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Help! My dog needs exercise — in winter!

December 13, 2017 by sharon Leave a Comment

Recently a client asked how they can keep their high-energy dog exercised during these short, dark days of winter. I sent them several suggestions, and they were really excited to try them out.

TIP: Physical exercise is important, but don’t discount mental exercise, too. A mental workout can really wear your dog out! Use both for the ultimate in a well-behaved dog.

Here are a few fun ways to work your dog’s body and mind when the weather is lousy and the evenings are dark. Different ones will work for different dogs and households:

Creative commons usage from Dozer Does youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAHf57sucxo
  • Hide and seek in the house – version 1 — find the human: Put your dog in a Sit-Stay or Down-Stay — or if they don’t know that yet, have another member of the family hold them — then go and hide. Call your dog once and wait for him to find you. Give him praise, petting, and treats when he finds you. This is also great for training coming when called.
  • Will work for food. Don’t put your dog’s meals in a bowl that only takes a minute for them to eat! Get a feeder toy — see my favorites in my post on enrichment to make your dog work for their meals. It keeps your dog occupied for a lot longer, engages their body and mind, and they love it!
  • Hide and seek in the house – version 2 — find the food: Put your dog in a Sit-Stay or Down-Stay — or if they don’t know that yet, have another member of the family hold them — and hide a little pile of food or your dog’s feeder toy. She has to find it. Nose work can be very tiring. You can hide several piles of food or feeder toys all over the house!
  • Similarly, if the ground is not covered in snow, you can add foraging and nosework to your dog’s routine by tossing her kibble into the yard (as long as she is inside a gate or tethered). She has to use her nose to find every kibble! A great way to work for meals!

    Used with permission of Eileenanddogs – https://eileenanddogs.com/2013/04/24/dog-play-flirt-poles/
  • A flirt pole is like a cat dancer for dogs. It’s a stick with a rope and a toy attached to it. You can either buy one here or buy one here or make one (video instruction) or make one (easy how-to article). This does need to be played outside, but it’s a way you can get some pretty intense exercise in a small space, like a yard, and it does not require going for a walk, etc. If you have floodlights, you can even do it after dark.
  • Play ball with a glow-in-the-dark ball. I’ve heard good things about the Chuckit! Max Glow Pro Launcher.
  • If you do want to walk your dog safely in the dark, check out Whole Dog Journal’s great review of nighttime safety gear.
  • If you have carpeted stairs in your home, and your dog is confident on the stairs, young, healthy, and nimble, you can give your dog a lot of exercise in a short period by calling him up and down the stairs between two people (and also, again, good recall training!). If there is only one person in the home, you can play fetch up and down the stairs by standing at the bottom and tossing a toy to the top. You can even toss treats up and down the stairs. Just make sure your dog is not so excited that he’s not being careful enough. You don’t want your dog to get injured. Don’t do this if stairs are open in the back, wood, slippery, etc.
  • If you have a treadmill, you can train your dog to walk on the treadmill. (If you don’t have one, you can usually get one free or cheap from Freecycle or Craigslist.) Take it slow and train it positively like this or treadmill train positively like this. Some dogs learn to love this!

These are just a few options. The possibilities are endless. What about you? How do you keep your dog exercised over the winter?

Filed Under: Chews & Feeder Toys, Dog gear, Dog Health, Dog toys, Enrichment, Management (Prevention), products

Gentle Leader Workshop

February 9, 2017 by sharon Leave a Comment

Head and shoulders of a Golden Retriever wearing a sky blue Gentle Leader -- thin nylon webbing over muzzle and under chin -- with a tennis ball in its mouth

  • Are you afraid to walk your dog on leash — especially on snow or ice?
  • Do you have a big, strong dog?
  • Are you petite, elderly, or disabled?
  • Have you trained your dog to walk nicely on leash, but they still sometimes pull or lunge unpredictably?
  • Are you training your dog as a service dog who must be under control at all times?

If you answered “yes” to one or more of these questions, this workshop is for you.

