The Midwest Life Stages Double-Door Folding Metal Dog Crate is the bestselling dog crate at Amazon. I recently learned that when you are in any category there, you can look up at a top menu bar and choose Bestsellers. I just did that and as of today, this crate is not just the #1 dog crate, it’s #1 in pet supplies AND #1 in the entire home and garden category. Okay, I admit to liking odd facts like this! So I got interested and clicked through to read the page about this particular crate. I’m a huge fan of crate training for puppies and dogs both — that link takes you to a long how-to page I wrote. It immediately became evident why this crate is so popular. It has two features that most dog crates don’t have:

1. There are doors in two different spots, very convenient for different places in your home or for use in both home and car. Latches on the top and bottom of each door.
2. There is a divider that can be used when you are potty-training a puppy or adult dog. Since puppies are more apt to hold it in a smaller space, use this for training. ( Of course, if you will be gone all day, be sure the pup has enough room!) They say that this crate cuts housebreaking time in half.

Some other good points: well made with sturdy latches, easy to put up or down (well under a minute, reviewers say), free shipping, and more. You will need some sort of bedding. It can be a dog bed (I’m going to try a Big Silky myself) or a folded blanket. Also, while they sell these things according to dog weights, you may also want to think about the size of your dog compared to the size of the crate. I found this good photo on Amazon which I *think* is the same thing. Of course, the crate comes in a variety of sizes. To find out more at Amazon, here is the link: Midwest Life Stages Double-Door Folding Metal Dog Crate

The Midwest Life Stages Double-Door Folding Metal Dog Crate is a post from: Training Dogs Blog

The long drive north will be in late April, and I’m already doing a bit of training review with the dogs, as I recommended in this article I did back in 2008: Train Your Dog Before Vacation Travel and I’m getting our kitties used to their carrying crates by feeding in one and having the other in a choice location on my desk, next to my computer.

It promises to be an interesting trip. LarryDog, the logo dog at the top of the page, is 12 now. He came down with us from Colorado in 2005,  in our little Toyota Dolphin motorhome, and despite his tendencies to be a bit dog-aggressive at home, he behaved very well when on the road. Our other dog, three-year-old Lola, was born here in Mexico, in a town near here. She has had a few car trips but it will be a new experience for her.

It’s a similar story with our two cats. One is a Colorado cat, one a Mexican one. Both have traveled with us in their crates in vehicles, and I can’t say that they liked it. The part-Siamese one was quite talkative on his way down here, so I imagine he will be again. We will be taking the motorhome north and also our car.

The border crossing will be easier for them than for us, most likely. The dogs need rabies vaccinations more than 30 days before we cross, and we need papers to show that, and the animals all need to appear in good health. That’s it. No passports!

There will be some interesting situations when we get to our new home too. We bought a house last year from a friend who lived in it for a number of years with several cats. Should smell interesting to our four.

Any comments about your own long trips with dogs and cats are most welcome.

So What About the Blog?

I’m not going to have much time for it, for several months, so I will be using some guest posts I have collected and pointing you towards some interesting dog training books. In fact, with my background as a librarian, and my easier access to books once we settle in the US, I think the blog will take a more bookish turn.

Dog and Cat Travel — And What I’m Doing with this Blog is a post from: Training Dogs Blog

It comes in many forms. Some dog trainers just naturally start training their own dogs, maybe as children or maybe later in life. From there, they might begin training dogs belonging to neighbors, family members, and friends. At some point, they begin learning from other dog trainers. Maybe they simply take their dog to a group class. Maybe they read books, watch DVDs or online videos.

But if you are considering becoming a professional dog trainer, there are some even better choices for you. First, think about what kind of training philosophy you have. In the past twenty years or so, there has been a dramatic evolution in what is scientifically known about the best ways to train dogs.

It turns out that positive, pain-free training methods evoke a willingness to learn in dogs and other mammals that just isn’t there if they are trained with repeated punishments. Older dog training methods drew more on yanking choke chains and doing other things to make the dog do what you want. Now we are learning that we can get away from the old dominance theories and methods. Dogs will often happily do what we ask of them because we give them a food treat at first, or reward them with some time playing ball.

