Wags by Wegel

The tendency to guard objects is a normal canine behavior. Some guarding between household dogs is to be expected, and it’s unreasonable to think that they will share everything perfectly equally at all times. So how do you know when one dog is guarding too much? As in all things: it comes down to communication. Even concerning resources, dogs should be able to communicate with one another, and they should be respectful of one other’s communication. In this video, we’ve just given Jemma and Ollie each a new toy. Ollie decided that Jemma’s seemed more interesting than his, so he went over to see if he could get it. Watch closely: how many low-level signals do you see Jemma giving Ollie in this video that indicate her desire to keep this toy to herself? How does Ollie respond?

Shared Resources Between Dogs

The tendency to guard objects is a normal canine behavior. Some guarding between household dogs is to be expected, and it’s unreasonable to think that they will share everything perfectly equally at all times. So how do you know when one dog is guarding too much? As in all things: it comes down to communication. Even concerning resources, dogs should be able to communicate with one another, and they should be respectful of one other’s communication. In this video, we’ve just given Jemma and Ollie each a new toy. Ollie decided that Jemma’s seemed more interesting than his, so he went over to see if he could get it. Watch closely: how many low-level signals do you see Jemma giving Ollie in this video that indicate her desire to keep this toy to herself? How does Ollie respond?

Bobbie and I lurk in social media groups where there seems to be a mounting general discomfort from dog owners with letting dogs be dogs. I mean people seem to be getting really bent out of shape about their dogs getting the zoomies, barking at stuff, pulling ahead a little bit on a walk… They’re being told that they need to teach their dogs how to be calm. So they’re putting all of this effort into mat work and settling exercises and they’re forgetting that dogs need time to be dogs. Dogs are living creatures with personalities and just like you and me, they get excited about stuff in their lives. If we’re not giving them opportunities to let this out, we’re just going to end up with more pent up frustrated behavior and it just becomes a vicious cycle of trying to teach a dog who is bursting with life to hold all of that inside. On a daily basis, our dogs run, jump, bark, dig, just generally go wild — because they’re animals, and we understand that. For all of the showy things they can do, like waiting at doors and retrieving on cue, the counterbalance is just “untamed” dog stuff. This is all just to say… if your dog is just laying around your house like a limp dishcloth, that’s unbelievably sad. If you have a dog, it’s time to get comfortable with the dirt, the drool, and the barking! We have a whole list of fun things that you and your dog can try so that both of you can live your best lives together as teammates. Comment below and we’ll send you the list!

Let dogs be dogs!

Bobbie and I lurk in social media groups where there seems to be a mounting general discomfort from dog owners with letting dogs be dogs. I mean people seem to be getting really bent out of shape about their dogs getting the zoomies, barking at stuff, pulling ahead a little bit on a walk… They’re being told that they need to teach their dogs how to be calm. So they’re putting all of this effort into mat work and settling exercises and they’re forgetting that dogs need time to be dogs. Dogs are living creatures with personalities and just like you and me, they get excited about stuff in their lives. If we’re not giving them opportunities to let this out, we’re just going to end up with more pent up frustrated behavior and it just becomes a vicious cycle of trying to teach a dog who is bursting with life to hold all of that inside. On a daily basis, our dogs run, jump, bark, dig, just generally go wild — because they’re animals, and we understand that. For all of the showy things they can do, like waiting at doors and retrieving on cue, the counterbalance is just “untamed” dog stuff. This is all just to say… if your dog is just laying around your house like a limp dishcloth, that’s unbelievably sad. If you have a dog, it’s time to get comfortable with the dirt, the drool, and the barking! We have a whole list of fun things that you and your dog can try so that both of you can live your best lives together as teammates. Comment below and we’ll send you the list!

Do you know where your Olligator is?

Happy #nationaldogday, everybody! We’re grateful to these two goofballs for giving us lots of reasons to laugh every day ♥️♥️ #dogs #puppies

Happy National Dog Day!

Happy #nationaldogday, everybody! We’re grateful to these two goofballs for giving us lots of reasons to laugh every day ♥️♥️

Does your dog like to dig holes? The best solution to this common problem behavior is to give it an outlet. Here’s how we made a dig pit for our dog. All you need is a kiddie pool, and some sand. Remember that your dig pit should be sized for your dog: bigger dogs are going to require more space than smaller dogs. You can add rubber toys, bully sticks, and antlers to make the spot more enticing for your dog. We recommend adding some kind of covering for rainy days, and to keep the critters out when your dog isn’t using it. Digging is a normal behavior for dogs — some do it more than others. But for those who like to dig, providing an outlet is an excellent, biologically appropriate form of enrichment. In fact, providing a space where your dog is allowed to engage in this behavior without interruption or redirection is an excellent way to prevent him from digging up your landscaping, or along your fence line. Got a question about digging? Drop it in the comments below!

Socializing a new puppy can feel like a really daunting task, especially when you understand how absolutely essential it is to creating a behaviorally-sound adult dog. 🙃 Over the course of an average day, your puppy will come across countless novel sights, scents, sounds, flavors… you name it. Socialization isn’t only about exposing our puppies to these new things: it’s about allowing them the time and space to experience and explore their feelings and reactions!

