How to teach your dog to ‘leave it’ AKA don’t pick up the half eaten sandwich on the floor.
My training method and approach is all about setting up your dog for success, making it easy, fun and engaging, rather than frustrating for your dog.
Common mistakes in Separation Anxiety training and how to avoid them
Avoid merely waiting for the clock to tick away, meaning don’t just step out and watch until your dog can’t hold it together any longer and take that as your baseline for your training plan. Instead, ensure your dog has an enjoyable experiences while alone at home through observing your dog closely and ensuring you spot the small stress signals - gradually shifting their emotional response from fear to confidence. It's crucial to provide opportunities for your dog to have fun without stress during solo time.
Does crate training help separation anxiety?
The internet and world of social media is still full of advice to simply pop your dog in a crate to prevent him or her feeling anxious when home alone.
But fact is: a lot of dogs who struggle with separation related behaviours are prone to being easily overwhelmed by extra stressors. And for a lot of dogs, a crate does cause extra stress.
Firstly, ask yourself, does my dog actually like being in a crate. And REALLY have a good think about it. Plenty of dogs have learned to ‘shut down’ when in the crate AKA they’ve learned that there’s no way out, and this can often look like they are ok when in fact they are certainly not.
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.
How To Get Your Puppy Used To Being Home Alone
Here are a few tips on how to prepare yourself and your puppy for home alone success and to prevent Separation Anxiety.
From educating yourself about your puppy’s body language and needs for ultimate alone time success to practicing Peek-A-Boo (always fun!) and teaching them that leaving DEFINITELY means you are coming back!
Caring For Your Senior Dog
My little girl Wolfgang is about to turn 11 and, well, things are changing for her in terms of what she’s physically and mentally capable of. So, as she is the inspiration behind everything I do, I thought we’d share some tips on what to look out for as our dogs age and what you can do for them to ensure they continue to live their best life possible.
Six Tips for....
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.
Separation Related Behaviours and medication - Wolfgang's example
Each dog is different; some dogs don’t need the help of meds to learn to feel comfortable being home alone, and some dogs do. And for some of those dogs the anti-anxiety effects of a single medication may not be sufficient.
Wolfgang has been on Clomicalm for a while, with great results.
However, her brilliant vet and I have discussed trying Gabapentin additionally as she suspected potential neuropathic pain. And after consulting a vet behaviourist on the matter, we decided to give it a go.
And wow, Wolfgang, who is 11, has (almost) transformed into a puppy again.
And she’s doing even better with her absence training!!!
Dog Training Tips
Most innovative Dog Training Service 2023 - Scandinavia
I am excited to announce that Wolfgang's Way Dog Training has won The Business Concepts Award for 'Most innovative Dog Training Service 2023 - Scandinavia'.
I really do thoroughly love and enjoy my work, especially always thriving to develop bespoke ways to help my dog and human clients, and to be recognised like this is just the (most wonderful) cherry on top.
Wolfgang is currently opening a bottle of champers to celebrate while I'm preparing her favourite sausage cake for her ;)
Thank you so very much to the research and voting team at The Business Concept who've thought Wolfgang's Way worthy of this Award.
International Women's Day 2023
A LOVE LETTER TO WOLFGANG 💙
Quick tips on
how to stop your dog from scavenging on walks
In light of the recent horrific attempts to injure, and potentially kill, dogs in Malmö with placing spiked food out on the streets (bread buns containing sharp pieces of metal or shards of glass), here are some training tips on how to manage and prevent:
Engagement
Teaching your dog that good things happen when they check in with/ look at you - and therefore keeping their focus upwards/ on you, rather than downwards and potentially picking up food from the floor.
You can use a marker word (I.e. ‘yesss’ or ‘good boy/ girl’) or a clicker for this, depending on what your dog is used to.
When out walking (on the streets or in the park), mark the moment your dog checks in with you, then feed a little treat.
Teaching a reliable ‘drop’
My favourite way to teach ‘drop’ is outlined in this training video by the incredible Chirag Patel. The video takes you through the training steps to ‘automate' this behaviour (meaning your dog can’t help him/ herself but to open their mouth when they hear the word ‘drop’). This of course takes time and effort but results can be achieved fairly quickly if you work on this a little every day (make sure your dogs know you pay VERY WELL - get those meatballs rolling)
Teaching a reliable ‘leave it’
This video takes you through the training steps.
Start practicing the behaviour and associated cue at home, then generalise to the outdoors.
You can eventually turn ‘food on floor’ into a cue to check in with/ look up at you -preventing your dog from picking up food from the floor in the first place, as it’s raining cheese, chicken and bacon from you every time they spot some food/ rubbish on the floor.
