Call us at 936-294-9454  - We offer indoor/outdoor boarding - In home pet sitting - Livestock care  - Horse shavings - Animal safe fertilizer  Make your holiday reservation now before we reach capacity.   936-294-9454 Our other business - AMSOIL -     AGGRAND -  Years ago Steph wrote training articles for the Huntsville news paper, thou that time is long past the information is still current. Article 1 - REWARDS  Article 2 - SELF REWARDING  Article 3 - HOUSE BREAKING  Article 4 - CORRECTIONS  Article 5 - MULTIPLE DOG HOMES  Article 6 - BOARDING  Article 1 - Rewards Dogs live in a world of rewards. Whatever behavior they are doing at the time that they receive a reward, will most likely continue to happen. If a dog is getting a persons attention by jumping on them, then that behavior is going to continue, since a reward has been given. Rewards can be a negative type or positive type, and most dogs can accept either type. . Example: If a person is gone from the house for 2 minutes or 8 hours, and the first thing that person does when they see the dog…. is speak to the dog, get down on the dogs level and ruff house. Then the dog is getting numerous rewards for either a desired behavior or undesired behaviors. The first reward is just the site of you the person. Second, reward is the eye contact you are making with the dog. Third, reward is the speaking to the dog. Fourth, reward is the physical contact with the dog. My question to you is what are the dog-associated behaviors to those rewards? If the dog is calm before you start the first reward that is great, but most dogs on the site of their person returning will vocalize (bark, whine, howl, etc.), then jump on the person. So from a dog’s point of view you have rewarded the behaviors that most people would like to eliminate. Why is the dog doing these BAD BEHAVIORS? The answer to this question is that “We cause most of our dogs BAD BEHAVIORS, by associating the behavior with a reward.” The dog decides what he likes as a reward. Behaviors that we reward, pushing him down off of you, you yelling at the dog with eye contact, you chasing the dog around the house trying to take something from its mouth, just your interaction during these behaviors becomes a reward. In turn becomes a normal reaction/behavior for your dog at the site of you. Positive behaviors that we can reward, him lying down calmly at your feet, sitting before you feed him, etc. Keeping a calm, quiet voice tone when talking to your dog should be paired with his behaviors. Touching the dog (petting) with short soft strokes as a reward. From the dogs point, they are not doing anything good or bad, they are doing things that get them rewards. You can even break rewards down by degrees, but that is a detailed process based on a case-by-case dog and owner. The way you would approach BAD BEHAVIOR is based on the age of the dog, the length of time the behavior has been happening, sometime breed and activity level of the dog also plays a part in the elimation of the behavior. I like to solve behavior problems in dogs by using our brains to give a counter active behavior to eliminate the undesired behavior. I will say that e-collar has a place in dog training for working dogs but they should ONLY be utilized by a trainer that has experience. A dog that jumps on people: Example: To start solving this behavior for a young (less than 6 months) dog, which has been in your care for most of that time, a retriever that gets very little exercise. And you have been out of his site for a period of time. I recommend dog crates for all dogs, (don’t just put the dog in the crate, he will need to be trained to stay in his crate, which is another issue all together.) until the dog is housetrained and mature enough to stay unsupervised with your house environment. The crate is a training tool that can be eliminated with time and training. The use of the crate can make your life with a young dog much more enjoyable to both you and your dog. If you have trained your dog to be in a crate when you are not home, and then start from there. Come into the house, ignoring the dog, no eye contact, no attention of any kind, no talking to the dog, etc... Go about your activates such as put the grocesary down on the counter, go change out of work clothes, go feed the cat,,,etc…. something other than giving the dog attention. Let the dog see you in the house without being the center of attention. Once you have decided that you would like to have some exchange with your dog, then go to the crate, wait until he is calm, not barking etc…. let the dog out…You need to stay calm with your body language and your voice tone. Have some treats ready, and if your dog knows the command for sit, tell him to sit. Do not continue using the command sit if the dog doesn’t respond to the command. If you continue to use the word and the dog doesn’t respond you are actually teaching the dog to ignore the word association with the command sit. Most people get into a big hurry and want immediate results, but waiting and not responding can and will do wonders for you both. If you get frustrated with your dog, then you are not doing any good for either of you, so put him outside or back in the crate… If your dog did not sit when told then, you will need to work on the command sit separate from the jumping. What we are training your dog to do is change his default behavior from jumping to sitting. Self rewarding behaviors for dogs are the most difficult behaviors to control. A self rewarding behavior is a behavior that the dog gets pleasure out of by himself. We have dashound named Tarter, which was adopted from Rita B. Huff animal shelter (936)295-4666, and he loves to track squirrels. He will exit the house, in a full run with his nose to the ground, checking all the tree trunks, and in a short time, he knows which tree has the squirrels in them. This behavior is a