If you are more old school, I urge you to keep an open mind to the new training methods. Many dog trainers are “crossover” trainers; that is, they started out with the more traditional methods but have crossed over to using methods like clicker training. The science of these methods is easy to understand.

So if you are interested in some training for yourself of this newer kind, how do you go about getting it? You could go to a weekend workshop on clicker dog training, like the clickerexpo  series put on by Karen Pryor, who started clicker training with dolphins years ago and has now spearheaded its use with many different animals. The clicker is a small plastic thing that you hold in your hand and push on it to make a clicking sound… at the exact moment that the animal you are training does what you want it to! Then you give a food reward a moment later.

For more about dog trainer training using clickers and other positive methods, see The Dog Trainer Handbook, by Shelly Brouwer. Herself a professional trainer of this type, she describes several places in the US that you can go to for such training. See Shelly’s website by clicking on the image of her ebook:

Dog Trainer Training is a post from: Training Dogs Blog

• Cars stop and start.
• Rock music blares out as a teenager practices drumming.
• Cats, squirrels, birds, and other animals move around.
• Greasy papers from a fast-food joint are lying in the gutter.

Once your puppy is old enough to go out into the world with you, who knows what you will encounter and how your puppy will react?

You want to start getting your puppy used to the world, bit by bit. This takes more effort than doing a little training at home during the TV commercials (something I also recommend) but it pays off big time in later life. You get a more confident dog, more at home with whatever comes about.

Start small with walks in your neighborhood or a park, then as the pup gets used to those, try more stimulating and chaotic environments. Always pay attention to how your puppy is reacting and don’t let it get over-stressed.

I remember when our Basenji was a puppy, she had been for many walks around our urban neighborhood – we lived in Olympia, Washington, at the time – and she knew a lot of the dogs, kids, and grownups in the area. So when there was going to be a parade with lots of children in it downtown, we took her. She hated all the noise and costumed kids running around screaming. We left very quickly! (As I remember, my husband said “I told you so,” but hey, I thought it was worth a try.)

Don’t be surprised when the puppy pays a whole lot less attention to you than when you are at home. There is so much else to see, smell, and taste! You will need to be on your alert so your puppy doesn’t get a chance to eat those greasy papers or anything else.

I like to use clicker training during these outings, after the puppy is used to it at home. For a good resource on why clicker training is a great way to go, and many step-by-step guides to all aspects of dog and puppy training, do take a look at Clickertraining: the 4 Secrets of Becoming a Supertrainer.

Getting Your Puppy Used to the Big Wide World is a post from: Training Dogs Blog

Dog tricks and games also do serve the purpose of furthering our training too. The dog doesn’t know that rolling over is a game but coming when called isn’t. It’s all part of the great game of life!

Here’s a dog trick you and your dog can have fun with. It’s adapted from 101 Dog Tricks, by Kyra Sundance and Chalcy. Kyra (human) and Chalcy (Weimaraner) are dog trick show performers. More about the book further down the page… now, here’s an interesting trick!

Balance and Catch

WHAT IT IS: Your sitting dog balances a treat or a toy on his nose and hold it there. You say “Catch!” and he tosses it into the air and catches it before it hits the floor.

THE STEPS:

1. With your dog in a sit, hold his muzzle parallel to the floor and put a treat on his nose. Say “wait.” If you have a short-nosed breed, like a pug, this trick is harder but you could try a wet noodle or other bendable treat.

2. After a few seconds, let go of the dog and tell him “Catch!” At first the dog may allow the treat or toy to fall to the floor but if that keeps happening, pretend to race the dog to the treat and he will more likely catch it in midair.

TIPS: This will be easier for some dogs than for others, but all can enjoy it and benefit from practicing it. You will need to figure out where the best place is on your dog’s nose, in terms of balance.

This trick is taught with photos and drawings on page 27 of 101 Dog Treats.  The book starts out with basics like sitting and coming, and progresses through increasingly difficult tricks. I personally would never teach “Bring Me a Beer from the Fridge,” because once my dogs knew how to open the fridge, they wouldn’t go for the beer! (She does warn about that. Maybe if you had a small fridge in your family room…. dogs aren’t that good at generalizing, like from one fridge to another.)