Why a trusting relationship with your dog is worth a million times more than any ‘obedience’ training
Yesterday, Wolfgang got a special, big treat (‘cause she’s the best!) in form of a sausage. And whenever she gets too big a piece and it needs dissecting, she usually finds herself a quiet spot to attend to it.
But we were all cosy on the sofa and I saw in her little face how she was ‘debating’ over whether to pop down or how to go about it.
So I offered my cupped hand and said ‘Do you want Mami to help?’. And she immediately dropped that juicy sausage on my hand and sat back, looking at me in anticipation while I broke it up into bite-sized pieces for her. Patiently waiting for me to feed her every delicious bit.
And these moments of trust are what it’s all about (for me, at least).
For a dog to let go of such a high value food without a worry in the world (and no, I’m not in her head but she looked blissfully zero bothered).
I use the ‘can I help’ cue for all sorts of situations including:
When she stepped into something and can’t get it out of here paws (I walk to her or she hobbles over to me).
When there is a little poo stuck and she can’t bum-shuffle it off (and gets quite freaked out over it).
When she tries to get to the end of the Kong but can’t quite get that last bit right at the top out.
If she tries to get to something but can’t quite reach….and much more
A few tips on how you can build a trusting relationship with your dog:
Learn to talk dog so you can understand and communicate with your dog, and within this….
Allow your dog choice and control over their environment
ALWAYS be your dogs safe place
Don’t mess with your dog’s resources, AKA what’s important to them.
That includes simply letting them eat their meals rather than making a whole song and dance around waiting for five minutes, then reciting the alphabet before they can dig in.
Accept your dogs personality: teach them cues so you can easily navigate this human world together but also accept that they might not want to allow strangers to pet them and that they, too, have crappy days where they might react to the environment.
Don’t use aversive methods!!!!
MULTIFUNCTIONAL CUES - WHAT, WHY & HOW 🤓🐕
Let’s face it, us humans are prone to be a little lazy (me included!) and what’s not to love about a cue that you can use in all sorts of different scenarios and for a variety of different behaviours.
Plus, we often forget our dog’s cues when we are caught up in a stressful situation, so having one or two words to fall back on will make every day management delightfully smooth.
Here is how to teach your furry friend these cues.
When The Going Gets Tough…. Force-free management tools for when things get messy
You are working with your reactive dog on making the world a less stressful place for them…
You are out and about socialising your puppy….
You are training with your adolescent dog, ironing out a couple of teenage tricky behaviours…
One moment the world is at peace, then suddenly something happens that sends your dog into melt down frenzy (out of fear, over-excitement, frustration…).
In this heightened emotional state most dogs struggle to respond to a cue, and management is key.
The following force-free management tools will help you to swiftly, and positively, get out of a potentially messy situation.
Why Dogs Bark & What You Can Do About It
First things first, dogs bark! It’s a dog, it’s what they do. You wouldn’t ask a lion to stop roaring.
However, the fact that dogs live in our homes makes this often an issue for us humans. And of course we often expect our furry friend to behave perfectly, in all sorts of ‘human’ situations.
This article is about understanding why your dog barks and how to deal with it, including teaching alternative behaviours, providing outlets so they don’t need to bark in the first place as well as preempting, managing and, let’s say, tone it down a notch, or two.
Before I delve into the different types of barking and how to deal with these, here are some things to consider that can impact on most barking behaviours:
Loving Miss Daisy
I've just received a wonderful review from a client who I've been working with on separation distress (for their rescue hound mix Daisy, isn't she the cutest).
We've been working together for a while, months! As that is what it (mostly) takes to help a dog over separation related issues (commonly known as 'separation anxiety').
We went from helping her to get over initial departure triggers (I.e. the human putting on shoes or a coat - slowly changing her association from panicked to relaxed) to slowly building up duration of absences (3mins, 5mins, slowly slowly is most often the key to success, teaching the dog a routine that surrounds the human coming back).
Daisy happily copes with 90 minutes now, sometimes even longer. Any longer is still difficult for her though so we are taking it back to baby steps, to help her over that hurdle gently.
Also, she went from hating long car journeys to breezily traveling along now. And from pulling like a truck on the lead to happily bouncing alongside her humans. All down to her humans' effort and care, being patient and understanding and just so so wonderful with her.
I do love my job!
Go Daisy!
OMG....WE WON AN AWARD!!!!
While the Will Smith / Chris Rock Oscar shenanigans are still circling the worldwide media, we too have an Award to announce [cue trumpets announcing Wolfgang entering the room riding naked on a white horse…).
Oh yeah, we only went and won ‘Dog Training Service of the Year’ at the Corporate LiveWire Global Awards.
And we even got a wonderful one page feature in the winners book….
So please excuse ourselves as we hop into a champagne bubble bath (with sausage dippers for Wolfgang of course)….