Dogs love to sniff - it helps them relax, tires out their brain and it's how they understand the world.
Find it is an amazing game you can play in your house, garden and out on walks to encourage your dog to sniff more. It's the perfect game to play with your dog on winter evenings when it's too dark for a walk. Or to keep your dog entertained when you're busy or just wanting to chill out and watch TV. A few rounds of find it and your dog will be happy, calm and ready for a snooze.
You do need to teach your dog to start hunting for treats when you say 'find it' otherwise they won't understand the game.
Start with your dog still (they can sit, stand or have someone else holding on to them). Put a treat about 20cm in front on them, point to it, say 'find it' and encourage them to eat it. Once they understand that 'find it' means 'get the treat' you can start moving the treat further from them and hiding it in easy places. Then you can try hiding 2 treats before you say 'find it'.
Eventually you'll be able to hide 10-15 treats across your house and your dog will spend maybe 5 minutes hunting for them. Brilliant fun and exhausting for your dog.
I'm sharing 10 easy and enjoyable ways to enrich your dog's life throughout December. So make sure you're following me so you and your dog don't miss out on all the fun.
Enrichment is so much more than how you feed your dog...
Enrichment can seem like a really big concept but ultimately all it means is giving your dog lots of chances to be a dog.
Dogs have A LOT of natural behaviours and it's important for their wellbeing that they have safe opportunities to practice these behaviours.
Dogs need to:
⭐️Shred
⭐️Dig
⭐️Sniff
⭐️Run
⭐️Play
⭐️Chew
⭐️Sleep
⭐️Scavenge
⭐️Rest
⭐️Explore
Food puzzles are an awesome way to encourage some of these behaviours. But they're not essential and they're not going to meet every single need.
Your dog needs a variety of enrichment at home and on walks if they are going to live their best life.
Teenage dogs just want to have fun...
That's why their recall is usually terrible. They're too distracted by all the fun the rest of the world has to offer to listen to you.
There are dogs to play with, squirrels to chase and picnics to steal. And let's be honest, you're kinda boring.
Yes, you might have some treats, but they're the same ones every time and all you do is put a treat in your dog's mouth when they finally come back. That's not competing with dogs, squirrels and picnics.
Luckily you don't have to be boring. And you don't have to buy different treats either (although if you took a variety of treats on walks that wouldn't hurt...).
You just need to use your treats to play games. And Catch Me if You Can is the perfect game for teenage dogs.
They get to chase you to get their treat which will always be fun. And if they're guaranteed fun with you they'll be less tempted by all those dogs, squirrels and picnics.
Fireworks Night is a scary time for a lot of dogs.
If your dog does find fireworks scary, or this is your first Fireworks Night with your dog, I'm sure you want to do everything you can to make the evening less stressful for your dog.
But looking for advice on how to help you dog in scary situations is made a lot more confusing by the huge amount of horrendous advice out there.
It's so common to hear people say that comforting scared dogs increases fear. And while I'm sure most of the people saying this mean well, following their advice is harmful to you and your dog.
Their logic is that attention and fuss is a reward, and if you reward your dog for behaviours they'll repeat them. Which is true.
BUT... Fear isn't a behaviour, it's an emotion. Yes, there are behaviours associated with fear like barking, pacing, whining, shaking, destroying stuff but comforting your dog won't reward those behaviours.
When you comfort your scared dog you're changing their emotions by reducing their fear and helping them feel safe. Just you being there for your dog makes a scary situation less scary. It's called Social Buffering and it's why people are more willing to go on massive roller coasters with a friend than they are on their own.
And if your dog feels less fearful, their fearful behaviours will naturally reduce.
So give your dog all the support they need this Fireworks Night (and any other time they find something scary). They'll cope much better and they'll learn that they can trust you to comfort them when they need you.
Rapid recalls happen when your dog is desperate to get back to you to have fun.
But if you always reward the same way or play the same games when you call your dog back they'll get bored very quickly because they know what to expect.
Having a range of different games you can surprise your dog with will motivate them to come quickly every time you call them. Because they always know they're going to have fun - but they never know how.
If your dog likes chasing treats, they'll love chasing them through your legs. And because they can see you're standing with your legs wide apart from a distance, they'll start running faster getting ready to speed through the tunnel for their treat.
Are you struggling with your dog's recall? Follow me for more easy, fun games to play with your dog.
Teenage dogs might be twats, but your teen dog isn't choosing to ignore you.
It's really easy to get frustrated with teenage dogs because we feel like they ought to know better. When you've put in loads of work training your puppy and they're suddenly ignoring you it feels like they're choosing not to listen.
And this is when people get tempted to punish their dogs. If you think your dog knows what you want and is just being stubborn then punishment seems logical.
But unfortunately teenage dogs really don't know better. They often forget things they've learn when they were a puppy. And it's just not fair to punish them for it. That's not going to suddenly make them remember.
