Archive for the 'Training Tip' Category

Gardening With Dogs Part II

Published on July 30, 2010 in Dogs, Garden Tip and Training Tip. 1 Comment

You can have a nice garden and have dogs at the same time.  It takes a little work, some clicker training, & consistency, but it’s so worth it.  Imagine not constantly telling your dog “No”, not having a yard full of holes, or having your flower beds turned into dog beds.

Check out these really good suggestions for how you can train your dog not to garden.

You can bolster your training by employing these easy tips for keeping pets out of your flower beds.

Here are more great ideas on gardening with dogs. And check out what will be your garden’s best friend—the doggy digging pit!

Training Tip: “Go See Jane”

Published on May 18, 2010 in Dogs and Training Tip. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

One of the first things we taught Saffron when we got her was “Go see Sarah” & “Go see ‘Mr. Fire’”.

(‘Mr. Fire’ probably needs some explanation.  I asked my husband how he would like to be referred to in my blog.  I had already vetoed ‘The Husband’ & ‘The S.O.’  He shot down ‘Mr. PetProject’ and ‘Mr. P.I.C.’ (Mr. Partner In Crime).  I then suggested ‘Mr. McBurny’ and he piped up with “Call me ‘Flame’!”  Really?  “Yes, call me ‘Flame’ or maybe ‘Mr. Flame’.”  ‘Mr. Flame’ sounds like you’re flamey in a gay way, and though there’s nothing wrong with being flamey in a gay way it might confuse readers who know I’m a female married to a male.  [At this point I'm tempted to look at why, semantically speaking, adding 'Mr.' to 'Flame' makes it sound flamey in a gay way, but then I'll really have digressed from what is supposed to be a post about a dog training tip.]  ‘Flame’ was his choice because lately he has really gotten into making biofuel stoves. In the evening, we’ll be hanging out on the couch and he’ll say, “I’m going to go burn stuff.”  To which I reply, “Okay, let the dog come if she wants.”  So he’ll be out there in the dark with a head lamp testing new stove designs.  Sometimes I get a call that I should come check out the awesome flame. So I tried to write this post using ‘Flame’, but I just couldn’t do it.  Because of the nature of this post, I had to keep writing Flame-this & Flame-that.  So I asked if he really wanted to be known in perpetuity as ‘Flame’, to which he conceded perhaps he did not.  Thankfully we settled on ‘Mr. Fire’, which is somehow a little more dignified, though I have no idea why.)

So, if you’re still with me, back to the training tip!  Here’s why you might want to teach your dog “Go See Jane”:

  • it’s a good way to start teaching “Come”
  • it’s a good way to start teaching “Find It”
  • it’s a great for exercising your dog
  • it’s super handy for redirecting a bothersome pup


How to do “Go See Jane!”:

  1. you need at least 2 people & some good treats
  2. person ‘A’ (me Sarah) stays in one room with the dog while person ‘B’  (Mr. Fire) goes to another room within hearing distance of Sarah
  3. Sarah says, “Go see Mr. Fire!” and Mr. Fire immediately calls the dog to come & gives a treat when the dog comes
  4. then Mr. Fire says, “Go see Sarah!” and Sarah immediately calls the dog to come & gives a treat when the dog comes
  5. repeat, and reinforce by doing it every few days at random times
  6. the dog learns “Go See Jane” and gets reinforcement for “Come!”, of course you need to work on “Come!” by itself to have a good recall.


“Go Find Jane!” variation once your dog knows “Go See Jane!”:

  1. you still need 2 people & some treats
  2. Sarah stays in one room with the dog, while Mr. Fire goes & hides somewhere in the house, but not too hard a spot to start out with.  The dog needs to succeed in order to learn what “Find it!” means.
  3. don’t let the dog leave the room until you say, “Go find Mr. Fire!
  4. Mr. Fire stays very quiet in this version.
  5. if the dog doesn’t find Mr. Fire quickly, Mr. Fire makes a little noise to give the dog a hint.  Give treats when the dog comes.
  6. then Mr. Fire says, “Go find Sarah!”.  From then on each person find a new place to hide.
  7. repeat, and reinforce by doing it every few days at random times

We use both of these commands at the dog park to make sure Saffron gets some good exercise in.  She LOVES running from one of us to the other, especially if we hide.  I use it to redirect Saffron when she’s bugging me while I’m working.  And we find it very useful when we have guests—we just tell our guest to send Saffron to one of us if she’s bothering them.  Very handy!

Training Tips: Fearful Dogs Part I

Published on March 3, 2010 in Dogs and Training Tip. 0 Comments

Lately I’ve been bombarded with bad examples of people dealing with fearful dogs and it’s left me feeling pretty crappy.  My dog, Saffron, is an anxious dog and if I’d used the “techniques” I’ve been seeing, I would have ended up with a basket-case of a dog who couldn’t leave the house.  So, to exorcise these sad examples, I’m going to offer some alternatives to what I’ve seen.

The first example is a group of people and about 15 dogs at the dog park who are gathered together so the humans can chat.  The humans aren’t paying attention to the dogs.  There’s a fair bit of roughhousing & vocalizing going on with the dogs, but nothing excessive.  An elderly Italian Greyhound on the edge of the group near her human is clumsily & boisterously approached by a Great Dane puppy.  The puppy is taller than the elderly dog and easily weighs twice as much.  The elderly dog lifts her lip and then barks & snaps at the puppy.  The puppy gets the message and backs off.

The humans, on the other hand, don’t get the message.  The elderly dog’s owner scolds her and then pins her on her side amidst the swarm of dogs.  Another person picks up the Great Dane puppy and forces it in the face of the pinned Italian Greyhound.  Then the elderly dog’s owner calls all the dogs to come sniff the pinned dog.  The pinned dog’s response is to offer the only appeasement she is able to in this position which is a weak little tail-whap on the ground.  Pitiful.

