It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year . . . With a Well-Behaved Dog

The holidays are here!  Lots of fun and family and good food will be taking place over the next month, and everything is all hustle and bustle and cheer . . .

Until the dog counter-surfs and runs helter-skelter through the house with the pristine turkey and in-laws and cousins and aunts and uncles all join into a high-speed chase that jostles the perfectly-set table already brimming with food (sparkling cider splashes everywhere!), wakes up the baby (and the next-door neighbor's visiting grandmother), tips over the newly-decorated Christmas tree, sprains little Johnny's ankle (holiday ER trips are part of the family traditions, right?), and otherwise completely decimates the perfect Hallmark moment you had going.

That picture might be a little extreme, but you get the idea: your pup has the potential to either be a Christmas-card worthy gem or a complete moment-wrecker.  But with a little preparation, we can help our dogs keep towards the positive side of that scale!  Here are a few tips for a well-behaved dog this holiday season:

1. Prepare to give your dog plenty of exercise BEFORE the festivities begin.  Thanksgiving morning is a great time to get outside with your dog, even for just 20 minutes, before the relatives arrive!  If you can't do this, delegate: maybe one of your visiting nieces or nephews would be willing to spend 10 minutes playing ball with the dog in the backyard while dinner is cooking!  The more you keep your pup's mind and energy engaged in constructive outlets, the better behaved they will be!  We have holiday drop-in classes specifically for this reason!
    
2. Invest in some constructive activities for your dog, like food puzzles!  Some of our favorites are Kong (classic Kongs can be stuffed with peanut butter and yogurt and frozen ahead of time so they take longer to enjoy; Kong wobblers are a great way to give your dog their meals AND give them some extra brain activity too!), Orbee Snoop (another fun and interactive way to give your dog their meal!), and food mazes like these from Outward Hound.  Giving your pup something to do before they find a less constructive way to get their energy out is key!
    
3. Give your dog their own space and some structured quiet time throughout the festivities.  Lots of people, food smells, and other chaos can be overwhelming to your dog!  Giving them some chill time on their favorite mat or in their crate might be just what they need.
    
4. If you can foresee a situation where your dog is not going to be successful at doing the right thing, manage that situation to set your dog up for success.  If your dog is an excited greeter at the door, put them safely away in another room or crate before your relatives arrive.  The holiday rush isn't the time to start teaching a better greeting method!  If your dog is a habitual counter-surfer, make sure to manage their access to areas where food is being prepared or stored.  Dogs are opportunistic, and even if you have been making training progress, the holiday feast isn't where you want to put those skills to the ultimate test.  Use baby gates or other management tools to set your dog up for success!  If you have time to train a little bit here and there, reward your dog for settling on their bed just outside of the hub of activity.  Toss a treat (or a sample of turkey if you are feeling really generous!) every few minutes to reward your dog for having self-control in the face of all of that temptation! 
    
5. Remember that your dog is a dog!  It won't be perfect, just like your kid or your various relatives might get on your nerves on occasion!  But setting your pup up for success is the best way to get through the chaos in a positive, constructive way.

Another holiday tip: brush up on your knowledge of foods and plants that can be toxic to your pup!  The ASPCA Poison Control Center is a great resource!

Essential Canine Skills for Hiking Success

Do you want to have fantastic hiking adventures with your dog, but you don’t know where to start?  Getting out in the wild can be challenging enough without an over-enthusiastic dog contributing to the stress.  In case you missed our “Hiking With Your Dog 101” seminar last night at Kriser’s Natural Pet, let’s review the list of foundation skills that are essential for enjoyment and safety out on the trail:

Essential Skills for Hiking Success:

•       Recall

•       Sit

•       Stay

•       Hand Target

•       Give Attention to You

•       Leave It

•       Follow Your Directional Cues

Here is Roo responding to my directional cue to advance down the rocks ahead of me.

