway messages from the morning show [on ABC] are: 1) Denver must have eaten the cat treats because when shown the empty bag and asked, “Did you do this?” Denver displays squinting eyes, thumping tail, looking away and presenting teeth; 2) Masey, the other dog in the room, does not show such behaviors and is deemed innocent;  3) The owners proclaim that both Denver and Masey are sneaky; 4) The owners also say that Denver displays these behaviors when she has misbehaved. According to them, she tries hard to please them and knows when she has disappointed them. Research finds that dog owners ascribe guilt to dogs. There is a reason this video received more than 5 million hits. Dog owners observe particular behaviors* - such as "avoiding eye contact, lying down and rolling to the side or onto the back, dropping the tail, wagging low and quickly, holding one’s ears down or head down, moving away from the owner, raising a paw and licking" - and owners believe these behaviors correspond with a dog's feeling of guilty. In a 2008 research paper**, 74% of dog owners attribute guilt to dogs (as an FYI, the next highest attribution of guilt was made by horse owners at 36%). Additionally, dog owners believe that when dogs show “guilty” behaviors, dogs KNOW they have done something owners disapprove of. To spell it out, owners believe that “guilty” behavior corresponds with knowledge of a misdeed. The New York Times piece, “It’s an Owner’s Scolding That Makes a ‘Guilty’ Dog”, covered Dr. Alexandra Horowitz's research into the “guilty look”. This research found that if you scold a dog, you could see “guilty” behaviors. Dr. Horowitz said that the results show that dogs have learned to act in a certain way in response to their owners’ behavior: "We’ve trained them that when they see us angry, they give us that guilty look. I’m not saying they don’t feel guilt," she added. "I can’t test that yet. But we generate the context that prompts them to produce this look"  And if you want to read more, visit Julie's Blog at: http://dogspies.blogspot.com/
 (Owner's Question) His name is Fritz, and he lived with one family for eight years. At the pound, we were told that they had a new baby and moved, and couldn't keep the dog with them, so dropped him off at the pound. We picked him up last Saturday, which was about a week after he'd been dropped off. He seems to have been well trained, because he is pretty good with sit, stay, and come, and also walks right at your side without tugging the leash too much when you walk him. I've been trying a couple of tricks on him, and got him to learn to lie down after about 5 minutes. However, there are two things we've noticed that concern us. First of all, a couple of days ago he snapped at my father in law and bit him on the finger. It was in the morning and my father-in-law had come by to drop off a car for us to borrow. I was in the bathroom, but my wife opened the door. He stepped in and leaned right over with both hands to pet Fritz. Fritz barked twice (he's never barked before) and bit him on the finger. He has never been with anyone other than my wife and I inside the apartment. Tonight, I was taking him for a walk, and a man with a yellow lab walked by. I held Fritz to the side and had him sit, because he's getting over kennel cough and I didn't want the other dog to get sick. I told the man this, and he held his dog aside and reached in with one hand to pat Fritz on the head. Fritz turned his head to the side, ducked down, and darted around behind me. We're not really sure why he acts like this around other people - even when we met him for the first time at the pound, he let us touch him and pet him right away. The other thing that's strange is that when he's in the house all he does is lie in his bed. He gets up to eat and if we call him over to pet him, but otherwise he just lies in the bed with kind of a sad look on his face. Do you think these two things are related? Is it possibly just because he's still confused about the big changes he's gone through recently? (Dapper Dog Training Response) Dear Fritz’s Owner, You have done a great thing by adopting a dog from a shelter. There are many, many homeless dogs out there that need homes – so thank you! Now, to get your question; when you get a dog from the shelter you admittedly take certain risks by adding a member to your family who has an unknown past. The largest risk you take is that your dog isn’t who he seems to be when you meet him at the shelter. There are a few reasons a shelter dog’s personality can change after you take him home. Whenever a dog moves homes, their personality can be withheld until they are surer of their surroundings. Then they come out of their shell. Usually a dog warms up to their surroundings within a few days or a week. For more shy dogs, or even abused dogs, this can take weeks or even months. It can also be too late for some. If you are meeting a shelter dog within the first week or two of their stay at the shelter, they are still likely getting used to their surroundings, and might