Our Puppy Has Finally Arrived!

We picked up our puppy yesterday morning at 10:00am and it has been an amazing experience so far. We decided on the male pup and we have named him Professor Danger Hawk, or just Danger for short.

I cannot believe how smart he is. Between yesterday and today I have already taught him to sit using the clicker/lure method. And now he will sit on command without luring. I honestly cannot believe he learned so quickly.

He is doing very good with the house training. We take him out about ever hour and  half during the day or soon as he eats or drinks, wakes up from a nap or is done with a big play session. He has only made 3 accidents in the house so far.

Last night he was causing quite a ruckus crying and whining every time we put him in his crate. He would calm down after about an hour of fussing. I took him out at least every 3 hours during the night… This has been quite a journey so far, and it is only day 2!

I apologize for the scattered writing, but Danger is yanking at my pant leg begging for attention

Top 5 Reasons You Should Use Positive Reinforcemen...

5. It creates a strong bond with your canine companion.

4. It’s easier than teaching Lindsay Lohan to show up for her court date.

3. It allows you to learn more about your dog’s way of thinking, and allows your dog to learn more about your way of thinking.

2. Punishment can cause fear and aggression.

1. By receiving rewards for desired behaviors, your dog learns how to choose to do the right thing. Your teaching your dog to learn, not just comply.

Your Dog is a Predator

I have been reading articles about “predatory drift” and I thought I would make a quick post about it. Predatory drift is when normal dog “play” crosses the line into predatory behavior.

Many things can trigger this such as:

1. Yelp

2. Over excitement

3. Pain

If dog’s are playing too rough and  and the smaller dog lets out a yelp, this could possibly trigger predatory instinct in the larger dog, they then see the smaller dog as prey. As you could imagine this could lead to injuries.

Predatory drift can be particularly dangerous in a dog park, when a yelp could trigger a whole pack of dogs to attack another. If your dog is playing too rough with another, especially if one of them is smaller, keep a close eye to make sure their playing doesn’t get out of hand.

You cannot mistake this predatory instinct as an aggressive behavior, it is not a conscious decision the dog is making, it is a primal instinct. All dog’s are predators by nature, it was a necessary survival tool before they became domesticated.

If you want to learn more about predatory drift, please look at the following two articles:

What is Predatory Drift on Dogtime.com

Dog play behavior and Predatory Drift by Gail T. Fisher

Also Jean Donaldson’s book Predation in Family Dogs is a great resource.

Does your dog do P90X?

Really though, how often do you exercise your dog? Are you exercising them enough?

I recently read an article from the UK that half of the dogs in Britain are overweight. Half!

Fat dogs are now such a common sight that many owners have forgotten what a healthy animal even looks like…

How can you know if your dog is getting enough exercise? First you need to assess your dogs energy needs. All breeds do not require the same amount of exercise, what kind of dog do you have? For instance a German Shepherd, Border Collie, or any kind of retriever are going to require a lot more walking then say a Pug, Bull Dog or even a Greyhound (Greyhounds have short speed bursts, but are not considered high energy).

Not only do dogs need physical exercise but they also need to be mentally stimulated. A general rule of thumb is that:

1. Dogs need at least 60 minutes of physical exercise

2. 15 minutes of mental exercise

Of course it depends on your dog, but 60 minutes should be the bare minimum of physical activity.

Your pet might not be the only one overweight in your family. Studies have shown that dogs can provide a support system for their owners to help motivate them to exercise daily. Get outside and have some fun with your dogs and shed a few pounds yourself!

Dogs that don’t get enough exercise, can turn that energy into bad behavior out of boredom. If you are trying to decide on a breed for your family and you do decide to get a high energy dog, I hope you have or are prepared to have a very active lifestyle.

How often do you exercise your dog? Physically and Mentally? Leave a comment!

3 Reasons You Should Not Use an E-Collar

I just read a scientific study on “Training dogs with help of the shock collar: short and long term behavioural effects” and it brought up a bunch of great points, some of which I would like to cover here.

1. Confuses your dog: Say you use the shock collar every time your dog jumps up on someone. The dog is probably not going to associate the pain of the shock with jumping on the person, but the dog will associate the pain with meeting new people. This could cause your dog to be aggressive toward strangers.

2. A shock is a shock: Many trainers claim they use these remote collars to just get the dogs attention, they do not cause any discomfort to the dog. Then they are saying the shock is pleasurable to the dog, and that gets their attention?

In the study they shocked 32 dogs a total of 107 times, out of those dogs 17 of them emitted a “high sounding yelp” when being shocked, 13 of them let out a squeel, 7 of them a high sounding barck, and 4 of them even snapped at their owners.

3. Could hurt your dog: I would never recommend using a electronic dog collar to anyone, but most people that use these collars are uneducated about training and just want a quick fix. Most collars have a “stimulation setting” of 1-10. If the user is uneducated about training in general, do you think they will be educated on how much “stimulation” to set the collar to? The shock could cause serious damage to your dog.

The conclusion of their study:

We concluded that shocks received during training are not only unpleasant but also painful and frightening. Furthermore, we found that shocked dogs are more stressful on the training grounds than controls, but also in a park. This implies, that whenever the handler is around, the dog seems to expect an aversive event to occur.