Simple Solution To Stop Your Dog From Getting Into Your Trash

September 23, 2016 by Fanna Easter

How to Stop Your Dog From Getting Into Your Trash

It will eventually happen—your dog will attempt to or actually raid your trash can. While it’s annoying and gross, it makes total sense from your dog’s perspective. It’s a buffet in there! Unfortunately, dogs don’t understand that eating trash can make them really sick. Check out these foolproof and easy tips to stop your dog from getting into your trash.

Purchase a Trash Can With a Heavy Lid

You can certainly spend hours teaching your dog to leave a trash can alone, or you can purchase a trash can with a heavy lid. Honestly, purchasing a lidded trash can is a quick and extremely effective solution. It’s not fancy, but it stops your dog from getting into your trash!

A Little Story About Management

Let me tell you a little story about managing a dog’s environment. Years ago, I arrived at a client’s home for a private lesson. Before I was hired, this client spent thousands of dollars trying to teach his yellow Lab not to chew remote controls, yet it continued to happen. During our first consultation, I sat quietly for 30 minutes while my client explained that nothing was working. Clearly, this client was upset and his poor Lab was totally confused.

Finally, my client asked, “How would you fix my dog?” This was my cue to chime in. I politely and delicately suggested placing all remote controls inside a lidded box and keeping the box on the coffee table.

There was a long pause, and I held my breath. Did I offend my client? He sat down and began to laugh. After another long pause, he said, “Wow, I never thought of that. That would work.” Whew, and from then on, all remote controls were safe and my client’s yellow Lab lived a very happy life. Plus, the issue was solved within an hour!

Choosing a Lidded Trash Can

This is the most important step. I recommend purchasing a trash can with a heavy lid. You can tell when a lid is heavy when there’s a clanging sound upon the closing of the lid. Not all trash can lids are the same. It’s best to choose a smooth-edged heavy lidded trash can. That way the trash can is securely sealed. Even a tiny lip can easily be opened by your dog’s nose.

Put the Trash Can in a Cabinet

Dogs are super smart. When dogs practice a behavior for a long time, they get really good at it. If your dog has learned how to lift a heavy trash can lid, knock it over to open it or bump it just right, then try this tip.

Place your trash can behind a bathroom or kitchen cabinet. If your dog knows how to open your kitchen cabinet, place child locks or straps to ensure cabinet doors remain closed. Now, I’ve only seen this happen a couple of times, and both times these dogs were completely bored and left alone all day.

Will This Really Stop My Dog?

Yes, using a heavy lidded trash can really does stop your dog from getting into your trash. Rarely am I able to make suggestions that work this quickly. By taking these preventative measures, your dog will stop getting into your trash can. Imagine if your ice maker stops producing ice. You’ll keep trying to get ice from it until you learn it’s no longer working. And if you decide not to fix your ice maker, you learn to adapt your life around it. 🙂 It’s that simple!

4 Tips To Make Working From Home With Dogs Easier

September 7, 2016 by Fanna Easter

Working From Home With Dogs

Working from home is amazing. I’m able to work while my dogs snore happily in the background or share a spot with me in my office chair. I’ve been lucky, as I’ve been working from home for 15 years now. Despite the convenience of a remote job, working from home with dogs can get a bit loud if you know what I mean. Here are four tips that will ensure peace and quiet during calls with the boss and your clients.

Go on a walk before work

For the most part, a tired dog is a good dog. Before your workday begins, take your dogs out for a 30-minute walk. Instead of walking swiftly, take your time and let your dogs sniff and see what “Facebook messages” were left in the grass by other dogs. Sniffing is wonderful mental enrichment, and it’s just as exhausting as walking quickly around your neighborhood or local park. Once home, make sure your dogs have plenty of fresh water available and start up your computer.

Keep your dogs quiet during conference calls

Working from home means you’re on the phone a lot, so it’s important to collaborate with co-workers on projects through individual phone chats and conference calls. During conference calls, I’m pretty good at figuring out which conference call attendees work from home too because I can hear their dogs barking in the background!

Here’s how to keep your dogs quiet while you’re on a conference call. About 5 minutes before a conference call, give each dog a frozen food stuffed toy and separate him or her. This way, they can enjoy their treats without squabbling. Log in to your conference call with confidence that your dogs are happily and quietly licking away at their frozen prizes, which is entertaining and completely exhausting too. Sure, the mute button is a godsend, but food stuffed toys are better! After your call, pick up each toy to refill after work.

Play midday outdoor games

When employees work from home, they usually skip lunch, or worse eat lunch while working. Take it from me, disengage with your computer and phone for 20 minutes and enjoy your lunch. After lunch, take another 10 minutes and sit outside with your dogs, play a game of fetch or even take a short stroll around your neighborhood. Again, a tired dog is a happy and quiet dog.

