With Halloween fast approaching it?s important to remember that dogs are allergic to Chocolate and Raisins. Children should be reminded not to leave candy treats lying around where your dog might eat them. Costumes and makeup could also pose a hazard to your dog if he likes to chew, or if you have a new puppy in the house. If you have kids coming around trick or treating crating your dog might be the best option, I suggest giving him a Kong filled with a treat to keep him/her busy. Another option is to use the trick or treating to train your dog when someone comes to the door. Sit, Stay or a Down Stay prior to opening the door is a good way to reinforce your training. Keep in mind the costumes may trigger a reaction from your dog, so you should be prepared for it. Since Tricks are part of Halloween why not teach your dog a new trick to show off to the neighborhood children, or dressing him/her up for the occasion.
Archive for the Category »Dog Training «
Keep your Dog Safe this Halloween
26
Oct 2007
Category: Dog Care, Dog Training, Puppy Care
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Karen Says I Need to Elaborate on the *Your Dog’s Behavior* Piece
14
Oct 2007
As always, Karen is correct.
The two most important aspects to working with your Dog, following eye contact, are body language and tone of voice. I think the best way to explain what I meant when I talked about correction and praise is to outline what A.R.C mean regarding Dog Training.
- *A* stands for *Ask* meaning that you have a behavior in mind and you either work to elicit that behavior from the Dog using body language in a formal training session or that you give the Dog a command using a signal that your Dog already knows either verbal or with hand signals. The moment you *Ask* your dog for a behavior you need to be prepared to *capture* the action of your Dog?s cooperation.
- *R* stands for *Receive* which means that you get the reaction that you wanted from your Dog, whether that be getting out of your way or sitting and staying or leaving the dead animal on the side of the road alone. You have thrown out the command or directed the behavior and when you receive it it?s very exciting!!
- *C* stands for *Celebrate*!! This means that you acknowledge your Dog?s brilliant cooperation with verbal praise or a treat or a happy pat and the level of your excitement should be a reflection of how large an accomplishment you?ve gotten from your Dog. Simply saying *Yay!* in a really happy voice should be enough for some Dogs to feel like they?ve just won the lottery. Sometimes you want to keep the tone of your voice stable if you are working on repetition of the behavior.
We call this cycle of events *Arc-ing* with your Dog. You repeat this pattern of communication with your Dog from the moment you bring your Dog home til the moment your Dog passes away. In the last hour I have gone through the A.R.C. pattern with Bae about 6 times because it is the foundation of how we communicate.
- I *Ask* her to leave the back yard and come with me inside.
- I *Receive* cooperation from her as she drops her Frisbee and comes running to the door.
- We both *Celebrate* by me telling her what a *Fantastic Girl* she is and she wags her tail and gets all excited because Bae loves to win.
And I just realized that I haven?t really touched on tone of voice or body language but I think I?ve said enough for now and that I will run how to best talk about those two training fundamentals because they are so important.
Category: Dog Training
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Karen Lanoue-Lambrecht-Best Trainer Ever!!
12
Oct 2007
I think I met Karen in 2000 and the only thing I don’t like about
her is that she hates to talk on the phone. She has so much information
in her head from the seminars she’s attended and from the Dogs she’s
worked with that I could listen to her talk about anything Dog related
all day. When I was managing a kennel about 2 hours away from Karen I
tried to get her to move to where I was because there were no trainers
of her caliber near me.Karen has the ability to work, silently, with a Dog based on who
they are and not based on any cookie cutter *idea* of what a Dog is. I
would love to be able to have Karen write up a piece on body language
and I think I’ll have to do an interview with her because she has so
little time for anything outside of teaching her classes and working with her private clients. Karen loves to teach obedience classes and her beginning in Dog world was because she loved to *take* classes with her first Dog.
her is that she hates to talk on the phone. She has so much information
in her head from the seminars she’s attended and from the Dogs she’s
worked with that I could listen to her talk about anything Dog related
all day. When I was managing a kennel about 2 hours away from Karen I
tried to get her to move to where I was because there were no trainers
of her caliber near me.Karen has the ability to work, silently, with a Dog based on who
they are and not based on any cookie cutter *idea* of what a Dog is. I
would love to be able to have Karen write up a piece on body language
and I think I’ll have to do an interview with her because she has so
little time for anything outside of teaching her classes and working with her private clients. Karen loves to teach obedience classes and her beginning in Dog world was because she loved to *take* classes with her first Dog.
The first time I worked seriously with Karen was with a Dog named Maddie who had been left outside for over a year and who because of this was very reactive toward other animals. Maddie had had to defend herself, while tied, against everything that came near her and that is not a behavior that a Dog can walk away from once they are safe. Karen was so patient and respectful with both Maddie and Maddie?s parents that she was able to help them both calm Maddie down while they respected her instinct to react.
Karen was able to enact the ?elegant switch? with Maddie so that the Dog was able to react while her parents were able to counteract so that Maddie stopped the behavior that was giving her mother frozen shoulders. Karen hardly changed anything in this family’s life but when she had completed just 4 sessions with them the family was happy and the Dog was so much better.
This is not the kind of training you can get from a tv show or from a web site. Karen, if you?re reading this I was just contacted by a family with a 6 month old Jack Russel Terrier and they?ve never had a Dog before and they have 5 children??*Help!!*.
Category: Dog Training
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