EDUCATE | ENGAGE | EMPOWER

Creating structure and boundaries inside the home leads to success outside the home. So often we hear someone remark that they don't understand why their dog is behaving badly out and about, when they are always so good at home. When you pull back the curtains, the answer in most cases is lack of structure at home. I know! It's counterintuitive to most dog owners since the problems they notice manifest outside their home. The reality is your buddy seems like they are listening to you because when you are at home their interest and your interest align most of the time. It'd be like if, as a parent you spent the entire day telling your seven-year-old, I want to do nothing, but spend time with you. I want to do all your favorite things, take you to the places you love the most and give you all your favorite foods because it will make you happy. That would be the best behaved seven- year-old on the planet. FOR THAT DAY! The next day, when they go back to school, have homework they don't want to do and Brussel sprouts for dinner, they will not be smiling at you sweetly and being that ammenable child they were the day before. Because their interests no longer run parallel to yours. It's the same way with dogs. Whether we realize it or not we establish a routine with them in the home, they have tons of freedom, they follow us from room to room, we give them cookies for being cute, and we lavish attention on them with our words and our petting. Having healthy boundaries and creating structure for our four-legged family members is a must. They are very similar to young children; if we leave them to satisfy their own impulses every day at home, then they have no accountability to make good choices once we venture out in public. What are a few ways we can start creating structure and implementing boundaries at home? There are so many things you can do in these areas that promote strong mental health for the dog and hold them accountable to controlling their impulses. One way of beginning to implement structure is with crate training. When crate training, the key element is that the dog must fully settle in the crate. When the dog is displaying signs of anxiety (like whining or shifting constantly) then they have not relaxed their mental state. This is a crucial focus for creating the right mental framework for the dog to exist in. They need to learn to decompress and absorb or "soak" in their experiences. Once the crate becomes a new part of their everyday routine, you can begin to implement the "place" command. Teaching your dog how to stay in a set place / on a specific object can be great for establishing boundaries. If you have a dog that won't let you out of their sight, this is a great tool for beginning to cut the apron strings that create separation anxiety. Teaching your dog place is pretty simple. Just remember place is a specific location, not a position. Meaning don't make the dog "lay down" or "sit" in place because that muddies the water for the dog. Dogs are simple. Sit. Down. Place. These are all different commands for your dog. They will most likely lay down eventually and if it happens organically that's completely acceptable. Once you master place; you have a tool in your belt that has infinite possibilities. Have your dog place whenever you are in a specific room (like the kitchen or the bathroom) and be out of your sightline. With time and patience the dog will learn to chill out independent of you and your attention. Our guys place while we clean the house. It's a lot easier without everyone under foot. I've barely touched on the how to and reasons why you should, but there are many resources out there for teaching boundaries and creating structure. A good trainer will be able to break down the teaching steps for these processes so you can learn them along with your dog. - Good vibes everyone!

Recognizing freedom is a privilege and knowing which dogs are capable of redeeming it is critical. A few weeks ago we were at a park not far from our house, playing ball and having a good time with the big boys. Waylon, especially, likes to have a large space, clear of obstacles to run and chase the ball, so we were in the back corner of the park. We noticed a man arrive at the park with a small black dog and immediately upon entering the park, he took the dog's leash off. I wouldn't think anything of it, except I'd seen the man at the park before and noticed some alarming facts. The chief among them, his dog does not listen to him at all, therefore, every time he calls his dog to come back to him, the dog blows him off. This particular day, since there were lots of dogs at the park, we knew it was a recipe for disaster. Mike put Ahab back on a leash and I stayed back with our boys, while he started walking towards the other side of the park to try and help - already sensing trouble. Before he made it a quarter of the way across the park, the scene began unfolding like something out of my (personal) worst nightmare. A lady was at the park with her young female dog. She hadn't had the dog long and (we later found out) the dog was terrified of other dogs. When the unleashed dog started running towards her and her dog, she began screaming to the man "NO! NO! NO! GET YOUR DOG, PLEEEASE!" Her panic and desperation were palpable, unfortunately for all involved, it did not register with the man. Without even heading towards her, he simply yelled back "he's friendly". She continued to scream and finally the man called his dog, then repeatedly called him, but as I witnessed during his previous trips to the park, his dog did not listen. The lady picked up her dog and held it in the air, managing to get a hold of the black dogs leash, but the mans lackadaisical approach meant she was left dealing with the situation alone for longer than she needed to. When he finally got close and she handed him his dogs leash, she moved away from them and set her dog back on the ground. I have no idea whether it was on purpose or an accident, but the man dropped his leash and his dog bolted right towards them again. The lady freaked out, her dog freaked out and in the scuffle with the other dog she lost control of her dogs leash. Even as I type this it feels like I am describing events that transpired over the course of an hour, when realistically this all happened in less than a minute. Both dogs ran into the street and bolted. She eventually got hers to come back and continued to sob as she secured the little dog in her car. The mans dog just kept running down the block with the man chasing after it (angrily yelling at the dog) and being ignored. Has there ever been a one-minute block of time better suited to be a here's what NOT to do for a dog owner? Being off leash is a freedom and a privilege that must be earned by your dog. A dog must have a solid, fully vetted recall, first and foremost, to even be considered for such a privilege. Not only that but the dog must have socialization skills (see prior post - for the true meaning of socialization) that allow for that type of behavior in such a setting. In addition, your dog must be taught boundaries before being given that level of freedom. If your dog cannot be respectful of other people, their dogs, their kids, their food, and their space, then they should not be allowed off leash yet. My own ire was definitely raised when he started chasing his dog down the street; he was incredibly aggressive and calling the dog many names not fit for this post. Ironically, the person he should have been angry with was himself. He set the dog up to fail every step of the way and became angry when the dog did what came naturally. Even though I feel so much empathy for this woman; her choices made the situation infinitely worse. It can be difficult to keep your cool when rattled by a situation, but you must understand your dog looks to you to be their leader. If you panic and scream, and let your emotions rule the day; your dog will definitely feel all of your anxiety and it will ratchet up their own. Also, picking up a small dog and holding them in the air, when another dog is trying to get at them, spirals up the other dogs frustration and makes a bite much more likely to happen. Being a responsible dog owner means training your dog and then giving your dog the correct amount of freedom for what they can handle. There is no shame in that. For our boys, Waylon stays on a long leash line most of the time, because he has a tendency to get lost in smells - especially in new places - and sometimes its hard for him to break out of that focused mindset to hear us call him. Otherwise he has amazing recall, but he isn't quite ready for that level of freedom outside the house. Ahab is the total opposite and could be off-leash anywhere and still be one-hundred percent focused on us and what he is supposed to do. They are each different and it's okay to live where they are as we continue to train towards the future. Please don't let a situation like this happen to you. Invest in quality training, know your dog's level of capability, make good choices that set your dog up to be safe and successful and be respectful of others. - Good vibes everyone!