Click on the cover to find out more about this delightful book at Amazon:

Dog Tricks is a post from: Training Dogs Blog

But what to do?

The OUCH AND AVOID method works really well.

1. The puppy bites you or mouths you in a way that causes pain.
2. You say OUCH! just as you would if something else hurt you. I remember getting bee stings as a child and use that rather drawn-out tone of complaint and surprise!
3. You walk away from the puppy.

You may have to do this many times. If the puppy spent its first couple of months or so with other puppies in the litter, this is pretty much what they all do when they hurt each other with their new and ever-so-sharp teeth.

Over time – and it may seem like an eternity – the puppy will bite more softly. It is developing bite inhibition. Now you can say OUCH even when the bite only hurts a little. And eventually you can say OUCH to all bites, even painless ones.

I have used clicker training in connection with my puppy bite training as well. Since the click is saying “Yes, that is what I want,” how would you use it with a puppy who is biting? I use diversion. I get out one of the puppy toys and click when the the pup plays with it… this is after I have done the basic process of teaching the puppy what the clicker means. The diversion also works because you are giving the puppy something else to do, something else to chew.

For more on handling puppy biting and everything else that comes up with puppies and dogs,  I really like Clickertraining: the 4 Secrets of Becoming a Supertrainer.

Puppy Biting is a post from: Training Dogs Blog

2. Your dog is alpha and won’t let you.

3. If God meant for dogs to sit, they would be born with chairs on their bottoms.

4. The sound of the clicker might wake the baby.

5. Your dog might learn the secrets of training and train you.

6. Old dogs don’t don’t learn new tricks.

7. You can’t be the person that your dog thinks you are.

Okay, I hope you realized this is not serious.These may be reasons but they are not good reasons.

This list came out of a day when I was discouraged about people getting around to doing dog training. Now for a few comments…

1. Dog training does take time. But you can do it during the ads on TV. Once you get some habits going, they take surprisingly little time.

2. “Alpha” is an outmoded concept but behind #2 above is the uneasiness a lot of people do feel about being the boss over a dog who pretty much does what it pleases. I find the easiest way to deal with this issue is to reframe how you think about dog training. Think of it as dog games and you and the dog and playmates.

3. Behind this one is the attitude that always astonishes me: that it isn’t natural to train dogs. Well, excuse me, but it isn’t natural to let them be hit by cars either. We humans haven’t lived in a purely natural world for quite a few centuries now and neither have our dogs. I won’t even get into how natural it is that humans have created so many different dog breeds!

4. If you have a baby or children, and you have one or more dogs, dog training just become an extremely urgent priority.

5. Guess what, your dog has already trained you.

6. Balderdash.

7. None of us can be the people our dogs think we are but this is one of the great gifts of living with dogs. They keep loving us no matter what.

7 Reasons NOT to Train Your Dog is a post from: Training Dogs Blog

It’s a program featuring children and teens (ages 5 to 13) and puppies (as young as 8 weeks to 5 months). The children are clicker training the puppies, and very quickly too. Some very young puppies learn to sit and do a variety of other things in just a few minutes! How much training each puppy has had is mentioned… several had had none beforehand.

Given the nature of the participants, the program is very spontaneous and appears more like a good quality home production than a slick professional program. This is much of the charm of the program for me.

To my mind, the best use of the program would be showing it to children as part of helping them get the basics of clicker training. I’m sure any dog-loving child would want to try it themselves!

Clicker training puppies is arguably the best way to train them, and this program should help with that. I think it would be a bit basic for adults… or is it just that the kids make it look so easy?

You can find out more about what is in the program at the page about it here:

http://www.doggonecrazy.ca/clicker%20puppy.htm — and you can download clips or you can buy it there if you are in Canada.

It’s also at Dogwise, clickertraining.com, and at Amazon.com, though Amazon said it would take them a couple of months to fill your order when I was there. They also had it described as featuring clicker trainer Karen Pryor, which it doesn’t do. She endorses it, though.

Now, as a detail person and as a former video producer myself, I did find small things to quibble about.