Toss treats when the doorbell rings

It never fails; the UPS man always happens to ring your doorbell while you’re on an important call with your boss. Be prepared during important calls by keeping a cup of dog kibble, treats or Cheerios on your desk. Bring your dogs inside your office with you and close the door. When the doorbell rings, toss those treats like confetti. It’s tough to bark at the doorbell while devouring scattered treats on the floor. Tossing treats as a distraction also teaches your dogs not to bark at the doorbell.

If solicitors are constantly ringing your doorbell, place a note on top of the doorbell that reads: “Please do not ring the doorbell or knock. I work the night shift.” Believe it or not, a note works very well. My mother was a night-shift nurse, and this little note ensured she slept soundly during the day.

May your workday be swift and filled with dog snores!

UP NEXT: Protecting Your Furniture From Dog Hair and Nails

How to Get Your Puppy Used to a Collar

August 22, 2016 by Fanna Easter

Training a Puppy to Wear a Collar in One Week

Puppy Doesn't Like His Collar — ChrisLeRoy/iStock

Puppies aren’t born wearing collars, so when a collar is first fastened around a puppy’s little neck, it can feel strange for her. Most puppies will bite, scratch, turn circles or refuse to walk while wearing a collar. This is totally normal behavior. As pet owners, it’s our job to train a puppy to wear a collar.

How to Teach Your Puppy to Wear a Collar

Once your puppy is home, it’s time to teach her that wearing a puppy training collar makes good things happen. Move slowly and reward your puppy often while she’s wearing a collar.

Choose the Right Puppy Collar

Puppies should wear an expandable flat buckle collar without tags at first. ID tags can be a bit distracting, as most puppies will mouth or paw at the dangling bits of metal clanging under their chins. They’re simply too distracting for an inquisitive puppy. After a week of your puppy successfully wearing her collar, then you can add ID tags.

Puppies, or all dogs really, shouldn’t wear choke chains, cloth slip collars or prong collars. They need a flat buckle collar. Harnesses are OK too, but make sure the straps don’t rub against your puppy’s skin, apply pressure to your puppy’s neck or restrict her movement.

Give Her a Food Stuffed Toy

Before introducing a collar or harness to your puppy, fill a toy with food and freeze overnight. Now, fasten your puppy’s collar in place and immediately give her the food stuffed toy to enjoy while she’s wearing her collar.

Once she’s emptied all the food from the toy, remove her collar and toy and place both up high, so she can’t reach it. Practice this several times a day. Feel free to stuff your puppy’s regular meals inside of a food toy for additional practice sessions. By pairing good things with the sensation of wearing a collar, your puppy learns that collars are harmless and pretty darn fun.

Puppy Doesn’t Like Her Collar?

If your puppy starts pawing or scratching her collar, distract her by playing a 1-2 minute game of “touch.” Distracting her without saying “stop” or “no” gives your puppy something else to do instead of worrying about the collar on her neck.

Learn how to teach the “touch” behavior in the video below. This dog training game is easy to teach and extremely useful in many different situations. The “touch” behavior is vital—so much so that it’s the first behavior I teach during dog training classes or private lessons.

WATCH: Teach Your Puppy the “Touch” Cue

https://youtu.be/d-spTywRXEo

Teach Collar Pressure = Treats

Once your puppy is completely comfortable with the sensation of a collar, it’s time to teach her that collar pressure makes treats happen. Collar pressure can cause a puppy to freak out because she may not be used to feeling pressure against her neck, which limits her movement.

Collars can scare puppies so much that they will usually hop, buck, or “pancake” on the ground and refuse to move forward. If this happens, immediately stop the pressure by walking over to your puppy or letting go of her collar, and practice the collar pressure game.

When teaching collar pressure, you’re not pulling against your puppy. Instead, you’re holding your puppy’s collar in place while your puppy pulls against it. The moment your puppy stops pulling against the collar, you click and reward your puppy.

Pulling against pressure is a natural reaction to restraint; it’s called opposition reflex. Your goal is to teach your puppy to move with pressure. This is the first step when teaching loose leashing walking and teaching your dog to walk with you while touching her collar. Plus, every time your puppy pulls against her collar, it increases her chances of injury in her neck area.

Practice this dog training behavior several times a day with super yummy treats. If your puppy balks when you reach for her collar, take a step back and teach her that collar touches are a good thing.

WATCH: Dog Training Tip: Teach Collar Pressure

https://youtu.be/I39BE4xOnLY

Attach a Leash

Always teach your puppy how to wear a collar first, then master the collar pressure game before attaching a leash to her collar. On average, it takes about a week for a puppy to feel comfortable wearing a collar and respond well to collar pressure. Attaching a leash to your puppy’s collar is a completely different lesson. Check out this article on teaching a puppy to walk on leash for additional details.

