Is your dog in your face for grub?

Some dogs are possessive over people, toys, and food. Possessiveness can lead to aggressive behaviour like snapping at other dogs or showing teeth to a toddler because they came too close to their dinner... these types of behaviours are problematic, so how do we train for them?  

Over the next 5 days we are going to post some training tips so your dog becomes cool as a cucumber when it comes to feeding time and treats!

The first training trick is to be mindful when feeding treats from your hand. Puppies learn very quickly where the food comes from. Usually, it comes from their owners hands (obviously!). So what does this mean?

This means your dog, from a very young age, will start to associate hands with food. Let’s change this, and the naughty behaviours that come from it, by feeding your dog from his or her bowl or the ground.

Next time you give your dog a cookie, hold it in your fist and let let them lick and sniff you all over, once they stop and wait for the cookie put it and the ground and say “OKAY”!

Your dog will start to understand that the cookie comes out of your hand once they are waiting patiently and they only get it once you say so!

5 Training Games Dogs Love at Woof & Shloof

I wanted to share a few of the games that you might find on our daycare report card, why we play them and why dogs enjoy them.  The point of all of these games is to creatively use our indoor space to engage the pack, cultivate focus, reinforce basic ettiquette and training, and provide stimulation in between walks/play/human love, the other activities that happen here...

Stuffed Kong Chew:  Using more kongs than dogs helps make resources abundant, and less likely to be protected or (guarded).  Our favourite kong is the black industrial chew, the same that police and bomb dog trainers prefer.  I love stuffing them with freeze dried salmon (so stinky and good), smoked tripe (also stinky and good), or sometimes nothing.  This game requires direct supervision and offers a tremendous outlet for biters, chewers, and bored dogs.  It’s also an opportunity to train the pack about respecting ‘my resource’, and this skill transfers to the home life.  It’s a building block that can easily transfer to ‘my door’ (don’t run out the door), ‘my guest (don’t jump on my guest’), ‘my new shoes’ (this one’s obvious), ... etc. etc.  To reinforce non-resource guarding I like to interrupt the dogs (infrequently)  from chewing their kong, ask them to sit/down, then reward again with the kong.

Rope Tug: Exercising caution that this game doesn’t escalate into aggressive behaviours, it is a really fun and natural game for dogs to engage it.  Again, using more ropes than dogs, this game helps us teach dogs not to bite our hands,  not to play at an aggressively high level (self discipline).  It channels the natural ‘wrestling’ type of play into something controllable and safe.  The rope becomes a huge motivator... we use this motivator to reinforce ‘drop it’ and ‘bring it’... two essential skills for teaching fetch or not picking up garbage off the street.  The advanced version is teaching two dogs to play with one another.

Follow the Leader:  It’s really neat to see 25 calm dogs following a human leader around... concentrating on him...starting and stopping on command...sitting on command...being patient...respecting the communal space... being aware that there are other dogs in the space (not just them!).  This game is an excellent pack ‘redirect’... We play this game often.  Healthy kibble, attention, praise are the prime reinforcers here.  This game helps us acclimatize an over excited dog and it helps us shape their often fragmented focus.

Ball: Using more balls than dogs, I really like to bring the balls out early in the morning to quickly drain a lot of energy and set the tone for the day. Dogs play two kinds of games... Chase and Wrestle.  This game channels the natural ‘chase’ instinct and play.  On a given day, only a few dogs know how to fetch, retrieve and drop it, so we use them as the models in the game.  At the same time, it’s not fun for the pack if these few dogs always win the ball.  There’s a skill in playing fetch with the pack... this is why we use lots of balls and the concept of strategic throwing.  

Leave it Games:  This game builds on the skills and motivations used in the first three... this is where we have something of really high value to the pack.  It might be 15 balls in a pile on the middle of the floor after 10 minutes of fetch.  It might be all the kongs, freshly stuffed.  It might be several bowls of treats... anything really.  The key concept here is ‘don’t touch’... when you’re patient, calm and lying down (aka, acting like a perfect dog) we’ll reward you again.  This game cultivates a tremendous amount of focus, respect and reinforces ‘calmness’.  This is advanced training work and pays dividends at home.

somebody's been sleeping in my bed

Maydel has this really funny habit... and it’s 100% my own fault (as all her bad habits are).  What’s even worse is that I think it’s cute, in a not so wise kind of way.  So here it is....She knows never to go on our bed.  It’s out of bounds.  She knows this rule so well that we can’t even entice her to go on the bed if we tried (which I have recently, just to see).

BUT... if we leave her home alone, and we forget to close our bedroom door Maydel will ALWAYS make her way up to our bedroom... hop on the bed... circle around a few times... paw at the covers a few times... nestle herself into a deep sleep while basking in our scents.  This is what my mind’s eye sees... you see, Maydel never gets caught in the act.  She’s like a ninja with no knowledge of forensic evidence.  

As soon as we put a key in the door she makes her way down the stairs and pretends to be sleeping.  But we are pretty clever too... our bed is ruffled and still warm.  

“Somebody was sleeping in our bed”.