Tuesday, March 21

7:15 – 8:30 PM

Orange Innovation Center (131 West Main St., Orange, MA 01364)

This one-time workshop is an introduction to the Gentle Leader, a head halter that allows you to have greater control on leash  — without inflicting pain or being punitive. You might have heard of or tried the Gentle Leader or a similar head halter, but if you didn’t introduce it properly — very slowly and positively — your dog may have hated it and refused to walk with it on! Unlike many other pieces of training equipment that you can just put on your dog and go, the Gentle Leader requires careful introduction and proper fitting. However, for many people, it is very well worth doing since it may mean the difference between being able to safely walk their dog or not!

This one-hour workshop will cover

  • Benefits of the Gentle Leader
  • How to teach your dog to wear it happily
  • Fitting tips
  • How to train loose leash walking using the Gentle Leader
  • Written training tips to take home on conditioning your dog to a Gentle Leader

There are two ways to sign up…

You may attend without your dog. You do not have to register, but I’d love to know you’re coming. Drop me a line with the form below, and I’ll send you a reminder a couple of days before the workshop. If you can’t get in touch, that’s OK — just show up!

If you’d like to attend with your dog. We have two working slots available for people who want to practice conditioning their dog to the Gentle Leader with professional assistance. Dogs should be comfortable and friendly with people and other dogs and have been in a group training situation before. You must register in advance for the working slots.

Cost: $10 without a dog; $15 for working spots

Questions? Get in touch!

Yes, I’d like to learn how to use the Gentle Leader with my dog. Please send me a reminder notice.

Filed Under: Desensitization and Counterconditioning, Dog gear, Events, Loose Leash Walking (Heel), or equipment, products, Training Tagged With: harness, head halter, workshop

Walking Harnesses & Halters: Which Is Right for Your Dog?

March 28, 2016 by sharon Leave a Comment

We are all used to our dogs wearing collars. Collars are convenient and important for holding our dogs’ identification tags. However, they are not always the best solution for clipping on the leash and taking a walk. In some cases, a body harness is better. However, there are many types of harnesses, and not all of them will be the right choice for your dog. How do you choose what to use?

Harnesses Take the Strain Off Your Dog’s Neck

Color drawing of a dog pulling hard on a leash attached to a collar
WikiHow image Creative Commons use

The benefit of a body harness is in reducing stress to your dog’s neck. This is especially important for brachycephalic (flat-face) dogs such as English Bulldogs, Cavaliers, Pugs, etc., as well as for dogs on a tether or tie-out, or for dogs that are reactive, aggressive, or fearful on walks and may pull suddenly or lunge. But it can be helpful for all dogs in reducing torque on the neck. Harnesses can protect the trachea, thyroid, and the bones and tissues of the neck and back.

Also note that the harnesses mentioned in this post are humane options that do not cause pain to dogs. We do not recommend harnesses that work by pinching the dog painfully or by restricting the dog’s breathing.

There are many different types of harnesses, and harnesses are used for many different purposes. This post focuses on pet dog harnesses used for walking a dog.

I’ve divided up the types of harnesses based on where the leash attaches: on the back of the dog, the front (chest) of the dog, or both.

Back-Clip Harnesses

Two huskies on a sled dog team with Royal Canadian Mounted Police checking their harnesses
Back-clip harness create the “sled dog effect”

Harnesses that clip on your dog’s back are good for giving your dog a sense of freedom, which can be useful for some reactivity behavior modification or in scenting/tracking work. However, back-clip harnesses encourage pulling by allowing your dog to lean in with their whole body. While they can be great for around the house or if you need to tether your dog on a tie-out, they are a terrible choice for training loose-leash walking. If you want to discourage pulling on walks, choose a different type of harness!

Anti-Pull Harnesses

When harnesses are designed for you to attach the leash on the dog’s chest, they are often referred to as “front-clip harnesses.” Some of these harnesses have a front attachment but don’t affect the dog’s pulling much or at all. Front-clip harnesses that are designed to reduce pulling are often referred to as “no pull” or “anti-pull” harnesses.