Puppies are tiny little sponges. Take advantage and teach them that the world is full of fun!

What to Do When Your Puppy Won’t Walk on Leash

August 15, 2016 by Fanna Easter

How to Teach a Puppy to Walk on Leash

Puppies refusing to walk on leash is an extremely common behavior. Walking with restricted movement due to a leash is unnatural for dogs, so we as pet owners should positively teach puppies and dogs that walking on leash is a good thing.

So many times, we snap a leash onto a puppy’s collar and take off walking, but the puppy becomes confused and tries running the opposite direction or refuses to walk. They flatten themselves onto the ground like a pancake. When we continue to pull on the leash, it causes the dog to panic. If you combine this scary scenario with a highly distracting environment, such as the park, neighborhood or vet’s office, or continue to pull on your confused puppy’s leash, you’ll teach your puppy that leashes make scary things happen.

Now, let’s start on the right paw and discuss how to teach a puppy to walk on leash. 🙂 Dog leashes are basically a safety line that keeps pets safe. They should never be used for jerking, yanking or any other type of punishment.

Leash Training a Puppy Tips

Teaching a puppy to walk on leash is pretty easy. You’ll need lots of super yummy treats, a body harness, and a six-foot nylon or cotton leash.

There are a few steps on teaching this dog behavior, so take your time and teach your puppy each step thoroughly before moving on. If your puppy or dog becomes confused, take a step or two back until your puppy is comfortable again. Understand, it’s completely normal to take a few steps backwards before moving forward again; it’s part of the learning process. I’m sure you painfully remember learning a foreign language or algebra at one point. 🙂

Also, it’s important to teach this behavior before attaching a leash to your puppy. Plan ahead and teach this puppy training skill before vet visits or walks around the neighborhood.

Step One: Introduce the Leash

Goal: Teach your puppy that leashes are positive things and leashes make treats happen.

With your dog indoors, sit on the floor and put your puppy’s leash on the floor in front of you. Whenever your puppy looks at the leash, click and give your dog a treat. If your puppy stays next to the leash (that’s a good thing), toss a treat in the opposite direction of the leash (e.g. toss treat across the room). That way your puppy must approach the leash for another click and treat. Play this game for a minute or two, then pick up the leash and put it in a location where your puppy can’t see it.

Practice this step 2-3 times per day for 3 days. By then, your puppy will run toward the leash whenever you bring it out.

Step Two: Fun Happens While Wearing a Leash

Goal: Puppy is comfortable with a leash attached to his harness or collar.

For this step, I’ll assume your puppy is already comfortable wearing a harness or flat collar. If not, take a moment and teach your dog that wearing a harness/collar is a good thing before completing this step.

Fill an interactive toy with food and freeze overnight. Now, attach a leash to your dog’s harness and let your dog drag it around the house for a bit. To make this experience positive and to keep a puppy from chewing on the leash, give your dog a frozen food stuffed toy to enjoy while wearing and dragging his leash around the house.

Once your dog has finished his food stuffed toy, remove the leash and put it away. Practice this game several times a day. You can certainly fill interactive toys with your dog’s daily meals for more leashes-make-fun-things-happen moments.

Remember, you’re not holding the other end of the leash. Your dog is learning that attached leashes are harmless and make good things appear like food stuffed toys. Practice for 3-4 days before moving onto the next step.

Step Three: Hold Other End of Leash

Goal: Puppy learns that leash pressure is fun.

By now, your dog has learned that fun things happen when a leash is present, so it’s time to hold the other end of the leash. This is the part that usually freaks some puppies out. They’re not used to limited mobility caused by leash restraint, so they pull, buck or lie flat on the ground. Teach your puppy or dog that collar pressure is a good thing by watching the video below.

WATCH: Teaching Collar Pressure

https://youtu.be/I39BE4xOnLY

Treats = Leash Pressure

You’ll need a handful of super yummy treats and a clicker. Attach the leash to your puppy’s harness and hold the leash handle in one hand. Lure your puppy around with a treat while holding the leash, and give him the treat. You’ll notice your puppy pulling ahead or lagging behind. Call your puppy to you and reward with many dog treats. Practice for 1-2 minutes and end the dog training session.

If your puppy freaks out when he feels leash tension, don’t pull the leash toward you. Instead, move toward your dog to release the pressure. Once your puppy is completely comfortable walking on a leash, you can then teach him how to walk politely on leash. Remember, crawl before walking. 🙂

Practice this step for 3-4 days and make a game out of it. Reward your puppy often like every 10-20 seconds.

Step Four: Walk on Leash Outdoors

Goal: Puppy learns how to walk on leash outdoors.

By now, your puppy should be completely comfortable walking on leash indoors, so it’s time to take leash walking outside. Practice luring and holding the other end of the leash in your backyard for several days—you’re not ready for walks in the neighborhood just yet.