not be presenting their true personality. Even aggressive dogs can withhold their aggression when they are not sure of their environment. At the same time, some aggressive dogs will always act out no matter where they are – these cases are usually seriously abused dogs that are extremely fearful of everyone around them. This is one of the reasons that shelter dogs should be given a Temperament Evaluation exam (by the shelter staff) within their first week at a shelter, because it will highlight the dog’s true issues even if they seem to be darling. Since many shelter dogs come from unknown pasts, they can have been abused, mistreated, ignored, deprived of food or attention, and/or exercise and stimulation – or maybe they were just too much work. If you are adopting a younger dog who has not been in a shelter very long, you have much more of a chance of rehabilitating their mental and physical being. If you are adopting an older dog who has a history of abuse, or a young dog that has been seriously abused, and has lived in a shelter a long time, this becomes much harder. In your case, there is one thing that stands out to me; the fact that your dog seems to be well-trained, and that your dog cowers when people try to pet him. Believe it or not, this could mean your dog was kept obedient by punishment-based training, and that he was abused to some degree (thus the cowering). Many dogs that are trained with corrective methods can become very seemingly compliant, when in fact they have just stopped being dogs in order to avoid being punished. Often times they sit whenever their owner says anything to them, because this is the only ‘safe’ thing to do. This could also explain why your dog lays down a lot. Because he does not want to get into trouble, he has stopped being adventurous. Or, he may have lost the interest in having fun with his owners because he may not think it is fun to interact with them. Your new family member needs time to develop trust with you. My advice is to take it very slowly with him and never let him think anyone is about to raise a hand to punish him. Let him approach people if they want to interact with him, and have them stand sideways when greeting him and advise them not to walk straight up to him and look directly into his eyes – this is challenging to him. You will have to be watchful of him with children since they usually flail their arms and this can be scary for any dog, especially a mistrustful one! And, this would be a key reason that a new baby would prompt him to be brought to a shelter. You may also find that he is very guarding of toys, food, or his bed area. This can happen to a lot of shelter dogs or dogs who come from homes where they were not given very many things to be their own or those things were taken away. He may think you are about to take away his toys, bed, or food when you walk by, so let him have his space with you. If you have any problems, please feel free to write back. Good luck!   Below is a video that really makes training out to be what is should: fun! Too many families and owners view training as a strain on their schedule. The only rule that everyone should understand is: The fastest way to train your dog is in fast spurts. Really! I promise. All it takes for 1 new trick is training for 2-3 times a day for 5-10 minutes. Your dog will learn the trick in the first few days. For the novice: remember to start off training a new trick with Low Distraction Level. That means no food strewn about the floor, no children playing next to the dog, and no loud sounds. And, try to train your dog when he has energy instead of right after a play session. Here are some tidbits of advice for those of you that seem to have the schedule right, but aren't getting the desired effects: 1) Make sure your dog is not distracted. If you can't remove the distractions then make the reward more interesting 2) Make sure your dog doesn't need to relieve himself 3) Vary the treats every time (how bored would you be if you had to eat the same food EVERY day for the same trick?) 4) Don't ask your dog to 'come' so he can train. Step into his space and work FAST to make it exciting. 5) When you start a session, pick up *just before* where you left off last time 6) Make sure to always end on a good note of success. If your dog makes a mistake, do something simple he already knows and then end the session. 7) Need I repeat? Low Distraction Level! That's all for now, these pieces of advice should get you far. They are my mantras. >>>>>>>>Link to YOUTUBE<<<<<<<<  |
Archives
January 2016
Categories
All
|
|
What Our Clients Have To Say"Jessica is great. Bindi's behavior has improved ten-fold in just a day. It's amazing."
- 'Bindi Rose' & Edwin |
"Where do I even start?! Jessica and Dapper Dog Training has been a huge help in Oski's development and training. Puppy class: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. " |
"Jessica knows her stuff. She's patient and articulate. We've recommended her to friends with new dogs, and will continue to do so. " |
RSS Feed