Sit. Stay. Read.
obsessed with dogs
Yesterday, Emmett and I were at the vet’s office. We walked into the lobby, checked in, weighed him, and sat to wait our turn. How many treats did I give him through all that? One. To get him to stop wagging his tail on the scale, I stuck one treat against his snout. How many …
When we arrived at the training facility, Cooper barked his face off at a woman and her dog who were the first to arrive – the trainer and her assistants lead the dogs from the parking lot inside so that they don’t encounter one another – and that was the only time he reacted the …
So… it’s February. How did that happen? Seriously, didn’t we just Rescue Remedy/Thundershirt our dogs to ring in the new year? Hmph. Anyway, my main goal – and what I wanted to accomplish for the Train Your Dog Month Challenge – was to go through the Relaxation Protocol with both Cooper and Lucas. I’m here …
I mean it in the nicest way possible, but Emmett isn’t normal. Sometimes, when I’m working with Lucas and Cooper, I catch myself thinking, “Ugh. I wish they would be more like Emmett.” But that’s a totally unreasonable expectation. And totally unfair because Emmett isn’t normal. (Stick with me. I do have a point!) Example …
It’s a revolutionary idea: You don’t always have to be fair when you have multiple dogs. At least, it’s revolutionary to me. I recently read Feeling Outnumbered? How to Manage and Enjoy Your Multi-Dog Household* by Karen B. London, PhD and Patricia McConnell, PhD. In it, they write (I’m paraphrasing big time) that it’s okay to …
Every January, the Association of Professional Dog Trainers hosts Train Your Dog Month. The idea is to encourage everyone to work with their pups a little more – ideally each day. I’ve participated in the past, and even though I strive to train with them year round – as I think everyone should! – it’s …
The amazing gift of being alive is that no matter what, we can always begin again. Sharon Salzberg And so we are. Beginning again, that is. The new year certainly begs for new beginnings, though I’ve been wanting to restart the Relaxation Protocol for quite some time. Somewhere along the way, though, I completely forgot …
I may have mentioned once or twice that I get really into planning and goal setting. The dogs are not immune to this! When I’m doing my planning for the next year, I always include a little section for my dog training goals. Obviously the entirety of our training has been focused on Lucas and …
Have I mentioned that we’re renting a haunted mansion? We found one landlord with one house willing to rent to 3 dogs and a cat. The house is humongous, but it’s in terrible shape. It creaks. It leaks, so drips echo across the wood floors. Many of the windows aren’t sealed, so when it storms, …
“Can we play the signals game, Aunt Maggie?” My almost 4-year-old nephew, Owen, asked. “I don’t know that game. You’ll have to teach it to me.” He sighed. “Yes, you do. The signals game.” He gestured with his hand a few times. “That we play with Emmett.” Oooooh. Weeks ago I showed Owen how Emmett …
I like things organized. Orderly. Labeled. Planned. One manifestation of this obsession is with daily planners. You guys, I live by my day planner. I plan out everything: daily to dos, shopping lists, appointments, cleaning, and so on. Most recently, I started planning dog training. We’ve been hardcore training with Lucas on two different things. …
Most dogs dislike having their nails trimmed, and most people dislike having to clip their dog’s nails! We’ve tested several methods to simplify the process, and we hit upon one that works every time. Here’s how to clip your dog’s nails painlessly using a strategy we like to call “peanut butter plate.” How to clip …
I recently took an informal survey of the questions I get asked most often. One theme emerged: How do you handle multiple dogs? There are variations on that theme, of course. How do you walk 3 dogs? Do they get along? How did they adjust to each other? And, even more often, how do I …
When I first started working on this post, I thought about getting some video of Cooper to illustrate the problem… but then I realized just how annoying it would be to watch a video of him barking his face off. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This site uses affiliate links, which means …
When you spend much time working with your dogs, even just reinforcing the day-to-day stuff, you blow through a lot of treats. In addition to our regular work with the boys, we always take treats on walks with Lucas and Cooper to work on reactivity. We’re also doing a ton more training in the house since …
Somehow we’ve already been in Louisiana for just shy of two months. My, how time flies… If you had asked me when we crafted our plan to introduce the dogs to the cat how long I thought it would take, I probably would’ve said a few weeks, maybe a month. We made some excellent progress at …
A few winters ago, the boys were stuck inside, bored, and restless. At the time, lots of other people were facing the same thing because of a harsh, icy winter. I put together 10 ways to tire out your dog indoors because I needed a checklist of things to do with my boys. Now, we’re …
Happy Friday! I hope you and your dogs got through the Fourth unscathed! Here’s hoping the neighborhood kids use up all their backyard fireworks so we can close that book for the year… After I wrote about how we were introducing dogs and cats, you guys shared some phenomenal advice – thank you! So I …
I had a flash giveaway planned for today, but I shifted it to tomorrow (so stay tuned for that!) because I need to gripe a little bit and solicit some advice. As you know by now, I’ve been working with Lucas and Cooper on reactivity. They are affected by different stimuli, and they respond …
Perhaps that seems like an odd cue. But “Wanna smell?” has done wonders in helping Lucas and now Cooper overcome random fears. I think it works so well because it plays off their love of stink. Dogs are incredible smellers. In much the same way that we rely on sight to understand what’s in front …
When we moved to Indiana five years ago, I noticed the very first week in our house that this darling old man would walk past every single day at around the same time. He wore knee-high compression socks and a sweatband. His workout clothes were clearly dated – the color blocking made me think 80s. …
I know. It doesn’t make sense. But I am really mad at Cooper. I’m mad at him for being scared. Well, not for being scared per se but for the way he reacted while scared. I’m fully aware that me being mad is illogical. I know. I’m working on it. It started out badly: We …
Over a year ago, Kurgo so generously sent us backpacks for the boys to test out on a hike. I wrote about our experience hiking with the Kurgo backpacks then. Lately, though, the Kurgo pack has been getting a lot of use on our neighborhood walks. Cooper is an ok walker. He prefers to be …
Conditioned responses… Years of the same behavior being reinforced over and over and over again. Lucas thinks, If I bark and lunge and snarl at this oncoming dog, he’ll leave me alone! And it works, time and time again, and now his mind equates his particular crazed response to successfully getting a potentially dangerous dog …
