Safety Tips for Dogs at Halloween  October, 2012 – DueNorth Kennels Boarding and Training knows that Halloween, with candy, costumes and kids, can be a scary and even dangerous time for dogs across the country. By following a few simple guidelines, dog owners can enjoy the festivities, knowing that their dog is safe and comfortable. “Halloween can be extremely stressful for dogs. “Every November first, hundreds of dog owners have heartbreaking stories to share about their dogs – stories that could be prevented with a little planning and awareness.”  : Top Three Obedience Commands 1.            Practice your “stay” command with your dog in the days and weeks leading up to Halloween. With ghouls and goblins coming to the door, this is a great opportunity to strengthen your obedience training. Remember to use a leash or a baby gate while practicing your “stay” command if your dog has not had enough practice. 2.            Teach your dog how to relax on command, with a word like “easy,” “calm” or “chill.” Use it to keep excitement levels down when trick-or-treaters come knocking. 3.            Make sure your dog has a solid “Leave It” command in place for the days that follow Halloween, when the ground is covered in candy, wrappers, and other goodies. Seven Safety Strategies 4.            Expose your dog to costumes, masks, and people doing funny or lurching walks before Halloween. Watch your dog’s reaction carefully to decide if he is ready to face Halloween revelers. 5.            Learn the signs and signals of stress in a dog, by remembering LAYS: o        LICKING lips or LIFTING one paw o        looking or trying to move AWAY o        excessive or exaggerated YAWNING o        sudden vigorous SCRATCHING, or becoming very STILL. All of these signs are your dog’s way of saying “I’m not comfortable with this situation.” By learning to read these signals, you can interrupt or change the environment, and prevent your dog from escalating to a growl or a bite. 6.            If your dog is frightened or distressed, do not force her to continue putting up with Halloween activities. Provide her with a safe, comfortable place that will help her feel more secure amid the scary sights and sounds. 7.            Consider giving your dog a highly valued chew toy at least 30 minutes before trick-or-treating begins, which may help to keep her mind off the disturbance. 8.            Keep your dog inside, and attach a “house leash” to your dog, to act as an extra long handle, should your dog try to escape or run away. Make sure your dog is wearing proper identification in case she gets out the door. 9.            If your dog is frightened, do not comfort or “baby” your dog if he is afraid. Dogs take their cue of how to behave from their owners; if you are acting “strange” by offering soothing words and gestures, your dog may interpret it as praise for being frightened, or a confirmation that the costumes are truly scary. Instead, act as normal and as “matter of fact” as possible, to help your dog understand that there is nothing to worry about. 10.        Make sure your family knows that chocolate is toxic for dogs. Dark chocolate is the most dangerous, but all chocolate has the potential to cause nerve damage or even death. “Halloween is a tremendous opportunity to help your dog learn how to be calm and obedient with high levels of distraction,” said Robertson. “With a little preparation to keep dogs safe, and an understanding of how to help pets through their fears, dog owners can have a safe – not scary – Halloween celebration.”

Do you have a dog that growls at you if you happen to get to close to her food? If you do….you have a ‘resource guarder’. This behaviour often starts in young pups and can get worse as the dog gets older. It will not go away without some training. Dogs that resource guard can be especially dangerous to children.

Dogs by nature are scavengers that hunt for food or find food sources. They tend to think that if they have it, then it is theirs and they will protect it.

Obedience can play a big role in solving this issue.

Start today to get your dog to sit on command. Then start to ask the dog to sit before you put down an empty bowl. Have a leash on the dog for greater control.  Then place a very small amount of food into the bowl. When the dog is finished, use the leash to call the puppy away from the bowl. Tell the pup to sit again and add some more food. Make the dog sit until you tell her it is OK and let her go to eat again. If the dog shows any sign of aggression at all, make her sit again and take the food away.

Once she seems to be getting better with her food, hold onto the food bowl while she is eating and occasionally add something a bit more tasty so the dog learns that you are not a threat to her food.