Black nylon webbing harness
Black SENSE-ation harness

The Easy-Walk Harness (by PetSafe) and the SENSE-ation harness (by Soft Touch Concepts) work to reduce pulling by using the dog’s momentum to turn your dog toward you when they pull. These harnesses are often quite effective at interrupting habitual pullers. They can also offer that extra bit of leverage needed by a small, injured, or frail person walking a large dog.

The benefit of these harnesses is that most dogs are comfortable in them right away. There is very little “adjustment phase,” so they can help with pulling immediately. They also don’t cause pain or discomfort to the dog and are easy for people to learn to use.

The major drawback to these harnesses is that they affect a dog’s gait, reducing the shoulders’ range of motion. Although we don’t yet know if there are long-term repercussions to this, it’s reasonable to think it’s not healthy to walk a dog this way on a permanent basis. Because of possible harmful effects on your dog’s shoulders, these harnesses should only be worn when needed (not left on all the time) and used while the dog is being trained. I also urge caution and a discussion with your vet if you’re using them on a puppy. Their use should be discontinued after good leash manners have been established.

Front- AND Back-Clip Harnesses

The Balance Harness is designed to be comfortable for dogs for ongoing wear without affecting gait or encouraging pulling. It has both front-clip and back-clip attachment points that allow a range of leash options, including attaching a double-ended leash for “steering” the dog, often helpful when working with reactive dogs. This is my favorite multipurpose harness. It reduces pulling in some dogs but will not make a big impact on its own with a committed puller or a dog that lunges or pulls unpredictably. It’s a great option for a dog that has learned to walk nicely on leash most of the time but may “forget himself” in a moment of excitement.

Another Option: Head Halters

Head and shoulders of a Golden Retriever wearing a sky blue Gentle Leader -- thin nylon webbing over muzzle and under chin -- with a tennis ball in its mouth
Dogs can eat, drink, pant, bark, and hold things in their mouths with a Gentle Leader on.

For many service dogs and for dogs that pull very hard or unpredictably even after training, or for pet owners who cannot risk being pulled at all, a head halter – a collar that has a loop over the nose and behind the ears – is often the best option. Halters operate on the principle that where the nose goes, the body must follow. They provide a lot of leverage to even a slight person walking a large dog.

The biggest drawback to head halters is that most dogs hate the way they feel initially, so they must be introduced slowly and positively, which can take several weeks. For clients who are training with me, I incorporate conditioning to the head collar during lessons. (Another, more minor drawback, especially for service dog teams, is that the general public often confuses head halters with muzzles. As the picture of the Golden Retriever with the ball in its mouth indicates, a Gentle Leader is not a muzzle!)

Their use also requires a caution: Head halters should never be yanked or jerked. Never give your dog a “correction” with a head halter (as you would with a choke chain). Because a head halter gives you so much leverage, an abrupt jerk could seriously harm their neck.

I usually recommend the Gentle Leader by PetSafe because it is inexpensive and available at virtually every pet store, and because I’ve had such good results with it, but there are numerous other head collars that are also good.

The key to introducing a head halter is to use slow, gradual desensitization and counterconditioning to teach your dog to be comfortable and happy in their head collar. You should spend several weeks pairing treats, then meals, then play with the head collar before you start using it on a walk. Check out one of our Gentle Leader Workshops to learn how to do this.

Which Gear Trains Your Dog to Walk Nicely on a Leash?….

None of them! The gear you use can help or hinder your training efforts, but no gear trains your dog. You have to do that.

To train your dog, reward your dog for walking nicely at your side on a loose leash, and never let a tight leash get your dog somewhere! Tight leashes stop people and dogs and make life boring. Loose leashes lead to good smells, good treats, and interesting places.

What about you? What is your favorite dog walking equipment and why?

Filed Under: Dog gear, Dog Health, Loose Leash Walking (Heel), products Tagged With: Dog walks, stop dogs pulling on walks, walking dogs

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