Providing your dog with the right kind of enrichment and mental engagement is hugely important for setting them up for separation anxiety training success.
Setting up your dog for training success
How to create a good dog training environment:
🐾 To begin with, train in a non-distracting environment to help your dog stay focused, then generalise the behaviours to more distracting environments.
🐾 Train when your dog is motivated.
🐾 Break behaviours down into small easy to learn steps.
🐾 Always allow your dog to opt out of the training when needed. For example, you may find your dog starts to sniff the floor suddenly, that’s her asking for a break.
🐾 Minimise opportunities for your dog to choose an incorrect response, providing you with repeated opportunities to positively reinforce all of your dog’s correct responses (mark & treat).
THIS WAY
THIS WAY..for when you need to direct your dog in a general direction but don’t need them to come to you.
I use this verbal cue when the dog is off-lead to let her know “to come in my general direction” as well as for on-lead, as an ‘emergency exit’ behaviour to quickly get out of a potentially tricky situation.
Loose Leash Walking Tips
Leash Walking Tips - whether you are starting from scratch with a puppy, working with a bouncy adolescent or adult dog or even a rescue dog who’s not used to a leash.
🐕🦺 Good equipment is key: I’d opt for a well-fitting harness but there are, as always, exceptions to the rule. Get a long leash and/ or a training line (3m - 5m, depending on your long leash handling skills).
👩🏻 Understand that you, the human, are a bit boring when it comes to walking. You walk in straight lines, probably a bit too slow or fast (depends on how your dog sees the world), you never stop to sniff or wee. Look at it from your dog’s perspective and allow for all the sniffs and exploration they need.
🌭Get your dog used to good things happening when moving with you (NOT by your side but moving with you). You can use pattern games for this, capturing (mark/ reward) check-ins and more.
🐾 When outside; start practicing in an area where your dog has the option to move more freely.
🩺 Don’t forget that underlying medial issues can feed into leash walking behaviours.
Things I tell my clients to make their puppies’ and adult dogs’ day to day the best they can be
Everything starts with and is influenced by learning to ‘talk dog’ and understanding your dog’s needs (both physically and emotionally).
Good quality socialisation and habituation, working at your dog’s pace, is so much more important than teaching traditional behaviours such as sit, down, etc.
On that note, a ‘sit’ isn’t as important as you think it is. And can matter of fact become an aversive for a dog with physical ailments. Don’t make it a default part of other behaviours you teach your dog.
Be your dog’s safe place and provide as much choice and agency as you can for your dog.
A happy tummy and gut makes for a happy dog!
Be more dog, you fur friend will love you for it.
Teaching a harness or collar hold
Most dogs find it intimidating when you suddenly reach for them to grab their collar or harness and can become mouthy to keep your hands away from them or shy away from your reach.
Hence it’s important to teach them that this can be a positive experience, so you can then use it in potentially stressful situations.
How to teach your dog to ‘leave it’ without frustration
Easing back into separation anxiety training post Christmas holidays
The holiday season is a time of joy, festivities, and quality time spent with loved ones, including our beloved furry friends. However, as the decorations come down and the routines return to normal, some dogs may struggle with separation related issues, especially if they've grown accustomed to constant company during the festive season.
You may have been making great progress with your dog's separation anxiety training prior to the holidays and now find yourself back to square one, or you may find that your dog, who’s never struggled with being home alone before, suddenly changed his/ her mind.
Here's a guide on how to help your canine companion ease back into separation anxiety training post-Christmas holidays.
Quick tips for....
Set your dog up for success by starting this exercise at a distance and in an environment that is super easy and non distracting for your dog
Your dog doesn’t need to fail to learn. In fact, errorless learning will provide much quicker success. Plus, this ensures your dog doesn’t get frustrated by the learning process and instead builds confidence and a positive association with training
Remember training with your dog should always be fun, for the both of you.
Dog Training Tips
Having and Caring for Pets at Home Q&A: Tips and Advice from the Experts
Porch.com have recently asked Wolfgang’s Way to contribute to an article about how to care for your pets (in our case dogs, of course) at home.
I love the fact that there are now so many companies outside the pet industry that show interest in this subject (Porch provides software and services to several home service industries including real estate, contractors, moving and much more).
After all, we need to spread the message about how to look after our beloved pets positively, there’s way too much misleading information out there as is (especially when it comes to dog training and behaviour)!!
Our question was about how to ‘keep your dog active’ and whereas this is a rather broad subject (and one would ideally like to write a ten page essay about this), we’ve tried to accommodate the most important bits within a few sentences.
If you’d like to have a read of what we’ve contributed, plus what other industry people have said about everything from how to start training to how to care for your reptiles and cats (diverse!), click here.