You’ll notice your puppy becoming a bit more distracted, so he’ll probably feel more leash resistance while in the backyard due to him lunging toward squirrels or watching neighbors walk by. When your dog pulls, stand still and reward your dog the moment you feel less pressure on the leash. I recommend tossing a few treats in front of your feet, so your dog returns to you for rewards.

Once your puppy will walk around your backyard on leash comfortably, then you can try walking in your neighborhood.

Make walking on leash fun for your puppy, so he learns that fun things happen when leashes are present no matter where you are.

The Ultimate Dog Training Reward For Your Dog

August 8, 2016 by Fanna Easter

Dog Training Rewards Don’t Always Have to Be Food

Rewards are a vital part of dog training; they’re basically your dog’s paycheck for a job well done. Dogs must be rewarded whenever they choose to perform a desired behavior. Giving your dog a reward tells your dog he’s on the right track and to keep doing the rewarded behavior.

Dogs must choose their own rewards. Since each dog is different, he will find certain foods, toys and games more rewarding than others. Finding a dog’s ultimate reward isn’t always easy, but once discovered it makes learning new dog behaviors quick and fun. Finding a dog’s ultimate reward is so important that I ask pet owners this question during our first dog training session. So here it goes: what does your dog love more than anything?

Dog Training Rewards

Food Rewards

All dogs love food—even picky ones. It’s our job to experiment and find food rewards that will cause our dogs to drool, dance, offer a sit behavior or climb countertops to get to their favorite food rewards.

Dogs like fresh food. The more moisture a dog training treat contains, the better. High percentages of moisture make the treat smell stronger, and you can never go wrong with meat foods. When looking for your dog’s ultimate reward, don’t limit yourself to certain types of food. Try a variety of moist foods, such as:

Baked chicken (if you’re in a hurry, try store-bought rotisserie chicken)
Canned sausages (Vienna sausages)
Roast beef lunch meat
Cheese chunks
Tuna fish (tuna fish pouches work best)
Hot dogs

Toy Rewards

Many years ago, I remember watching a dog working for food treats during a dog training session, but he was missing that “Oh my gosh, I got it right!” excitement. Hmm, I asked the pet owner what his dog loved most in the world and he said, “Catching a tennis ball.”

I asked him to bring a tennis ball to class next week and keep it in his bait bag. The following week, whenever his dog chose to sit, down, heel, leave it or whatever, he would take out the tennis ball and play a game of “toss and catch the tennis ball” for a few seconds. Wow! A tennis ball was this dog’s ultimate reward and, from that moment on, this darling dog learned quickly.

If your dog enjoys toys more so than food rewards, try using a toy as a reward. Some dogs love to chase a ball, bite a squeaky toy or pull on a tug toy, so experiment with different toys and games. When my Rottweiler was introduced to an underwater treadmill for physical rehabilitation after having his ACL repaired, he worked for food, but still disliked the treadmill.

One day, our physical therapist brought out a yellow tennis ball and Sobek smiled with glee. He totally enjoyed mouthing and holding a tennis ball in his mouth while walking in a tank filled with water. I was left scratching my head, but it didn’t matter. We finally found Sobek’s ultimate reward for this situation. Oh, and it helped tremendously that tennis balls float in water. 🙂

A Bit About Praise

Back in the dark ages (or the ’80s), dogs were only rewarded with praise. It was thought that food was bribery back then. Now that we know better, food rewards are an important part of a dog’s learning process. Eventually, praise fizzled out as a reward.

Honestly, I cringe when someone still says his dog only works for praise. I don’t completely buy it. I’ve worked with dog training clients who swear their dogs work for praise as a reward and it seemed effective in the beginning, but fizzled out when making the decision to perform the desired behavior became harder. If you believe your dog works for only praise, you should try other dog training rewards. You might be shocked at your dog’s decision.

Praise is good as a reward, but it shouldn’t be the only reward. Think of praise as the icing on a cake—it works best when paired with food or toy rewards. We all love praise. It’s nice being verbally recognized by your boss, but you still need your paycheck, right? It’s the same for your dog.

Use praise as a maximizer for food or toy rewards, and use praise during breakthrough or difficult decision-making moments. Oh, and praise shouldn’t be limited to pats and “atta boy.” You need to have a party! Clap, jump, sing, make smoochie sounds, say “puppy, puppy, puppy,” pat your dog quickly and smile! Dogs love high-pitched, rapidly repeating sounds. Make praise count.

Ultimate Rewards Can Change

This is totally true! Your dog may love spoonfuls of peanut butter, but suddenly a floating tennis ball becomes an object of desire during a certain moment. It happens. Don’t assume you’ve chosen the wrong dog training reward. Embrace your dog’s newfound love and use it as a reward.

Reward your dog often, and reward yourself too!