self rewarding behavior; he gets his own pleasure out of the behavior without any reinforcements from us. We see nothing wrong with this behavior and will actually use his desire to track the squirrels for his daily exercise. It is when the self rewarding behavior becomes a problem for a person or neighbor that we want to solve the situation. Most of the time, a self rewarding behavior is an instinct behavior of each particular breed of dog. If your breed of dog has a behavior that they are particularly known for such as a Labrador retriever for retrieving birds, Blue Heeler for heeling livestock, pit bulls for being aggressive to other dogs, Rottiweiler for herding and protection, and so on. These breeds will demonstrate these self rewarding behaviors in other ways, if their instincts are not utilized. You will have a Labrador retriever; bring things into your yard from the neighbors, moving things around in their own yard. Blue Heelers will herd children by nipping at the ankles or chasing cars or chasing smaller animals. Pit bulls will build up a frustration level that will be expelled in many types of aggression. Rottie’s will see a child on a bicycle, chase the child to the end of the fence, feel he has protected the yard from the child because the child is gone. The next time the child comes by the fence the Rottie’s protection instinct intensives and so on. A behavior can start as a rewarded behavior and develop into a self rewarding behavior. An example of this is a barking yard dog. Dog is in the back yard barking at a squirrel, person comes out of the house and yells at the dog to be quite. The dog has just gotten rewarded by the person’s coming outside and speaking to the dog; this goes on for a few days. The dog has now paired his barking with his persons attention or worse he gets to go into the house. If his person isn’t at home, then the barking will be rewarded by chasing after a squirrel or barking at the mail man etc…And now the behavior becomes a habit for the dog and a self rewarded behavior. Article 2 - Self Rewarding For those of you that have been given a puppy for a life long Christmas gift, and are having difficulties housebreaking your gift, I hope this helps. The following is in general, sometimes you must adjust steps for your schedule, puppy age and time span that puppy is alone. Any puppy or dog should NEVER be physically punished for eliminating. You would never physical punish an infant or toddler for this behavior. Equipment you will need: Crate: sized appropriate for your puppy. Rule of thumb puppy should have enough room to stand and turn around to lie down. If the crate is too big it will cause puppy to use the crate has an elimation spot. If the crate is too small, he will feel closed in and possible fear at being placed in his crate. I recommend a wire crate that can be folded and stored much more easily than an airline crate. Your choice. Cleaning supplies safe for puppy: for cleaning all areas that the puppy has eliminated on. Carpet, hardwood floor, tile etc… Paper towels or something that can be washed each time used for cleaning. Good quality dry food. (Moist food increase the amount and frequent expelling of waste.) Water Dishes that can not be eaten or broken. (Plastic or glass isn’t recommend) Size portioned treats. (small dogs tiny treats etc) Many types of mind toys, but you will only use one at a time. (A kongo or other stuff able toy.) Mind toys are toys that keep the puppy physically and mentally occupied, while in his crate. I recommend that you start house training immediately, but don’t expect much for several weeks. The art of house training is just controlling the pup’s environment, time scheduling and a routine for the pup and you. Some vet’s will recommend feeding your puppy small frequent meals. At this point, you should decide if the feeding schedule is more important to you than the house breaking, you can do both, but it will be much more difficult with frequent meals. “Remember that what goes in must come out, when housebreaking your puppy.” I would suggest two to three meals a day, with four to five water breaks a day. Of course this depends on your life schedule with work and family demands. The water breaks will be discussed later in this article, but you should keep in mind this is only for puppies that are in a climate controlled environment, not an animal that is outside in Texas heat. For the purpose of this column house training refers to food and water. There are three major components in house training a pup, controlling his environment, time scheduling and the complete family’s routine. You should take your pup to the vet for his first visit and recommended treatment for shots and deworming before starting the house training schedule. Puppies or dogs with internal parasites can’t control their bowels even if they are house trained; discuss this further with your veterinary. His environment should be controlled by using a crate as a training tool. It is a fact that most dogs given an opportunity will elimate away from the location of their bed and feeding area. If his mother had the chance she would have started this behavior prior to him coming into your house, by encouraging the pups to leave the whelping box to elimate. The longer a puppy uses his sleeping area to eliminate in, the more difficult his house training becomes. The older the pups get the further away they will naturally want to get away from their bed and feeding area. Why do you think that dogs go into the neighboring yard to eliminate? I suggest you feed the pup inside the crate, along with his water. To start with you should take the feeding recommendation from the bag of food and cut it back just a little. So, if the bag suggest you feed ½ three times a day, that is 1 1/2 cup for the whole day, I would suggest 1 ¼ cup for the day. You will need to increase the food amount as the