Dog Puppy Behavior Training Help

iPhone 3Gs Video ** Best Dog Foraging Toy, Tug a Jug

Amazon.com Widgets All animals’ instincts are to forage for food and to look for a mate. We’ve pretty much eliminated those two important tasks, and some dogs are out of balance. Instead of feeding your dog with a bowl, exercise that rascal and have some fun! You can enrich your puppy or dog’s environment by providing foraging toys. Most dogs love the Tug a Jug! Penny, the sweetest...

Does Your Dog Own You? Resource Guarding of Territory, Food, Items, or People

Resource guarding is when dogs posture, growl, snarl, bark,  snap, lunge, or bite for reasons we believe are efforts to keep other animals or people away from what they consider to be valuable resources. Resources include food, territory, items and persons. Food related aggression, territory aggression, and possession aggression are specific labels for different types of resource guarding. Resource...

Methods to “Get” your Dog to Perform a Behavior

Before you can use positive reinforcement to reward your dog (Food treat, Attention, Touch), you’ll need to get the dog to perform some version of the behavior. There are many methods to get behavior. Here are some dog-friendly methods. Capture – good for simple behaviors that are naturally offered, like sit. Just wait until it is occurring and then reinforce the behavior. Capturing requires...

Meet Your Dog’s Physical Needs for Balance – Commercial, BARF, Frozen & Organic Diet, Food Choices

Physical needs are related to the physical well-being of the dog. Routine vaccinations are one example of physical health requirements. Grooming and bathing, quality food and clean water are other obvious needs. Shelter from environmental extremes and refuge from everyday household commotion are important for the physical health of your puppy. The ability to move about, sufficient bathroom access,...

Switching Dog Foods May Cause Temporary Digestive Problems

Some nutritionists suggest that pet owners periodically switch between 2 or 3 different foods. This is recommended as a safeguard against unknown imbalances of nutrients that may occur when feeding the same product long term. When changing diets, replace a small portion of the old food with the new food on day 1.  Increase the percentage of new food by 10-20% each day to facilitate the change over...

Pet Food Regulation? – March 2007 Pet Food Recall Brings Guilty Plea by Chem Nutra

Many of us know that several pet foods were recalled by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in March 2007. As the investigation unfolded, additional brands and/or products were added to the recall. Most of the major brands were affected. How could so many different brands contain the same source of contamination? Throughout many short and incomplete news reports, I noticed conflicting stories...

Canis lupus familiaris, Food Related Aggression

Many people are aware that some pet dogs will guard food. Food guarding is not uncommon when it occurs between dogs. If that is the only problem, it can usually be controlled by managing the environment. Feed the dogs in different areas; remove the empty bowls, avoid feeding rawhides, crate the dogs during dinner, during pizza parties, et cetera.  Some people accept food guarding between dogs as...

Barking Dog? Resolutions ** Danger! ** Do Not Use an Anti Bark Collar on Your Dog or Puppy, without reading this first!

Okay, so your dog is barking and you have the perfect, initial solution; buy one of those anti bark dog collars, right? WRONG! Please do not misunderstand, I agree there are situations when an anti bark collar is a good choice, but spraying a dog with citronella, sounding a tone, (or using an e-collar ) are never at the top of my list of tools and solutions for barking. Anti bark collars address the...

Who is Regulating our Pets’ Foods?

Many of us know that several pet foods were recalled by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in March 2007. As the investigation unfolded, additional brands and/or products were added to the recall. Most of the major brands were affected. How could so many different brands contain the same source of contamination? Throughout many short and incomplete news reports, I noticed conflicting stories...

Chocolate & Other Harmful Foods for Dogs

Mary Jane and her brother, Mark Anthony are miniature dauschunds in Memphis Tn. There are some people foods that can be very harmful to dogs. These include chocolate, grapes, raisins, macadamia nuts, tea, coffee, and sugar free candy. The toxic ingredient in chocolate is theobromine, which is very similar to caffeine. Dogs that ingest as little as 50 milligrams of theobromine per pound of body weight...

Food Treats: Bribe vs. Reward

We want the food treat to act as a reward for performing, not as a signal to perform. If you use a food lure when initially teaching behaviors, when practicing in new locations, or in the presence of increased distractions, you should fade the lure quickly. If food is always presented before the behavior, then it’s considered a trigger for the behavior. If you continue to use food as a lure, your...