• Clicker training puppies  is compared with lure and reward, but the latter term isn’t defined.
• There is no list of topics for easy reference, nor are there any credits for who produced the program or who did the voice over. The children are mentioned by name in some cases but they don’t get credits.
• Where they show how to teach a puppy to jump, they show a rather large puppy (Kona) being taught to jump and they say you shouldn’t train a large puppy to jump but don’t explain why. Better to leave her out altogether, specially since the footage of a little puppy does the job.

The program comes with some bonuses. One is training tips. Another is essentially an ad for a DVD coming soon (they then say early 2005) on the tagteach method, which is using clickers to teach humans. I got a kick out the clicker critter section, with tame rabbits, hamsters, and ferrets being clicker trained by kids and adults.

The last section, Speak Dog, shows photos of dog facial expressions and tail positions and points out which dogs you should be wary of and which are demonstrating happy faces. Useful bit. I wasn’t surprised to see this last bit as producer Joan Orr, who sent me the DVD for review, also is a cofounder of Doggonesafe, which is a non-profit organization dedicated to dog bite prevention through education, most worthwhile goal.

So here it is at Amazon; just click on the image to go there…

Clicker Puppy is a post from: Training Dogs Blog

She starts out with a bit about her own career, and then she asks, “Why Do You Want to Be a Dog Trainer?” That’s the first chapter. It is followed by other chapters about your education: the types of training that will help you in a dog training career, the top three places in the US to get an education in the best methods of dog training, and what topics you will need to learn. She also covers continuing your education once you are a professsional.

The rest of the book is about how to start and run your dog training business. It covers the various kinds of training services that you could offer (group classes, puppy training, agility, and more), what equipment you will need for your business, what kinds of places you can work out of, and the like. There is a chapter on class types, sizes, and fees. She also offers advice on how deal with your clients, how to make appointments, and so on. It’s good to remember that a big part of a dog training business is about people! (Yes, training them at times!)

In today’s economy, is a dog training career a feasible choice? I would think so, since training dogs is something that is always needed. It is something that can be done part-time, and it usually requires some evening and weekend work.

Consider your own personality a bit.

• Are you patient and enthusiastic both?
• Are you confident with dogs? This is not the same thing as being fearless… professional dog trainers have a healthy regard for the damage a dog’s jaws can do, and they tend to become adept quite quickly at reading the body language of the dogs they work with!
• Would you like to run your own business or work for an existing one?

Want to find out more? Do take a look at the website for The Dog Trainer Handbook!

A Dog Training Career? is a post from: Training Dogs Blog

1. To appreciate and cherish my dogs every single day.

2. To do more fun things with them, and to work training into that.

Now, people don’t always keep their resolutions, and of course I am no different than anyone! But I do have an advantage… I used to teach time management classes, and so I am not just making resolutions, I am also making plans.

Actually I already do #1, but I want to be sure to express my love fully to our dogs.  Recently our Rottweiler Lola has developed a habit that helps with this. When she hurt a front paw a few months ago, I got down on the floor with her each evening and gave her a  massage, specially focusing on both front legs — the one she wasn’t using much and the one that had extra work to do as a result.

Well, after about three days, she had stopped limping. As my husband and I sat watching television, I didn’t have dog massage on my mind. But Lola got up from her bed and came and sat directly in front of me. She stared intently into my eyes.

I got the point… and so began a regular habit of giving both dogs massages every evening. I plan to keep this up throughout the new year. Some evenings more, some less, no doubt.  I think I will pull out my excellent DVD on Bodywork for Dogs — that link goes to my description of it.

More Dog Training… in the Datebook!

My dogs are generally well enough trained that when I get busy, I don’t always keep up with training new things. But we all enjoy it so much when I do, that this year I am putting into my datebook for Saturdays:  SOMETHING with the DOGS! Since I use a computer program for keeping track of things, it just took me a moment to write it in all 52 times.

Actually, I sometimes recommend that if you get my weekly newsletter which comes out on Tuesday mornings, that you can use that as a reminder to do SOMETHING with your DOGS.

Whatever you do, happy new year!

And here’s a fun video from youtube that may inspire your training:

Two New Year’s Resolutions for Your Dogs and Mine is a post from: Training Dogs Blog