Keep in mind how hot asphalt gets in the summer or it will be your a$$es fault that your dog's paw pads are burned. Now that summer is in full swing, we are seeing temperatures here in the valley reach well over 100 degrees. And yet...I'm still seeing people walking their dogs in the afternoon. WTH??? I truly believe in my heart that they just don't realize how hot the asphalt is. When it's 75 degrees and sunny out, asphalt can reach 125 degrees. When it hits 85 degrees, asphalt in the sun can easily reach 140 degrees. With the heat wave we've been experiencing lately, the temperature of the asphalt is 160-170 degrees!! My tootsies have no desire to be outside walking on the ground in those kinds of temperatures and my four-legged friends don't want to be out there either. Dogs paw pads can burn even at 125 degrees. I know all of you love your buddy as much as I love mine. Let's do a better job of educating ourselves on what keeps our dog healthy and safe. Share the knowledge and the love.

We all want a "good" dog, right? Possibly have some bragging rights with the friends and family about our awesome dog? Of course we do!! But what about when we take our dog in public or have people over our house and our dog embarrasses us? In public especially people can make us feel very ashamed with their judgement and sometimes comments when our dog misbehaves. It's disheartening and oftentimes discouraging to dog owners and ultimately the one who pays the price is the dog; because now instead of going with you, they get left behind. Your confidence in your ability to lead your dog comes from a place of knowledge and your faith in your dog is paramount to their success. The best way to increase our knowledge and our faith in our dog is through owner education and training. Here are some simple tips that may assist you to begin shaping better behavior and confidence today. Tip #1 - Leaving the House - Don't do it with a HYPED UP CANINE! Seriously! Whether you are wearing your Nikes or not just don't do it! How likely would you be to tell your four-year old that you were going to see Mickey Mouse, right before a five-hour drive to Anaheim, to go to Disneyland the following day? Not likely or you are going to get asked 1,000 times over the course of the day "are we there yet". I'd call that setting yourself up for torture. In the same way, we make going on a walk or heading to the park to throw the ball around the equivalent of a Disneyland trip to our dog. We foster the hype that sets up the scenarios that make us feel like our dog is bad. So, when we walk out our front door and someone is walking a dog across the street, and our dog starts barking and jumping, we are discouraged and just want to go back in the house because our dog is already misbehaving and we haven't even made it past our lawn. If you had the knowledge to solve it; you'd do it today. Well, put on your fedora because you are about to play detective and investigate what is the trigger that causes your dogs excitement. Once you determine where the problem starts then you can work to normalize it so that your dog can walk out the door and go with you in the right frame of mind. If you get out the leash and your dog starts going full throttle excitement mode..then try getting the leash out numerous times throughout the day and leaving it where your dog can see it. Later get it out and put it on them throughout the day and just let the dog wear it and drag it around (with your supervision to make sure your buddy doesn't get caught on anything). Maybe their excitement ratchets up when you use a trigger word like "go". Try and break it down to a point of failure. Many times the effect is the result of a cause that happened several steps prior to the end result. Keep in mind dogs see things much simpler than we do and their ultimate goal is to please you. You can't just fix the picture; you must fix the problem. Tip #2 - Visitors at Home - Does anyone do that anymore? What about when a friend we don't see that often shows up for coffee? They ring our doorbell and our dog goes nuts, barking and jumping on them because they are so excited. Well, again let's go back to the mindset of the dog and the over-excitement they are dealing with. We need to normalize a visitor, which, in our still living in the pandemic world, can be difficult. We may not be able to simulate a visitor, but we can teach our buddy how to be relaxed at home. Crate time can have a huge impact on the mental well-being of your dog. Dogs are naturally den animals and once taught the importance of their crate; they crave the security and privacy of their own little space. We have three dogs and what we have found that works best is to have all our dogs either on their bed (place) or in a crate when visitors arrive. The visitors are usually in our home for at least an hour before the dogs are allowed to say hello. The dog gets to stay in a space they know is safe, because we've taught them that and re-affirmed it