Building an At-Home Dog Agility Course

August 4, 2016 by Fanna Easter

How to DIY Dog Agility Equipment

It’s super simple to create your own dog agility equipment for your home. All you’ll need is your imagination, a few PVC pipes, broom sticks, laundry baskets, lots of super yummy treats and your dog. If you’re not the handy type, you can certainly purchase dog agility equipment. However, DIYing your own agility equipment for dogs is super fun. 🙂

Dog Agility Training

Dog agility has been around for years, and it’s a blast! Both handler and dog must complete a dog agility course in the shortest amount of time without knocking over any equipment. The handler points her dog in the right direction, and the dog soars over, under and through agility obstacles in seconds. It’s amazing to watch, participate and teach. I look forward to teaching dog agility classes every week!

Great for Shy Dogs

While agility is a super fun and active sport, it’s also great for timid or shy dogs that need to build confidence. When a timid dog is able to have fun crawling through an enclosed dog tunnel, his life changes for the better! He learns that things really aren’t as scary as they seem. The timid ones eventually soar through the agility course alongside the gregarious dogs!

Popular Dog Agility Equipment

For the most part, dog agility requires a few standard obstacles, depending on a dog’s skill level. It’s important to keep things super simple in the beginning until your dog builds confidence and is comfortable enough to walk on obstacles off the ground. I recommend the following dog agility equipment.

Just as a reminder, make sure all dog obstacles are on a non-skid and soft surface, such as grass. For indoor versions, you should add soft rubber non-skid rugs on both sides of or under an obstacle.

Jumps

Easily the funniest part of dog agility training and one of the most popular parts of dog agility equipment are jumps. Everyone enjoys watching her dog fly over jumps. There are so many different types of jumps, and most can be made with everyday household items.

How to Create Jumps

If you’re on a budget, you can purchase two plastic laundry baskets with multiple holes on all sides and a broom. Push the broom through both laundry baskets, and move both baskets toward the end of the broom. Voila, you have a jump! Always start on the lowest level (i.e. broom stick on the ground). Once your dog aces jumping over a low broom handle, you can move the broom up gradually.

Never force a dog over a jump. It’s important your dog learns how to jump over an agility jump on his own. Try tossing a treat over the jump, so your dog is forced to walk over the broom to get the treat. If your dog goes around the jump (smart dog!), try luring him over the jump with a treat. Additionally, while we want to challenge our dogs, always keep safety and your dog’s abilities in mind.

Ladder/Cavalletti

An agility ladder is a bit different than a regular ladder in that it’s placed flat on the ground instead of against a wall. By placing a ladder on the ground, your dog learns to pick up his feet as he walks over each rung. For this dog obstacle, you can use a regular ladder placed on a soft non-skid area.

Cavalletti refers to single pole jumps that are slightly off the ground. It’s a common term in the horse world.

How to Create a Ladder

If you want to get super fancy and raise the height of a ladder rung for cavalletti, create an agility ladder with PVC piping. You can also use the above jump idea as inspiration by purchasing 10 laundry baskets and 5 wooden poles (or brooms), and set them up as a jump.

Move the jumps close together with a six-inch or one-foot gap between each jump (larger gap for bigger dogs). Always start with the poles on the ground. Once your dog progresses, move the poles up the laundry baskets in small increments. Don’t forget to lure your dog over each rung. Better yet, place one treat between each rung. This will slow your dog down, so he doesn’t walk on the rungs instead. 🙂

Dog Tunnels

I’ve never figured out how to make a DIY dog agility tunnel that lasts more than a few sessions, so I recommend purchasing an agility tunnel. Once your dog becomes addicted to running full blast through a tunnel, a DIY or cheap option will shred in minutes.

High-quality dog tunnels usually cost more than $100. These are made of super durable material, can expand from short to long and can take a beating. If cost is an issue, the HDP 18-Ft Dog Agility Training Open Tunnel is a great buy for under $40. It can be purchased on Amazon. Just make sure to shorten the tunnel when teaching your dog to go through it.

Dog Tunnel Training Tips

Teaching your dog to walk through a tunnel can be tricky. When dogs balk at agility equipment during class, it’s usually the tunnel. Please, never force your dog through a tunnel. Shorten the tunnel and grab lots of yummy treats. Toss treats through the tunnel, so that your dog must step through it to eat the treats.

You can also ask a friend to stand on the other side of the tunnel opening and call your dog through it. Expand the tunnel in small increments once your dog willingly and happily walks through the tunnel.

Where to Store

A dog agility tunnel is super addicting! When not in use, fold the tunnel up and store in an area where your dog is unable to reach. Trust me, if you keep a dog tunnel available in your backyard at all times, your dog will likely be running through the tunnel instead of pottying. As for indoor tunnels, I leave ours out in the formal dining room (that’s what formal dining rooms are for, right?). We were woken up by the sound of our dog gleefully running in and out of the tunnel at midnight. 🙂

Dog agility is fun and very addicting—I’m just warning you!