In this instance, the dogs had already taken care of the problem.  The elderly dog told the puppy to back off, and the puppy did just that.  What the humans did messed everything up:

  1. Pinning the elderly dog who already felt vulnerable is probably only going to exacerbate her wariness of other dogs.
  2. I think it also erodes the connection between the dog and her human.  Instead of being someone safe, her human is now another cause of anxiety.
  3. It teaches the other dogs that when a dog is in distress & vulnerable, it’s okay and desirable that they exploit the situation.
  4. I think it teaches the Great Dane puppy that getting picked up by a human means she might get put it a scary position (like being pushed in the face of elderly dog who had clearly said to “piss off”.)  None of these are good things.

So what could the humans have done differently?  A ton of things!

  1. Before they ever left the house, the owners of the elderly Italian Greyhound should have asked themselves if their dog should even go to the dog park.  Is she feeling frail, too vulnerable, too tired?
  2. Since they decided to take her, they then should ask themselves what she wants to do at the park?  Some dogs like to wander around sniffing things, others love to play, some just want to play fetch.  I think there were clues the elderly dog didn’t want to be in a group of rambunctious dogs and was generally uneasy.  She was standing at the edge of the group and near her human—not joining in at all, but also not going off on her own.
  3. I think her human should have moved off from the group some to give her a break.  Simply by not being in the thick of things, the Italian Greyhound might have relaxed enough that an obnoxious, huge puppy wouldn’t have worried her as much.  But they didn’t, and the elderly dog had to issue her stern warning to the puppy to back off.

What should they have done instead of pinning her and making her even more vulnerable? I think they should have kept silent and calmly moved off some to given her some space, but not to completely leave the area right away or the park outright.  This gives her a chance to recover without getting the message that the situation was so dire she and her human had to flee.

What would calmly moving off have taught the elderly dog?  That it’s okay to tell obnoxious dogs to back off.  That the situation wasn’t high risk or dangerous since she wasn’t hustled off with a big to-do.  If the people still wanted the two dogs to interact to see how it went, they should follow the elderly dog’s lead.  They could move even further from the swarm of dogs and then encourage the puppy & the older dog to interact.  But, NOT force them.  If the Italian Greyhound didn’t want anything to do with the puppy, they should just move on.

Here’s a To Do List:

  1. should the dog go to a dog park?
  2. pay attention!
  3. diffuse stress, don’t add to it
  4. don’t make the dog vulnerable
  5. don’t force interactions
  6. do your best to set up a positive experience to help build the dog’s confidence

Want to learn more about your dog?  Check out Canine Body Language: A Photographic Guide, a favorite of mine.

Gardening With Dogs

Published on August 20, 2009 in Dogs, Garden Tip and Training Tip. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , .

SaffronInGardenI’ve been thinking a lot about dog friendly gardening this summer because I’ve been day-dreaming about how I would design a new, larger garden than the one we have now.  So I’ve been imagining what would make a perfect garden.  I love being outside with Saffron and I want a yard that will be a nice place for people and dogs.  What’s the garden of your dreams?

A lovely garden and dogs can actually co-exist happily.  It just takes a little planning, maybe a few changes or compromises, and some consistent training.  A good place to start is to look at your yard through your dog’s eyes.  How does your dog use the yard?  Does she like to patrol the perimeter?  Does he like to sit on the deck and survey his domain?  Does she have particular routes or places to lounge?  Do you have a digger?  Or a dog that insists on lounging in the coolest part of the yard, regardless of what’s planted there?  Try working with your dog’s behavior by accepting it or redirecting it instead of fighting it.  And try to keep them out of trouble before they ever get into it.

Some of the things on the wish list for my dream garden are:

  • Space between plantings and the fences so Saffron can patrol the yard the way she’d like to without disturbing the flower beds.
  • A high spot with a good view of the yard.  She likes to check the yard before the goes down off the porch—checking for raccoons and squirrels, but she can only see a small portion of our current yard.
  • I wish Saffron had a long, barrier-free stretch where she could really run hard and some changes in elevation because she loves going up & down hills.
  • Of course, it would have to have a digging pit, which I’ve previously written about.
  • I’d also like a specific, out-of-the-way place for her to “do her thing”—that’s her “go potty” cue.  An area defined by a border with good drainage and covered with gravel or wood chips for easy clean up and that can be hosed down.

Here are some tips I’ve used to solve problems that arise from gardening with a dog:

  • How to keep a dog out of a bed where you’ve applied compost, manure, or organic fertilizer—all of which smell divine to our dog?  I’ve had success with one or a combination of the following:
    • putting chicken wire over the soil
    • liberally sprinkling crushed red pepper flakes (which you can get quite cheap at Costco)
    • temporarily erecting inexpensive folding fence borders that you can find at home & garden stores
  • If your dog has worn a path through your lawn or flowerbed, consider turning it into an real path with stepping stones or pavers.
  • To keep male dogs from marking plants or trees, provide another focal point for the dog.  Dogs very often mark upright objects that are closest to their path, especially at corners.  Place a rock, log, planter or some other non-plant object where the dog will encounter it first before it gets to the plant or tree you want to protect.

Don’t give up on your yard or your dog!  Check out these links for many more ideas on dog friendly garden design and problem solving:



4 Minutes To Change Aggressive Dog Behavior

Published on August 13, 2009 in Dogs and Training Tip. 2 Comments Tags: , , , .

Awesome video showing counter-conditioning at work. In 4 minutes a dog goes from hating to have his nails trimmed (growling and snapping) to calming allowing it.  All without “dominating” the dog or showing it who’s boss.  Pretty cool, hunh?  (Thanks Margaret!)

YouTube Preview Image