If this aggression is also occurring with toys, remove all the toys but one. When the dog has a toy, offer her a trade for her toy. The trade has to be a trade up for the dog. In other words, if the dog has a high value toy like a stuffed animal then you have to offer a very tasty but small piece of meat. You can start using a word for this, like trade or give and then you should be able to use that word to get your dog to give you whatever it has. Don’t nag the dog with this though or it may revert back to guarding things.

Dogs with a tendency to resource guarding should be on some sort of a leadership program. That means that they get nothing…not even petting without having to do something for the reward. So if your dog butts your hand asking for a pet, say sit first and wait till the dog sits before petting.

Your dog should not be allowed on furniture (some dogs will guard their place on the furniture) and should sit at the door before being allowed outside. If this problem persists after the age of 5 months, you need to get professional help.

Positive Only Training – you be the judge.

I have written before in this column about positive only training and other types of training, using a leash and collar and also using an e-collar. I am not a huge fan of using positive only training.

I have to tell you a secret. I train my own dogs for different kinds of competition. I compete very successfully in competitive obedience. One of my personal dogs became the first dog in our club to become an obedience champion in over 25 years. I also compete in Rally Obedience and to some degree in field training.

So I can hear what you are thinking as you read this. It goes something like this “I don’t compete with my dog….my dog is just a pet. So I don’t need all that really great obedience”. Well the truth of the matter is, there are no kids in the competition ring that are walking around with cookies or toddlers to knock over. Folks, competition obedience is a lot easier than pet dog obedience. Competition obedience has no squirrels running by or deer grazing off in the field. There is only you, your dog, the judge and a very sterile environment.

Go to an obedience trial and ask those people how they train their dogs. Go to a field event and ask them how they train their dogs. Most of those people will tell you that while they do use a lot of positive in their training, they do use correction based training as well. These events unlike events like agility and flyball require a very obedient dog. You require an obedient dog. Don’t accept anything less.

You as a dog owner need to know what kind of dog training you want for your family pet. Unless you are going to be competing with your dog in a sport like agility or flyball, you should be expecting the obedience course that you are attending to provide you with an obedient dog at the end.

Beware of classes that say Beginner level one, Beginner level two, Novice level one, Novice level two. These are classes designed to keep you and your money coming back in a never ending scenario while you live with a partially trained dog.

If you enjoy taking classes and you want to eventually do what I do and compete with your dog…then you have to take classes over and over but your beginner level class should provide you with all the skills that you require to train your dog to a basic level of obedience in one set of lessons. Your dog should be able to perform basic level obedience by the age of one year. Please don’t accept less!

One of the most common things that I hear in class is “I have to go to work in the morning and I can never get my dog to come back into the house when I say ‘come.’”. Dogs that start this have learned a few things about ‘come’.  First of all the dog has learned that when he hears the word come something that he does not want to do is going to happen to him. So when you call ‘come’ in the morning, his fun ends and he gets left in the house all day. He has also learned that when you say ‘come’ you can’t really make him come so the word has become meaningless to your dog.

My suggestion is that you let your dog out in the morning and let him drag a long line about 15 to 25 feet long. Make sure that the dog is only wearing a flat collar that he can’t back out of and keep an eye on him while he is out there doing his business. Allow yourself a few extra minutes and when you call him use a different word such as ‘here’. Pick up the long line and call his name and say ‘here’ and then turn and walk back a few steps carefully so you don’t trip. When he gets to you turn around so that he is now in front of you and give him a little treat. It should be a really wonderful treat such as a bit of meat or wiener. Then take him off for a little walk. Even a five minute walk will make the act of coming to you seem like a more worthwhile effort to the dog. When you do end up leaving for work, leave the dogs a stuffed Kong to keep it busy while you leave.

Training a dog can be a lifelong endeavor depending on what you want your dog to do. A dog under the age of two should not be left outside without a line. That way you can enforce what you really want your dog to do.

If you call your dog to come, make sure that there is something in it for the dog. Don’t call the dog to come when you want to clip the dog’s nails or give it a bath or lock it in a crate. Doing so is just encouraging the dog not to come when called.