4 Kong Stuffing Tips to Make Your Life Easier

July 14, 2016 by Fanna Easter

How to Stuff a Kong the Easy Way

Food stuffed interactive toys, such as Kong dog toys, are frozen miracles of love wrapped with a sweetly exhausted dog! If you’ve never given your dog a food stuffed Kong, you’re missing a wonderful opportunity to provide mental enrichment, which wears your dog out.

For those who have used Kongs before, you know stuffing them can be a bit challenging. If you’ve ever tried stuffing peanut butter inside a Kong toy with a butter knife, you know the struggle is real. To make this process much easier and quicker for pet owners, I’ll share my four tips to teach you how to stuff a Kong within minutes.

1. Use a Muffin Pan

Once a week, I gather up all of my dogs’ Kongs and stuff them with food. Filling each dog toy individually is such a waste of time, and it gets so dang messy.

Giving credit where it’s due, my husband pulled out an old muffin pan and placed a toy in each hole. He literally made an instant Kong dog toy holder! Good job hubby! Click and treat! 😉

Once each toy is lined up in a muffin pan, I squeeze or stuff food with ease. The best part is there’s minimal mess! Aside from using it as a Kong holder, you can also use a muffin pan to freeze leaky food stuffed toys. Just carefully place the muffin pan on a flat surface with the food stuffed Kongs in your freezer and voila!

2. Glue With Peanut Butter

Let’s chat about leaky food stuffed toys for a minute. Leaky food stuffed toys make a mess in your refrigerator, freezer and even your favorite rug. An easy way to prevent the food from leaking is to plug the holes with peanut butter.

Serving as an adhesive, peanut butter can prevent watery ingredients from leaking out. When stuffing a Kong with watermelon or broth, plug the hole with peanut butter and freeze for 2 hours. Then, stuff the moist foods into the toy. Freezing the Kong before stuffing it with moist food will allow the peanut butter to set, so all those lovely sticky ingredients remain inside the toy.

3. Make Your Own Pastry Bag

Stuffing Kong dog toys with pumpkin, mashed sweet potatoes, canned dog food, yogurt or soaked dehydrated dog food is difficult. It’s almost impossible to slowly spoon this wet stuff inside a toy. Save valuable assembly and cleanup time by making your own pastry bag.

To make a pastry bag:

Place the food stuffing ingredients inside a plastic zip bag.
Squeeze the mixture toward one corner of the bag.
Snip off the tip.
Squeeze food stuffing into the toy.

You can make large batches of stuffing and pipe these mixtures into 20 Kongs within 5 minutes—yes, I’ve timed it! 🙂

4. Soak and Wash Kongs

In my opinion, the worst part of giving food stuffed toys to my dogs is cleaning them. Cleaning Kongs can take forever. Instead of scraping out leftover food residue with a butter knife, I throw all toys into a sink filled with hot water and dishwashing detergent, and let them soak overnight. The next morning, I place each toy on the top rack of my dishwasher and wash with my dishes.

Afterwards, each Kong is clean as a whistle, disinfected and ready to be stuffed again. Now, I would only place rubber Kong toys in the dishwasher; I don’t believe plastic ones would fair so well.

Don’t wait. Give your dog a food stuffed Kong today! Your dog will love you for it!

Leaving Your Dog Home Alone? Try These Tips

July 13, 2016 by Fanna Easter

3 Ways to Keep Home Alone Dogs Entertained

As pet owners, we feel guilty when we leave our dogs home alone all day. Whenever I leave for work and I’m shutting the door behind me, my heart sinks to the floor because I hope my home alone dogs won’t be bored. Just to make sure they’re entertained while I’m away, I leave food stuffed toys and puzzles behind for them. I also enlist help from a pet sitter when my dogs are left alone for more than 4 hours. Check out these three tips that will keep your home alone dog busy while you’re away!

Provide Food Stuffed Toys

Food stuffed toys are a miracle; I can’t say this enough. I purchased rubber Kong toys online several years ago and ever since I’ve been filling them with food and storing them in the freezer every week. Before leaving for work, I toss a frozen food stuffed Kong in each dog’s crate. A frozen food stuffed dog toy will keep my home alone dogs busy for at least an hour. These durable rubber toys are pretty safe to leave with them unattended. Over time, my dogs have learned it’s a good thing when I leave for work because it means a frozen interactive toy.

When purchasing Kong toys, choose a black Extreme Kong for powerful chewers or a Classic Red Kong for normal chewers. As for size, check out Kong’s size recommendations, which lists sizes based on your dog’s breed and weight. When in doubt, choose one size larger, especially for powerful chewers.