pup grows and matures, along with the scheduled feeding time. Note: Quality of dog food does help with house training; you should discuss this with your veterinarian. Divide the amount of food by the feeding schedule, such as once a day, twice a day or three times a day. If you are lucky enough to have a fixable personal schedule, then three times is the best, but if you are like most of us, then twice will do. You should also keep in mind that if you are using treats as a training reward, then cut back a little more on the amount of food you are feeding. Example of a schedule for house training: 6:00 am Puppy in crate in laundry room, wake the pup up (try not to let the pup wake you up) and take outside immediately. You should take the pup to the same two by two areas; his personal smell will encourage him to do his business. If the pup eliminates, give him a special very small treat, then return to the house, let him have supervised play time for a few minutes, prior to feeding/watering him in his crate. Place him back in the crate, with food/water, and go do something that takes more than five minutes but less than 15 minutes. If the food is still in the crate, take it out for later, but not until the next scheduled feeding time. If the pup is calm, open the crate, if the distance to the outside door isn’t more than 3 feet, allow him to follow you completely outside to the same area. If the distance is further, than pick him up, carrying him to just outside the house door, place him down and have him follow you to his area. Wait no more than 3 minutes, if the pup does his business, then he returns to the freedom of a small area of the house. (At this age you don’t want to allow the pup unsupervised time in your house.) If he doesn’t do his business, then he goes back into the crate. Waiting 5-10 minutes and repeat the steps without the food, until he does his business and you can relax. (Once again, you can now leave him out of the crate why you are getting ready for work, but only in a small area of the house, such as the bathroom, laundry room, and gated kitchen.) Side note: Don’t let the pup out of the crate if he isn’t somewhat calm before opening the crate door. (you don’t want to cause other problems.) Make sure you leave the pup’s site during his time back in the crate. You are the reward. I would suggest having a note pad on the crate, so you can make time notes for your benefit. Such as 6:03am returned to house, after he eliminated. Or 6:03 am returned to house without eliminating. etc… You must witness the pup doing his business, for the scheduling to work. When the pup has an accident in his crate or the house, you must clean it completely with something that will reduce the smell for him. You can use any of the commercial products on the market for carpet, tile or hardwood floors that will help with pet urine. If time allows I would take the pup outside one more time before you leave the house, then return him to his crate. Make this time special by placing a mind toy in the crate like a stuffed kongo, and puppy safe soft animal, slightly larger than the pup for comfort. If you are going to be gone more than two hours, you should try to make arrangements for someone to let the pup out and give him some water. The more frequent scheduled outside potty breaks, will give you a base line for housebreaking. Make sure that this person follows your training steps as close as possible, making notes for you. As the puppy gets the hang of the schedule then, you can start having the time schedule extended between outside break, with the goal of elimnating as many of the outside breaks. After a short period, of time you should be able to come up with a break schedule, based on the pup’s body schedule. As you are working with the scheduling, watch your pup’s body language, he will start giving you physical cues that he needs to eliminate. Physical signs to watch for could be his tail up, walking in small cycles, with nose on the ground. I don’t recommend using pee pads or newspaper for any puppy that you wish to NEVER use your house as their personal bathroom. (But if that is the only option you have then you must do what you need to do.) If you have to be gone all day, then you should set up the crate in an open area, such as a tiled kitchen, with a gate so he can’t go into the other parts of the house. I would suggest having the door to the crate open and the newspaper or pee pad’s as far away from the crate as you can get them. Try to keep with the above steps for house training, even if you must use the pads/newspaper. When your pup has an accident, (he is doing natures business, not trying to make you angry etc…), either in his crate or in the house, clean it up and go on. Don’t punish the pup for this act of nature. The first sign that I know a pup has been punished for accidents is he has a hiding place for his potty business. Example: The pup will run behind the furniture out of sight and pee. If a pup goes into another room and does his business, then he is just trying to get himself as far away from his feeding, or sleeping area. If the pup hides, the difference is, then he has paired the negative punishment with the natural elimanation of his waste. Remember you would not punish an infant for this behavior? The above steps for house training should be repeated each scheduled feeding time. If possible I would recommend not feeding your puppy after 5:30pm, with the last water break to be at least two hours prior to bedtime. Recommended feeding/water schedule is 6:00am, 11:30am and 5:00pm. You should offer your pup water many more times than food, but don’t be surprised if he doesn’t drink each time. The feeding schedule can and should reflex your family’s life schedule. Each time you feed your pup, remember not to leave the food in the crate past your scheduled feeding time. This will be a determining factor