Dog Mom To The Rescue

Dogs are social creatures but people confuse socialization as a play session. Many folks bring their dogs to dog parks. They also allow their dogs to drag them to other dogs.

Questions to ask yourself:

Does your dog drag you to say hello to another dog? Does your dog lunge and bark? Does your dog spot a dog across the street and get super excited?

What if I shared that you could have more enjoyable walks with your dog. Where you could also create a safe space to activate social drive. Through movement and working on healing for walks. You want to start with just your dog on perfecting a relaxed heel in the house then work on it outside with a tad more distraction. Then reach out to a friend with a dog. Then build the skills of those dogs and then add another dog to the mix. You will want to have a release word like “break” to allow for sniffing and being a little social with their dog friends. You do want to bring their attention back to you and put their mind back on to social drive.

On leash Pack walks;

Have you ever heard of pack walking? Well it's a great way to form friendships with other humans and it's great for dogs. These are important keys to develop skills in your dog to walk at a heal. When walking with your friends and neighbor and the dogs make the walk a routine and be purposeful.

It will create a pack mentality. Which will increase the dog's social drive. Work on sit stays and impulse control as a group in the park. Play is important but it's not what drives the social drive. Many dogs have improper training for play.

Many dogs don't have a good understanding of each other's ways of reading or listening skills of each other during play. Just like we as humans do have missed communication. Many dogs have had experiences at dog parks or daycares. That could result in hyper activity or aggression. Many folks don't know these things and they wonder why their dog has hyperactivity. Hyperactivity can become aggression. The less moments a dog is dealing with stress the better.

Here are five suggestions to improve your dog's ability to calm down:

1. Space

2. Barriers

3. Have a calm demeanor

4. Bring soft chew dog treats

5. Be patient

These five suggestions are very useful when you have a hyperactive or a fear reactive dog. “Patience” Think outside the box. Be your dog advocate. If your dog has a pushy behavior do a 3 minute kiss, hello and goodbye. To lessen the tension and discourage face to face greetings.

Do’s and Don’t:

Do’s

Utilize air sniffing,

Use your house to practice,

Practice: rinse and repeat

Don’t

Let your dog drag you to another dog

Allow your dog off leash if they don't have a recall.

Allow your dog that's off leash to run up to a dog on leash

Please don’t allow your dogs to greet on leash when out for every walk. The reason behind my rule is to discourage on leash meets. Because many dogs have high energy and they go head on and those kinds of greetings can go two ways, okay or bad. You want dogs to do a yin and yang where they sniff each other's bums. When dogs are greeting from a drag the body has adrenaline and stress hormones coursing through them. Then on top of that you're rewarding the behavior. Then you reinforce the behavior you don’t want. Which in turns causes you to deal with your dog not being engaged with you. Work on levels of responsiveness. Using high value treats and high value toys. To regain your dog's attention.

Pick up your toys and don’t allow free choice to get your dog to see you as the highest focus. Utilize the toy as a way to build excitement and playfulness with you as the person. Utilize training moments with a high value with a toy.

Why do I suggest not allowing for free choice of toy is because you want your dog to be looking for you. Playing hide and seek encourages engagement for example check ins.

If you want to provide a space while you're working from home. Where you can encourage independent play. Use a cupcake pan and hide their breakfast under tennis balls. You can also do easter egg hunt. When you're out on walks that will encourage sniffing.

When asking your dog to do a command. Please use one command. If you have other members in the house, give clear rules on your way of training. Don’t repeat. Don’t speak in sentences. This is due to dogs don’t speaking in english. They recognize tones and body language.

Many people also think dogs when in groups should correct each other. Well as someone who worked at doggie daycares as a mediator. I was the referee in the pen. Many squabbles are just noise. But it's important to interrupt a tiff before it escalates. The way to interrupt is to say “hey” in a firm way but calmly and walk into the space.

Not all but many doggie daycares have a variety of energy dogs from 1-2 visits to daily to boarding. This is interesting because there's irritability, high to medium energy. There is a mental game for dogs. Some play, there are many on the outskirts, There are dogs who want your attention. Being a referee in play pens with a pack of 30 dogs. It was a real world experience to see dogs' language. Stiff body before play, loose bodies before play, the bouncy energy, I need personal space, I am oblivious to what you're asking.

Entering and Exits were the points in which excitement ensued like clock work. It's both anticipation and high energy from the dog who is coming in and leaving from the group. Barking should be limited to none at all. My belief is that the dogs that are being boarded should be well versed about the need for space by the door. Have sit stays and controlled name exit strategy. Once you have a core that understands calmness is the reward. Then the others will follow suit. But I do think many daycares are in a rush. Though I think many daycares are wanting to be fast for owners. If you set up the expectation to the owner that calmness is key for safety and enjoyment at daycare.

Another form of daycare is day camp where you go off leash hikes. I learned about this opportunity in Vermont. I took the course and so I do have knowledge to run such a business. I am hoping to start doing that down the line.

The biggest thing is calmness and bringing the energy of the dogs down. Allowing the dogs to ramp up. By giving them lessons to calm down assists in giving them a switch off. This assists in less squabbles. The start before hiking with your client's dog is to literally take the time ahead to wait for the dogs to settle in the car. What you're looking for is no pacing, no whining, no barking. Not having the dogs jump out of the car. But to have a good day at camp is to be consistent and take it one day at a time.

Impulse control is also very important to work on. Sit stays are great exercises. Working on calmness in a car before exiting. Working in your house before going for a walk. Door game so you start your walk calmly.

Movement is also key to get focus. Depends on the dogs behaviors but you can utilize treats. Have smaller groups and be purposeful with the group.

Freedom to a dog comes with responsibilities. We can give our dogs the freedom they deserve if we follow the 4 rules of accountability.

1) Sit

2) Recall

3) responsiveness

4) Having easy chewable treats

My personal experience:

My dog has had her ups and downs. I have had my own struggles with myself in our training. But through the 5 years of self education and hands-on experience with my pup. With consistency and the pace we have taken she has improved leaps and bounds. We try our best to set up pack walks with dog friends from the neighborhood.

We have been doing doggie meditation (behavioral downs) everyday twice a day. This has brought calmness to her and I. As we breathe we learn to understand the traffic of daily life. She has calmed down in the more exciting moments. It is important for a dog to be in a state of calmness to understand and learn what is being asked. It's also helpful to help them make better decisions.

For example I live in a condo and there is an active flow of humans and dogs. Like last night we were doing doggie meditation. One of our neighbors walked by with their dog. My pup did pop up and do an excited barking but I said leave it and she looked at me then looked at the dog and human as they left and laid down and then 15 minutes she went to target behavior. That has been 15 days twice a day. She has been also surprising where she dramatically goes into target behaviors. She is also now not popping up as people walk by.

As part of our training she is laying down and just watching people walking by. When she used to be alert wasn’t able to settle. We are now able to walk by people in the building and she is more relaxed. I am more relaxed. Our relationship has improved.

Things I'm looking forward to is increasing challenges from working on sit stays as people walk by. I am also going to work on having my family and friends come up to us and talk while she is sitting or laying down not hyper. Nor whining and especially not excited barking. To a point where I can have neighbors coming up.

Steps one needs to take is consistency and routine. My next blog is to give ideas for how you can incorporate daily training sessions.