Use a Kibble Dispensing Toy

This is another amazing dog toy and a must-have if your dog eats kibble (dry dog food). Your dog will need plenty of space when playing with a kibble dispensing toy because she needs to move the toy around to dispense food.

It’s always best to teach your dog how to use a kibble dispensing toy first before leaving her home alone with it. To do this, pour her evening meals inside the toy and encourage her as she bops it around. Once she confidently and happily pushes the toy around with her paws or nose, and hasn’t tried to chew it, you can leave your dog home alone with it. Pour your dog’s breakfast inside a kibble dispensing toy and place it on the ground before leaving for work.

I’ve had excellent results with Kong’s Wobbler (small or large) and Buster Cube kibble dispensing toys. These toys aren’t indestructible though. We’ve had to replace them several times due to gashes and cracks caused by my dogs tossing the toys across hard tile.

My dogs are very tough on toys, so a Wobbler will last about a year with everyday use and a Buster Cube will last a couple of years (this toy is super strong). Several of my clients swear their dogs absolutely love their Tug-A-Jug toy. With this toy, a dog must tug on the rope to dispense treats from inside the “jug.” It’s quite a challenging toy. We don’t use Tug-A-Jug toys in our home anymore because my dogs bashed a huge hole in our wall from slinging the toy in mid air and chewing the rope to pieces.

You may also be interested in: Indestructible Dog Toys (Well, Almost)

Hire a Mid Day Pet Sitter

If you’re gone for more than 4-6 hours at a time, I highly recommend paying a professional pet sitter to visit and potty your dogs mid day. During a typical visit, pet sitters will spend at least 30 minutes playing, walking and pottying your dog while you’re away. Honestly, I think asking a dog to hold it for longer than 4 hours is asking a lot. Your home alone dog needs to get out and stretch her legs, and of course potty. Plus, your pet sitter can refill your dog’s kibble dispensing toy or toss another frozen Kong in her crate for even more fun. I think all of that is easily worth $15-$20 per visit.

A Few Cautions for Your Home Alone Dogs

Never leave two or more home alone dogs with food stuffed toys because even the sweetest dogs will fight over food. If you choose to give two dogs food stuffed toys, you should toss them in your dogs’ crates, and then close and lock the crate doors. If you’re leaving two or more dogs home alone with kibble dispensing toys, which require room to make the toy work, then I recommend keeping each dog in a separate room with closed doors. For dogs left loose in your home, you should separate them with super sturdy safety gates.

Lastly, please don’t leave dogs alone in your backyard because it’s not safe. Your neighbors could complain, your dogs could be stolen or your dogs could learn to escape your yard. It’s not worth it, so keep your dogs indoors when they’re home alone.

Summertime Dog Food Recipes for Interactive Toys

July 5, 2016 by Fanna Easter

Homemade Dog Food Recipes: Summer Edition

Are you looking for fresh and healthy dog food recipes to stuff in interactive toys? I’ve been experimenting lately, and I found a few cool recipes your dogs will love—just in time for summer. These frozen dog treats will taste fabulous, as they include fresh ingredients. In addition, stuffing these recipes into your favorite interactive dog toy will provide your dog much-needed mental enrichment.

Summer Dog Food Recipes

Sweet Potatoes, Molasses & Pears

Start with oven-roasted sweet potatoes, fresh pears, blackstrap molasses and your dog’s favorite interactive toy. No one likes to eat raw sweet potatoes, so peel and dice sweet potatoes into one-inch chunks. Cook them in the oven at 350 degrees until each chunk is completely soft in the center. Chop fresh pears into thick-cut French fry slivers and set aside.

Now, toss a few sweet potato chunks into the bottom of your dog’s toy. This will prevent other ingredients from leaking out. If your dog solves food puzzles quickly, smash the sweet potato inside the toy with your finger, which will make the food puzzle last a bit longer. Once the potatoes are in, drizzle blackstrap molasses over the potatoes; use it sparingly or it’ll leak out of the bottom. For the final layer, shove two to three slivers of pear inside the toy, so that pear ends stick out for easy snacking. Pop into your freezer overnight and voila—a healthy frozen dog treat!

Watermelon & Honey

At the grocery store, grab a container of rindless, seedless watermelon that’s been cut into large chunks and a bottle of honey. When selecting honey, I choose locally grown raw honey that’s in a squeezable bottle. It’ll make filling dog toys much easier.

Once home, gather your dog’s interactive toys and start filling with watermelon chunks. If your dog solves puzzles quickly, smash the watermelon inside the toy. Smashed watermelon will leak, so plug holes with peanut butter (it’s an excellent edible glue). Once all toys are filled with watermelon, drizzle honey on top.