What will help them remember is going back to basics and reteaching the behaviour they've forgotten. You just need to show them what you want the exact same way you did the first time you taught it to them.
And don't worry, you've not lost all the progress you made and gone right back to the start. Your dog still knows everything you've taught them. They've just lost it in their brain and once you help them find it they'll remember.
Training consistently don't mean training constantly.
You just need to make it clear to your dog when you're training and when you're not. As long as you do this your dog won't get confused and frustrated and won't be unlearning everything you've taught them.
With loose-lead walking the easiest way to do this is use different equipment. You can clip your dog's lead on the back clip of their harness when they're allowed to pull. And then you can clip their lead on either their collar or the front clip of their harness when they're training.
Your dog will quickly learn the difference and where you clip their lead will become the cue to let your dog know how to behave. This makes loose-lead walking so much easier because you don't have to train when you or your dog aren't in the mood. And you won't have to stress that you're undoing all your hard work.
Don't let one of dog training's biggest myths stop you having fun with your dog.
Tug is mine and Hattie's favourite game and I think it's so sad that so many people and dogs are missing out because they're scared that tug will make their dog aggressive.
So stop worrying and go play tug with your dog.
Socialising your puppy is easier than you think.
Good socialisation is about giving puppies new experiences that they either feel positive or neutral about.
Exposing your puppy to lots of different things in one long session makes is highly likely that your puppy will find something scary. And just one scary thing can undo all the positive experiences your puppy has that session.
So it's much better to keep socialisations sessions short and go to quieter places so your puppy has good experiences and learns the world is a safe place that's fun to explore.
It's also really important your puppy has a chance to sleep as soon as possible after they've had any new experiences. Sleep is how your puppy turns all the new things they've learnt into memories. Which is obviously important - they're no point putting effort into socialising your puppy if they won't remember all those positive experiences.
Does your dog spend the whole walk sniffing everything and ignoring you?
If they do, don't worry. Getting them to focus on you is easy.
Dogs need to sniff. Their sense of smell is how they explore they world so many dogs want to spend their whole walks sniffing.
And that can be pretty frustrating when you try to call them and they're on the other side of the park tracking a scent.
Your dog's desire to sniff might currently be your greatest weakness, but it can be your greatest strength. All you need to do is provide the sniffs.
Dogs love to use their noses to hunt for food so if you hide some tasty treats for your dog to sniff out they'll think you're an amazing source of fun. And they'll hang around with you more on walks waiting for you to lay them a treasure trail of treats.
Are you looking for more fun walks to improve your walks with your dog? Follow me for more easy tips.
There is no training equipment which will teach your dog not to pull.
And that's great, you don't need to teach your dog not to pull. You need to teach them to walk next to you. And that's a very different skill which you don't need any equipment for.
If your aim is for your dog to walk with a loose-lead then why would you wait until your dog hits the end of the lead so you can teach them not to? That doesn't make any sense.
The aim of any loose-leading walking training session is that the dog never has any pressure on the lead. So there's no need to use a slip lead, prong collar, e-collar or choke chain to punish your dog for pulling.
And one of the easiest ways to teach your dog to walk next to you without hitting the end of the lead is to just not use a lead.
Of course, I'm not saying you shouldn't be walking your dog on-lead. Leads are very important for everyone's safety. Even the most well trained dog can get distracted and run off.
But their purpose is as a safety tool not a training tool. So as long as you've got somewhere you can safely let your dog off-lead you can train your dog to walk next to you without a lead and then add it in later.
If you're panicking about the e-collar ban, I get it.
It's scary thinking about what you and your dog's walks will look like without a tool you've come to rely on. And it's even scarier when e-collar trainers are making outlandish claims that dogs like yours will be doomed to a life on-lead when the ban comes in.
But that's just not true. Many dogs like yours are trained completely force-free and have amazing lives and have so many opportunities to run off-lead.
Those e-collar trainers only think that's not possible because they aren't skilled or knowledgeable enough to train force-free. They're not fighting the ban because they care about your dog's welfare or freedom. They're panicking because once e-collars are banned their careers are over.
My dog Hattie has a really high prey drive - after all she is a wirehaired vizsla with working parents. She's also got amazing recall trained entirely with treats, tricks and toys.
Yes, she's not off-lead everywhere. But no dog should be. We always put her on-lead near roads and livestock because even though her recall is amazing, it's just not worth the risk. But that doesn't affect her quality of life or ours.
If you want your dog to have plenty of off-lead freedom and you're ready to improve their welfare and your relationship with them then follow me. I'll help you and your dog on your journey to force-free training so you can live a better life together.
Fun and friendly dog training in Tiverton, Exeter and across Mid Devon. Force-free training methods help you build a stronger bond with your dog.