Now, before you grab your dog and your leash and head to the mountains to start running through this list with your dog, let’s start a little more simply.  Practice each of these individually (5 minutes at a time, with breaks) at home, in your own backyard, first.  Just like you learned to ride a bike in your driveway and not out on the highway where there are higher stakes, your dog should learn new skills (or brush up on rusty skills) at home first and then take it out to the more challenging environment.  Start small and reward your dog when they respond correctly to your cues.  Be positive – when you are out on the trail, you want your dog to LOVE coming back to you instead of chasing the wildlife.  So be happy, positive, and encouraging at home too.

When you think your dog is ready for a bigger challenge, you can head to the trail.  But keep in mind that when you are adding more challenges to the environment (like the presence of animal scat and other hikers with or without dogs) you should plan to reduce your criteria a little bit and work back up to the goal behavior.  For example, even if your dog can do a 3-minute sit stay inside the house, perhaps start with a 15-30 second sit stay while other hikers are passing by, with enough distance to help your dog be successful and make good decisions. And be ready to reward BIG for great responses!

These training foundations are just one aspect of preparing for happy, safe hikes with your dog.  Don’t forget about conditioning & stretching, pet first aid, proper equipment, and trail etiquette; these are all components that make the trail a pleasant place for everyone involved.  Look for future blog posts on each of these topics, or contact us to get one-on-one help with preparing you and your dog to hit the trail together!

Adventuring with Your Dog: Expectations

Each adventure you embark on with your dog has the potential to be fantastic.  Idyllic.  Instagram-worthy.  Like strolling through the Shire on a warm, sunny day. 

Well, as close to the Shire as you can get in real life, anyways.  Lory State Park, Colorado.

But in order to promote this harmonious, peaceful picture, here are a few things to keep in mind before you begin:

1. Adventures with dogs are often messy. And wet.  And muddy.  

Roo's favorite part of any adventure is the "getting as filthy as possible" part. 

Going in with this understanding and expectation will greatly reduce your dirt-induced stress and increase your dog's enjoyment of the experience.  To mitigate this aspect of dogs on adventures, I recommend proper, mud-durable apparel for you, and appropriate drying equipment (like towels) or containment tools (like crates) for back at the car.  Unless, of course, you have a super-cool and awesome dog-mobile and don't care if your dog finger-paints with mud on the back seat, in which case I think we'd be good friends ;).  

2. Dogs often have a different idea of "fun" than we do.  To many dogs, finding every unique smell on the trail or running helter-skelter through the brush is intoxicating; to us, stopping to allow our dog to sniff at every little stick or leaf or running hither and thither after who knows what isn't exactly what we had in mind when we left the safety of the backyard.  The important thing with these competing motivations is to find a middle ground where both ends of the leash can be satisfied.  Ideally, this is an understanding between you and your dog that permits them to run around unleashed to their heart's content (leash-laws permitting), but when you say "Rover, come!" they are back at your side in a split second.  Leading up to this point is a lot of dedicated recall work - stay tuned for a future blog post on that!  If your dog isn't able to run unleashed, teaching a consistent "check-in" behavior on-leash is a good next step.      

3. Work up to it.  The first time you take your dog out on an adventure, whether as a puppy or as an adult dog, don't be surprised if all of the cues your dog knows so well at home suddenly seem to be forgotten.  Dogs are not great generalizers anyways, but the added distractions and allurements of the new environment complicate things even further. As you increase the level of distraction in the environment around you and your dog, you should be ready to reduce your criteria somewhat (i.e. don't expect a perfect 3 minute down-stay beside a busy trailhead when you have only been practicing in your backyard) to set your dog up for success.  Increasing your quality of reinforcement is also a good idea as you start working in new places.  Just because your dog works for kibble at home doesn't mean that will be reinforcing to him when there are squirrels all around!  Eventually, the goal in training is to be able to reduce the frequency and the value of the reinforcers, but at first, we make sure that the reward is appropriate to the behavior we ask for.

4. Remember, adventures are about having fun for you and your dog.  If either of you are struggling, take a break, take a breath, and try to find the good things your dog is doing (even if they seem very, very small) and start from there.  

Stay tuned for future posts about specific skills that are useful for every canine adventurer to know to promote a safe, fun experience for everyone on the trail!