Preparing for our flight journey to Minnesota ✈️🇺🇸 and successfully taught Shadow to drink from a water bottle!
I picked up this idea from frequent travellers that fly with their dogs a lot and the normal bowls attached to the door just spill as soon as they are loaded onto the plane so I wanted him to have access to water for the whole journey.
I started out shaping him licking it by putting meat paste on the end then marking and reinforcing with more meat paste. This was great but he wasn't actually drinking from it so I made some chicken broth to put inside instead of water. That didn't interest him at all. Then I tried milk because he is obsessed with tea, sometimes he gets the last lick from our mugs! I put a little bit of milk into the bottle and he instantly was drinking that up like a lamb 😂🥛
After that he started drinking the water from it! Success! Sometimes you have to get creative and try to find what motivates your dog the most. Remember the dog always chooses what is motivating and reinforcing, sometimes that might not be what you expect!
[Video of a border collie, Shadow, drinking from a water bottle attached to the open door of a travel kennel]
Okay I am OBSESSED with our new Tug-E-Nuff tug lead!! It's so strong and convenient for playing & rewarding while off lead then easily (when you have both hands lol) clip back on when you need to for safety.
For example to cross a road, pass people and dogs, pass wildlife, pass roaming livestock, going through any area that requires dogs to be on a lead etc!
If you want to pick one up from Tug e Nuff use our partner code: SHADOW at check out for 10% off your order!
Available here: https://tug-e-nuff.co.uk/products/bungee-fleece-tuggy-lead?rfsn=5899444.7137ef&utm_source=refersion&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=5899444.7137ef
( #accessibility Shadow playing with a blue lead/leash with built in fleece designed for playing tug then I clip it back onto his collar at the end )
Shadow showing off a trick he learnt for his Champion Trick Dog title! 6 identical balls and he picks up the one with my scent.
Did you know humans have about 6 million olfactory receptors in our noses but that's nothing compared to a dog's up to 300 million receptors. No wonder they make amazing sniffer dogs that can detect explosives, cancer, blood sugar, cadavers, blood, drugs and even fruit!
That's why it's important to #LetThemSniff on walks 🚶♀️ because they pick up a lot of information through scent about their environment, equivalent to us scrolling a news feed on social media!
Loose lead walking is one of the most difficult skills to teach a dog. Dogs naturally walk faster than us and paired with a super distracting environment it's not surprising many dog parents struggle with pulling!
Even Shadow used to pull like a train before I knew how to teach him
Don't struggle reach out & we'll work on this together! 🐾❤️ #ReinforcementDrivesBehaviour
Lockdown doesn't mean you can't have fun with your pup!🐾🥏 #lockdown #covid19 #dogtraining #llandudno #discdog