Happy Friday, friends! Here’s an easy 5-min enrichment tip to help start your weekend off on the right foot. These tabs on our daughters playpen are super fun to tug because they offer a lot of resistive feedback. So I found something of the same material, and affixed it to my chair — where I want our puppy to learn to hang out. It’s an all-around win: he gets the enrichment he’s seeking, and I am offering passive reinforcement for staying settled by my right side, thereby furthering my training goals. Providing an appropriate outlet for problem behaviors is by far the most effective way to get rid of them. I’m never going to stop Ollie from tugging, but I can direct him to appropriate items. I might have to carry a tug item around for Ollie for a while, or forever, to diffuse tension in high-stress situations, or at minimum, offer games of tug on a daily basis at home to help him burn off some energy and decompress. Got a problem you need help solving? Drop it in the comments below.

Did you know? Dogs are keen observers of our bodies and of their surroundings. They take note of those details during training to tell them what it is that is making the treats flow. Sometimes, they guess wrong… but that’s never their fault, it’s ours! Ollie is learning to sit by my right foot. We did this many, many times over the course of about 20 minutes. After I’d gotten up, I saw him go back over to the chair and sit in front of it again. He knows there is something about that set-up that made me reward him, but he wrongly suspected that it might have something to do with the chair itself rather than my foot. Oops! This isn’t Ollie’s fault, because it was a good guess, based upon the scene I presented to him. Now it’s on me to make my future set-ups similar enough that he offers the behavior, but different enough that he begins to loosen his attachment to the chair, and focus in on my foot instead. What’s a surprising cue your dog misunderstood?

Training Tip Tuesday PSA: it is not your adult dog’s job to train your puppy. While our well-socialized, well-trained older dogs can absolutely communicate important boundaries to puppies, it should not be left completely up to them to set and enforce the rules. Older dogs may convey their preferences to puppies — like growling and moving away when their tails get nipped, or ending play that is too rough — but it is absolutely *your* job, as the human caretaker, to be your older dog’s teammate and help redirect the puppy so that she doesn’t have to. Leaving it entirely up to your older dog will only make her become increasingly grouchy and grumbly. #clickertraining #dogs #animalbehavior #chesapeakbayretriever #trainingtiptuesday

Hello and welcome to another edition of Science Thursday! Today we’re talking about cooperative care, or in science terms: the effects of predictability on the welfare of captive animals. In their 2007 study, authors Lois Basset and Hannah Buchanan-Smith write: “An event is deemed controllable if there is a difference in the likelihood of it occurring depending on an animal’s behaviour.” What does that mean? In short: all behavior is functional. That means that anything we do, we do because we want to exert control over our environment. Behaviors that positively impact our environment are ones that we repeat; those that don’t work don’t get used again, at least not in that context. Our captive animals experience more predictability in their everyday lives than their untamed counterparts. That can be a force for good or bad, depending upon how we harness it. Increased predictability — knowing what to expect under familiar circumstances — either leads to increased compliance or comfort, or to an increase in avoidance behaviors. So let’s relate this back to care practices. Let’s say that I want to trim my dog’s nails. Lots of things tell my dog that I’m about to start this procedure. I may go get the nail clippers, sit on the floor, pick up her paw… I can either choose to work with my dog, or against her, because I promise that if you present these circumstances once, she will remember when you come around to do it a second time. The concept of cooperative care returns agency to our dogs. They want to know that their behavior affects outcomes. The more I teach my dog to work with me, the less force and restraint I have to exert, the more in control of the situation she is, and the more likely she will be to cooperate. You can fight predictability, or you can embrace it. Practicing cooperative care procedures makes the main event much less stressful, and reduces the likelihood that you will have to continue to escalate through levels of rest

Being an excellent trainer means knowing how to work with dogs and their humans at the same time. A choice I might make based upon the dog’s needs might not exactly meet the human’s needs, so when we’re able to find a sort of middle-ground compromise that makes them both happy and successful, we do. We’re coaching a team. What’s the most helpful piece of advice your trainer ever gave to you?

Want to improve your clicker timing? Today's episode of Training Tip Tuesday is for you! I get it: clicker training can feel like a whole big mess when you're first starting out. Your success as a clicker-trainer means learning to respond to visual and auditory cues as precisely as possible. That requires some serious mechanical skill! While we know you're super excited to get to the training part, your dog's skills are only as good as yours, so taking the time to work on your own technique first sets you both up for success and actually helps you achieve your goals faster. Here are two games to work on your mechanics. You can play this first game alone while enjoying your favorite TV show. Choose a behavior that the characters are likely to perform -- something simple, like smiling, or saying a certain word ("like" is my favorite when I'm watching reality dramas!). Every time you see a character perform the action, or hear them say the word, click! Bonus points if you also practice pulling a treat out of your pouch. Grab a partner and a tennis ball for the second game. Ask your partner to bounce the ball. Click when the ball hits the floor. Before they catch the ball, pull a treat from your pouch and drop it on the ground! Try these and let us know how it goes!

