Elevation Behavior

Have you dusted your kitty recently? Enrichment doesn’t need to be hard, just 15 minutes in your own yard can be incredibly enriching for your cat and keeping them on a leash allows them to express natural behaviors in a way that keeps them and your local wildlife safe.

Why do we train? To improve quality of life. Training helps is care for our dogs, adds enrichment, and allows them to navigate a world based on human rules (such as don’t jump on people). Cooperative care behaviors allow us to better care for our pets while reducing their stress. Today, River tolerated a muzzle and followed position change cues that allowed for a better exam. She did this for ear rubs instead of treats since she is feeling nauseous. Being sick is already stressful, imagine his much worse it would be if River required manhandling and restraint to perform an exam. Because we have done training, her vet visit was quick, easy, and relatively stress free.

A fun visual representation of what your dog sees (smells) every day. Look at how noisy it is and how many tracks there are intertwining. The different animals, people, and dogs movement in just one area. The snow lets us humans see the history of this area and what animals and people have passed through. A dog will smell this every day and know who and what animals have passed through. Smellavision!!!!

Dogs are incredible.

Imagine tracking and detection dogs needing to filter out all this noise and track a single scent down. Amazing!

(Note this is a fun representation, not accurate)

As we move out of one holiday and into another, its a good time to remember that training can improve your dog’s comfort with visitors. Here River wears a muzzle which allows her to safely roam among our company and choose whether she wants to approach them or not. River chose to hang out for a while, greet very briefly and then retreat to watch at a distance.

The days after 4th of July, Halloween, and New Year’s are high volume for shelters as pets get spooked and run away from home. Please keep as many barriers between your dog and disaster as possible. Here are some ideas in case you are unsure how to do this... (I employ almost all of these on “scary holidays”).

Collar with ID Tags
Microchip with updated contact information
Baby gate or x-pen blocking access to outside doors (airlock system)!!
Relieve on leash only (even if I have a fence)
Secure in interior room of house (bonus points if insulated from noise)

Here are some additional things I do to keep my dog calm... 

Create a safe space
Close windows (muffles noise and reduces smell)
Play music
Keep them busy (frozen or PB Kong, puzzle toy, chew, etc)
Feed treats after whistles and booms

And here are some things I train at other times of the year to make holidays go smoothly...

Recall and Collar Grab
Auto-stop at thresholds (doorways and gates)
Condition positive associations to loud noises and novelty
Crate is safe space

Stay safe and happy

This is a good illustration of puppy socialization needs, shared from Good as Gold Training, but I would also add that all of the listed exposure and experience needs to feel *safe* for the puppy. If s/he is nervous, tentative, or fearful the fear should be handled by backing off a little and reintroducing very slowly and with lots of praise, food and patience. Sometimes, for the sake of "socialization", owners push their puppies too far and too fast, and it can backfire. Good socialization requires that we "read" our puppies and help them feel safe as they navigate the sounds, textures, people and animals in their new world.

NEW! For cat lovers:
Download from doggiedrawings.net/freeposters (Sorry, I am not sure why it looks so blurry on FB)

The answer is…a wind chime. Not just pretty, this dog tag wind chime has a purpose, desensitizing dog-reactive dogs to the sound of jingling tags. Every time the wind blows, the tags will jingle, allowing the sound to become disconnected from the appearance of neighborhood dogs. Thank you Kathy Sdao for the idea.

Can anyone guess what we’re up to now?