over and over, and once the visitor's presence in our home is normalized then the dog can say hi. There is training involved in all aspects of this method, but the end result is well worth it. It builds our dogs confidence in us - since we tell them where they are safe and then we don't let people mess with them in their space - and it builds our confidence in our dog. Dogs need to be crate trained. I heard this recently on a podcast and it's so accurate. "If you treat a dog like a human, they will treat you like a dog." – Not sure if it's an original, but I heard Jay Jack say it on the Dog Trainer's Podcast Hopefully these tips give you a starting point and provoke some ideas. These are not intended to be specific advice to your dogs and your home so seeking professional training advice for precarious situations is always your best course of action. Breakdown Steps to Make them Achievable The most important thing to remember when training a dog is consistency. The most effective training is the small, consistent messages you send your dog with accurate information. Keeping the steps small will encourage both you and your dog with wins along the way. The small wins stack up and before you know it we have a huge victory to celebrate! Feel free to leave a comment. We'd love to know your thoughts and anything you struggle with along these lines.

When you consider how isolating the last two plus years have been for all of us around the world; the question comes to mind - are dogs truly man's best friend now? In 2020, I had the misfortune of contracting COVID, and the 14 days of being quarantined at home were incredibly difficult in many ways. One of the most challenging aspects for me was that I felt fine, but I wasn't able to leave the house. When I got a call from the county and they went over Covid protocols with me; I was point blank told not to sleep in the same bed as my husband and to completely remove myself from any shared areas of the home. Anyone who knows Mike and I knows we did not quarantine from each other. I apologize if reading that makes you feel we are irresponsible, but we isolated from everyone else, just not each other. We are a pair, a true partnership, and we are in for a penny, in for a pound so to speak. The saving grace of our mental sanity during those two weeks was truly our two dogs, Ahab and Waylon. Life with them continued to be normal, training resumed, balls were thrown, dog food was delivered, groceries were left on the porch and life moved on. But the thing I most noticed in the months following, our social lives, as many others have, continued to dwindle until we see people in non-intimate settings, like Costco, but rarely entertain in our home or go over friends houses. Limiting exposure risk has seriously limited our ability to have socializing normalized. This seems to be true for many dogs as well. When you listen to dog owners and trainers, one of the most common topics being discussed, is the lack of socialization for dogs raised during the pandemic. How has this affected our furry friends? We see a lot more dogs with reactivity issues and nervousness or anxiety. Looking at how it's impacted our lives, of course it makes sense that it has impacted our dogs. As we become less social, our dependency on our dogs has increased, not necessarily in a healthy way. A dog is a companion, a best friend and oftentimes a helper, but in the course of history there has never been a time where people depended on dogs more than they do now. The total shift in the way we view dogs over the last 30-ish years has brought dogs into the home and made them part of the family. Of that, I'm 100% a fan. But as we become more isolated from truly intimate human-human relationships and our dogs place of importance in our lives continues to elevate we can forget that in a successful human-dog relationship, the dog is looking to us to be a leader and create clear pictures for them to peacefully exist with us in. It is more important than ever to understand dog socialization. So many people think it is simply letting your dog meet and play with every dog they come across, starting as young as safely possible, so the dog knows how to "properly" socialize. The definition of socialization is the process of learning to behave in a way that is acceptable to society. The result of teaching dog socialization means that the dog can go most anywhere with you, know how to behave in society, and trust in your leadership skill to guide situations in a way that won't harm the dog. It doesn't mean that every dog and every person should have the unearned freedom to be in your dogs personal space. MANY dogs, especially, younger dogs raised during the pandemic, find this type of behavior overwhelming and intolerable. It is not too late to get educated on proper socialization techniques and take back your right to be in public with your dog in a positive, enjoyable way. Let's take the best care of our best friends that we possibly can!