You all had so much to say in response to our post about face-licking yesterday that we thought we'd stay on-topic. Here's another edition of Science Thursday! Does your dog lick your face, or other people's faces? Maybe she licks other dogs' faces. Humans get hung up on the idea that their dogs are giving them kisses. But actually, face-licking is almost never a gesture of pure affection. Usually, dogs lick our faces because they're feeling insecure, and this is a way of seeking information or input from us. It's a gesture they carry over from dog-dog communication: typically, this is something younger dogs do to older dogs -- a leftover from their wolf ancestors, whose pups lick their parents' faces to prompt them to regurgitate food. We might refer to face-licking as an appeasement gesture: something dogs do to show social deference to an elder, or as a way to diffuse tension. Take a look at your dog's whole body when she licks your face. What is the rest of her body saying? Don't forget to read the room: is something causing her to feel uneasy, or overly-excited? Let's keep the conversation going. Drop us a comment below! #sciencethursday #dogtraining #clickertraining #dogs #behavior

It’s time for another edition of Training Tip Tuesday! One of the questions we’re asked most frequently is: how much time per day do I need to devote to training in order to see results? I tell clients that when they’re teaching a new skill, like targeting or mat-shaping, they should work in 5-10 minute mini-sessions a few times per day. This maximizes our efficiency and prevents inattention. Your goal is to get 15-30 minutes of total training time per day. But in general, I think the question comes from a misconception about what training is. Training for life skills means engaging with your dog all day and rewarding behaviors as they occur in real life. One of my favorite ways to make sure I’m hitting my goals is to count out 100 treats into a bait bag every morning. That means I have 100 opportunities to reward good behavior as I see it. All of those little opportunities add up! Got a question about how to block out time for training? Drop it in a comment below. #TrainingTipTuesday #clickertraining #dogtraining #dogs #behavior

Time for another 5-min enrichment tip! If you’ve ever seen one of these balls at the pet store and wondered what the heck it’s for, today’s tip is for you. Combined with a fleece blanket and your dog’s favorite treats, this toy provides hour of fun for dogs who like to rip and shred! #friday #enrichment #dogs #dogtraining #behavior

Welcome to another edition of Science Thursday, where we discuss our favorite studies in training and behavior, and tell you why you should care about them. This week, I'm presenting a case study published in 2003 by Alexandra Semyonova. The premise of her work is that alpha and dominance-theory are misapplied to dogs, and that we need to find a new model to describe relationships between dogs in pairs and groups. A little backstory here: the theory of dominance has been misused to describe domestic dogs for decades, when it really comes from equally dubious research into wolf pack behavior. We'll discuss the merits of that research at a later date. I love and hate this paper because the author uses her own dogs as the sample for her case study. That's a point in the negative column for me, because it does open the author up to some observation bias. But I'm honestly not concerned about her particular findings -- just in the concepts she presents. Semyonova gives us a lot of useful vocabulary for discussing binary and group relationships between familiar dogs, which we'll discuss here. First, she says there is no set pecking order among familiar dogs. There isn't an alpha, a beta, and so on. Rather, we should imagine each dog as living atop his own "fitness hill." When Semyonova says "fitness," she means "optimal state of living," in a sort of Darwinian sense of what it means to be "fit." Second, she says that dogs communicate using a set of body language gestures, and that these are mutually understood by dogs in groups. Third, she says that each individual dog's "fitness landscape" is determined by his unique likes and dislikes. For example: for one of my dogs, being the first to greet me at the door was the most important thing in life; my second dog understood this, because he communicated it clearly to her. This particular thing wasn't the hill she would die on, so she let him have that thing first. There are plenty of things that he understood to be importan

Welcome to another edition of Science Thursday, where we talk about our favorite studies into training and behavior, and tell you why you should care about them. This week, we’re talking about pack of coyotes living in Queens, NY. When you think of coyotes, you probably think about packs roaming in rural areas, but they’re expanding into increasingly urban places, including major metropolitan cities like LA, NYC, and Chicago. Researchers studied the DNA of a pack in Queens and discovered that those coyotes shared DNA with domestic dogs! — on average, 5-10% of domestic dog genetic ancestry! So why do we care about that? What differentiates coyotes from grey wolves and domestic dogs is, in part, genetic material that codes for hyper-sociability to humans. That genetic insertion was found in the DNA of the coyote-dog hybrids! This means that these coyotes were genetically wired to feel more comfortable approaching humans and encroaching on more populous areas. The Queens coyotes were actually taking food directly from human hands! This one is a huge yikes to me: coyotes aren’t a species that most people want roaming around their neighborhoods. Perhaps hybridized coyote-dogs would show a preference for scavenging and foraging, but typically coyotes hunt for prey in packs. What is there to hunt in the city? I’m genuinely interested in a discussion, here. Share a comment below, and pop over to our stories for some polls! #ScienceThursday #coyote #dogtraining #behavior #clickertraining