in the training; your pup needs to realize that he must eat when you offer it to him. I would not recommend allowing your pup to sleep in your bed for several months. Of course he can be placed in your bed for your late night T.V time, but put him in his crate at least 30 minutes before lights out. All training with dogs should be done with the end result in your mind. Use as many of the pups natural behaviors for your benefit. Physically punishing a dog should be completely avoided, unless your safety or someone else’s safety is in question. Re-direction of a behavior can solve a great many problems with adult dogs. When working with a puppy you are molding and developing his behaviors into desirable or undesirable behaviors, excluding his predetermined breed’s traits by nature. When working with an adult dog, you want the desirable behaviors to continue and to eliminate (correct) his undesirable behaviors. Article 3 - House Breaking Correction how should it be used to solve/eliminate an undesirable behavior? You must determine if the dog actually knows that the behavior is undesired or if the undesirable behavior was shaped. Example: Several years ago, I had the pleasure of working with a local couple that had a puppy Sheltie. They scheduled a series of home lessons, starting at the age of 9 weeks and extending over a period of 1 ½ years. I would go to their home, work with the puppy/dog, whenever they felt it was necessary. These sessions could be to teach them more behaviors to work with or to guide them into a better approach to solving issues. On one such session, they scheduled a lesson because the dog had stopped listen to the women. When I got to the home, I observed the behavior that they were referring too, and the dog was indeed not responding to her. I observed, the man reading his newspaper on the couch and not paying any attention to what was going on with the dog and his wife. She had just finished feeding the dog, walked through the T.V. room, where the husband was, opening the back door and telling the dog to go outside. The dog had been previously trained to go out when told and did without problem. The dog calmly walked to the husband, without the husband knowing what was going on, dog sat down next to husband and the husband placed his hand down on the dog, gave the dog a good stroking (reward). The husband did not stop with just one stroke; he continued to stroke the dog, while the wife was calling and getting frustrated. Her frustration was obvious by her body language and voice tone. My observation was that the husband was rewarding the dog, for ignoring his wife. In this situation the dog’s behavior of ignoring the wife was caused by the response of the husband. Physical correction wasn’t needed here. Just changing the response of the people and reinforcing the correct behavior of the dog solved the situation. My question to you is “why do most people think that correction means to stop the dog’s behavior with physical contact to the dog?” I am not saying that a dog should never be physically stopped from doing an undesired behavior. If someone feels unsafe or the dog is going to harm himself, by all means do what needs to be done to stop the behavior, but use the lowest level of physical correction to stop the behavior. When you stop a behavior with physical correction you are just stopping that behavior for the moment, such has hitting the dog for jumping up. If you want to teach a different (response) behavior then reshaping is the solution. Example of eliminating an adult dog’s behavior that is going to get him killed if not stopped. Tater came to us as an adult, mature dashound, as I have said from Rita B. Huff animal shelter here in Huntsville. (295-4666) He is a wonderful dog in so many ways, but his desire to chase squirrels could get him killed, since we live on I-45 frontage road. I don’t want to stop him from chasing their scent (because he can’t catch them, and they love to play games with him), but it is undesirable for him to go past our property line in the front. So the method that I choose to solve this behavior was an e-collar. It took several days to totally eliminate his desire to go past a predetermined point in the front of the property, but I am confident that the behavior is solved. If he had been a much younger dog when he came to us, we would have worked many other training methods, prior to using the e-collar. I would not recommend using e-collar on any dog for aggressive behaviors. The use of e-collars in dog aggressive situation could possibly cause additional aggressive behaviors. There are many different types of dog trainers, and just as many training methods. When selecting and/or working with me or any other trainer, I encourage you not to do anything to your dog that you don’t agree with. Next topic open for suggestions, please contact me by email with training topic’s or to schedule a training session. Article 4 - Corrections Over the years I have worked with many types of dog clients and their people, with various dog behavior problems. Some of the problems that come up when there is more than one dog in the household can be much more complex than one dog households. I have clients tell me that they have read all about Alpha dogs in multiply dog households, and their dog is an Alpha dog. Ok, my first question is to ask them what they see as an Alpha dog. I receive many different reasons, such as he growls at them and the other dogs around food, he is very protective of his toys, and he is the boss of the other dogs…and so on, and so on. If you have a very young puppy that is showing the above behaviors, say prior to six months, then you may have a puppy that could have true aggressive issues as an adult. I would suggest discussing this with your veterinary or a professional dog trainer. My question to you is “If you believe in the Alpha dog, which in laymen’s