To make this dog food puzzle even harder to empty, layer smashed watermelon, honey and smashed watermelon until the toy is filled. Freeze overnight, and give as treats throughout the day. Make sure your dog has plenty of potty breaks. Your dog will need to potty about 30 minutes after eating a watermelon stuffed toy. 🙂

Yogurt, Oatmeal & Blueberries

For this recipe, I recommend using plain low-fat yogurt, cooked oatmeal and fresh blueberries. This is a layered food stuffed toy recipe, which means you can creatively layer many different ways. I recommend placing yogurt at the bottom of the dog toy because you can easily clean up any residue left behind. For my dogs, I start with yogurt as the first layer, add a few blueberries for the second layer and add cooked oatmeal for the final layer with blueberries on top. If your dog’s unable to digest dairy, substitute with smashed bananas or canned pumpkin. Freeze overnight and serve as needed.

Fresh food is healthy for dogs, and you’ll notice it’s low in fat too. For dogs watching their waistlines, simply add less food in each toy. Happy summer!

Bubbles For Dogs: A Great Summer Game

June 7, 2016 by Fanna Easter

Dog Bubbles to Save Your Summer

Who doesn’t love bubbles? I mean they’re fun to watch form through the bubble wand, peaceful to watch float through the air and so enjoyable to pop. Oh, and dogs love to play with bubbles too. If you and your dog have never played with flavored dog bubbles before, you’re missing out!

Choosing Bubbles for Dogs

When choosing dog bubbles, select bubble formulas specially made for pets. Most commonly found bubbles are made for children and they contain toxic ingredients that can be harmful to your dog, especially since dogs pop bubbles with their mouths. Most dog bubbles are scented with bacon or peanut butter, which entices most dogs to chase, play, bounce and pop all visible bubbles. And yes, dog bubbles are highly scented, so expect to smell like bacon afterwards. 🙂

IncrediBubbles by Pet Qwerks

By far, IncrediBubbles are our favorite non-toxic bubbles for dogs! These flavored bubbles will stay intact longer than other bubble brands, so bubbles will land on the ground (stick on the side of furniture or even land on your dog) and not pop. They work perfectly for dogs that love to pounce on and pop bubbles instead of chasing them. One drawback about this brand of bubbles is that the solution is thicker than most other brands, so it can get a tad messy. However, it’s an easy cleanup with a wet rag. You’ll probably need to wipe or brush your dog’s face afterwards too. The mess is worth the fun though!

Bubble Machines for Dogs

If your dog is addicted to bubbles, then a bubble machine for dogs just might keep up with your bubble-obsessed dog’s demand. There are several bubble machines to choose from; some can be placed on the ground and others are handheld. One thing all bubble machines have in common is that they’ll produce a lot of bubbles quickly, so expect to refill the reservoir often. Now, if your bubble-loving pooch hovers over the bubble machine placed on the ground—hey, it happens—place the bubble machine on a sturdy stool or counter, so bubbles can float away from the machine to keep the game going. If your dog still hovers, then a handheld bubble machine is probably best.

DIY Homemade Dog Bubbles

There are many non-toxic homemade dog bubble recipes floating around online, but I haven’t had the best luck with them. When blowing homemade bubbles, I’d notice the majority of bubbles would burst as I blew through the wand or shortly afterwards. Now, I’m not a pro in the kitchen, so it could very well be an “operator issue.” Making homemade flavored bubbles for dogs can be a fun project for children; just make sure the recipe states it’s non-toxic for dogs.

Playing Bubble Games

Grab your chosen pet-friendly bubbles and your dog, and start playing bubble games on a non-skid surface. If this is your dog’s first time playing the bubble game, bend down and slowly blow a few bubbles away from your dog, so the bubbles are at your dog’s chest level. For very small dogs, have a seat on the ground and blow a few bubbles at first. Refrain from showering your dog with bubbles. This can creep out most dogs, so move slowly in the beginning.

The first time your dog sees bubbles, a couple of things can happen. Either your dog will be a bit confused and walk away or your dog will immediately pounce on them. If your dog hesitates, encourage him to play with the bubbles. Holding a bubble in your hand for your dog to investigate could help too. Just remember, it’s a game and not all dogs are excited about bubbles bursting in their faces. If your dog dislikes the game, no worries, let him scamper inside or into another room while you blow bubbles for your own enjoyment.

Bubble games are a wonderful way for children to play with dogs. There’s no physical contact, and dogs learn children make good things happen. If your dog stands too close to a child (or you) blowing bubbles, then only blow bubbles when your dog moves back from you. Trust me, your dog will quickly learn that standing a certain distance from you makes bubbles happen.

This is a great indoor or outdoor game for dogs, and very entertaining for both pet owner and dog!