terms, the leader of the pack (family), aren’t the people the leaders. The way I see it, is that the dog that has been termed Alpha, has been allowed to get away with these behaviors by the people in the family (pack). At this point physical correction would only cause more problems between the dogs and possible aggressive attitude towards the people. Example: I was called to a home that had two dogs in the household. The spayed female was attacking the neutered male any chance she got, it could be over food, toys, people or she just felt like it. This had been going on for many months, with blood being drawn, so I was called. First I had them change the order that the dogs came and went from the house into the yard. The male was first to come in and first to go out, female was made to sit and wait until the people released her to exit or enter. Next, the female was not allowed into the house, and the male was allowed to interact with the people, in view of the female. The female was then leashed and brought into the house but place in a crate. These exercises were done numerous times, throughout the first few weeks. The first objective of these short exercises was control of the female and the second was building the confidence level of the male. The next steps were to reinforce the objectives from a different point for the dogs. Feeding of multiply dogs can cause problems, but utilizing the order of feeding can make mental points to dogs. I had them lock the female either outside or in a crate but in view of the family, with the male being allowed to eat first and then letting the female inside to eat. I had them, place the female on a leash in the house, with the female being confine by leash, with the male being allowed to exit the house into the yard, first. When the female was allowed to exit the house, she had to sit and remain in a sit, until she was released to the yard. I had them place the female in the crate numerous times, with the male being allowed to interact with them by playing, and giving no reaction (rewards) to the female in the crate. What it came down to is the female was made to wait on everyone in the house, including the male dog before she got to do anything. After a period of time, I had them place the female on a leash outside the crate, while the male was interacting, if the female started acting up, she was made to go outside and wait to come back into the house, when the people saw fit. All of these exercises and many others were used on the dogs before the problem was deemed controlled. No physical correction was needed; it was all mental correction for undesirable behaviors. The male became more confident in his behaviors and the female became more responsive to the people and the other dog. Article 5 - Multiple Dog Homes We have numerous options in Huntsville to Board your dogs and cats. The options are yours, but you can make your animals boarding experience a good one, starting at an early age. Questions to ask any place that cares for animals: Age of the youngest animals you will keep. Type of space the animals are given? Crate or Kennel run? Size of kennel runs? Crates? Vaccinations required to board? Records? Are the dogs loose for Yard exercise or leash walked? Do the dogs have an opportunity to eliminate outside? Brand of food fed? What do I furnish for my dog? What can I bring for my dog? Is the area where the animals are housed, AC/HEATED? How many animals per crate? Per kennel run? Will you allow mulitiply dogs to exercise together? How do you handle aggressive animals Do you charge additional cost for other services? What other services do you offer? Business hours? Do you make exceptions? Is there an additional cost? On site security? On site residence? Cost per service? Do you recommend reservations or Not? What is your and your staffs experience level with pets? How long have you been in business? After business hours, are the animals unattended? Cost per animal? What Discounts do you offer? Extended visit discounts? Do you board animals that are ill? What is your policy for animals that become ill? Do you offer pickup and delivery? Do you offer in my home care? Do you offer references? What happens to an animal that will not stop barking? Ask if there is any acceptation to the shot policy? Most animals will be stressed when away from their personal environment. To make the stay for your animal as pleasurable as possible, you should take into account some helpful hints. DO’S: Keep pet current on all vaccinations; don’t wait until the last minute to give shots. Time is needed to give the shots enough time to go into effect. See your animals veterinarian Don’t wait until you must board your animal (emergency) to board. Start boarding your pet at an early age, to help with stress. Board where your animals feel most comfortable and where he/she enjoys the staff. Board only healthy animals, since the stress of being away from home may aggravate an illness Neutered your pet, so as not to cause additional stress to males that could be boarding in an environment that offers to board females that are in season. Males will loose weight when in the presences of females in season. Bring something that your pet can associated with you or your family, but remember don’t bring anything that can’t be replaced. Dogs will destroy things when stressed. Put your name or pet’s name on all items that you leave, such as leash, food etc… Give all special instructions in written form, with animals name, breed etc… DON’Ts Don’t make a big deal about leaving your pet; this can cause additional stress for the animal. Say your goodbyes in the front office, not at the kennel run. Your presence in the back will only cause the other animals to react, which in turn causes additional stress for your pet. Remember this is a animal environment, so allow for animal sounds and smells. Article 6 - Boarding