The Shelter Conundrum

Content Warning: This post contains distressing topics including animal welfare and discussion of euthanasia. If you are sensitive to topics of this nature, I recommend not reading any further.

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Here is a cute buffer picture

Pet homelessness is a major problem in the United States. I'd like to open with a few statistics that highlight this issue. 

• Every year, approximately 7.6 million companion animals enter shelters each year, and 3.9 million of those animals are dogs.
• Of those 7.6 million animals that enter shelters, about 2.7 million of them are euthanized because there are no adoptive homes available.
• 25% of dogs that enter shelters are purebred.
• Approximately 30% of animals enter shelters because their owners drop them off there.
• Only 1 in 10 dogs are likely to find permanent housing in their lifetimes.
• The majority of euthanasias in shelters is not due to age or illness, but overpopulation. Animals are euthanized because there is simply not enough room to house them all. 

As distressing as these facts are, it is important that we remember them and work to improve the situation. One of the major sources of overpopulation is due to people not spaying or neutering their dogs and either accidentally or intentionally allowing them to breed. This creates more dogs than there are homes and those unwanted dogs and puppies end up in shelters. 

Not all shelters are alike. Most people have heard the phrase "high-kill" and "no-kill" as descriptions of types of shelters. The truth is not as black and white as it may seem. There are many different types of shelters that more or less fall on a spectrum between those two extremes. While one side seems clearly more favorable than the other, the reality is that both can be reasonably argued for and against. To demonstrate this, we will look at how each operation functions and highlight some features of both.

A kill shelter is also known as a municipal shelter. These are government entities that are designed to manage the animal population in any given city/county. They have a set number of kennels available and are required to take in all animals, regardless of age, temperament, illness, etc. The majority of these animals are strays, found by animal control officers, that don't have any form of identification like a collar or a microchip. The rest are owner surrenders. The family either can't care for or doesn't want the animal anymore so they bring it to the shelter. Because they have to accept all animals, this type of shelter fills up very quickly and the only way to be able to make room to accept more animals is by euthanizing those that have been there the longest. These types of shelters generally use lethal injection which has been identified as the most humane form of euthanasia. The animals in these types of shelters are typically kept in a clean environment with plenty of food and water until they are either adopted or euthanized. They are also subject to regulations regarding management and capacity. 

A no-kill shelter, typically a rescue of some sort, is a private organization that can either work alongside municipal shelters or independently to take in animals and provide them with adoptive families to live out the rest of their lives. Being a private organization, they are able to decide whether they will accept a particular dog or turn them away. Most agencies boast an adoption rate of around 90%. While this seems excellent at face value, the reason they can be so successful is that they typically only accept the most adoptable dogs they come across. The ones that get turned away will likely end up in municipal shelters. The other 10% of dogs have 1 of 2 possible fates: for absolute no-kill shelters, they end up as "lifers". They live at that shelter for the rest of their lives. Other types of rescues will euthanize dogs that end up staying at that rescue for too long in order to make room for more adoptable animals. While it's easy to picture that these rescues are similar to someone's home or a similar idyllic situation, the odds are that if they don't end up with a foster home, they are staying in conditions similar to a municipal shelter: standard metal runs or cages, surrounded by other dogs and constant barking. Unlike municipal shelters, they have no capacity limits and so there are usually multiple dogs in one run and if they don't have the funding or the staff, they may not be kept clean or even provided with enough food. Some hoarding situations turned out to be failed private rescues that just got overwhelmed and underfunded. Those dogs then have to be rescued from that rescue.

A third type of rescue, which is not as relevant to this discussion but worth mentioning, are called sanctuaries. These are also private organizations that provide older or unadoptable dogs with a place to live until they die. They usually specialize in old dogs, special needs dogs, or can be breed-specific. They essentially attempt to provide "a soft landing" to animals that don't have good chances of finding a home otherwise. These facilities are extremely limited as they keep dogs for life and do not handle adoptions and therefore have very low intake rates. Their work is important and they dogs they save are important, but they account for a very small percentage of animals saved and are not a viable solution to the overarching problem of animal homelessness. 

So from a moral and ethical standpoint, where does that leave us? Municipal shelters have a much higher euthanasia rate than a low-kill or no-kill shelter, but they have guaranteed funding and staffing which means that the dogs kept there will be well-maintained until they are either adopted or euthanized which means less suffering for the animal but that highly adoptable dogs are euthanized alongside unadoptable dogs equally. Rescues are good at advertising available dogs and placing them in homes, often with an intense screening process and a high success rate, but it is only achieved through being selective during the intake process and turning some animals away. They are also unregulated and therefore do not have to maintain the same standards as municipal shelters. Animals can end up in unhygienic, crowded kennels for long periods of time, from months to years. Below is a photo from what appears to be a great success story of a dog finally finding a forever home, but think critically about the elements of this post:

This dog has spent 11 years at this rescue facility. Look at the size of the cage he was kept in and the cot he was provided. A large dog that is at least 11 years old means that he was likely a young puppy when he was initially received. He was one of the 10% who wasn't adopted initially and he would likely have been euthanized at most other shelters. He spent his whole life at this rescue, never having a family, never getting his own backyard, and being kept in a facility surrounded by other dogs. His enclosure appears to be well-kept, but what kind of life is that? This is supposed to be a success story, but my heart breaks for that dog and the 11 years he spent in a kennel.

I have some personal experience with many kinds of shelters. I traveled to rescues in three different states, some municipal, some private rescues, and some foster parent homes. The things I have seen firsthand will stay with me for the rest of my life. At the local municipal shelter, there were about 30 large runs that held only one dog each. They each had a cot and water and food bowls and a little doggy door that led to a grassy run outside that they had free access to. The dogs in those runs had been evaluated for health issues and temperament and both were displayed on a card hanging on their kennels. The facility smelled clean and all of the dogs were clean. If I recall correctly, the adoptable dogs were bathed after evaluations. 

A few weeks later, I visited a no-kill shelter and did not have the same experience. I walked into a small area that had about 10 runs in it. The smell was the first thing to hit me, followed by the noise. In each run was between 2 and 6 dogs, depending on the size, and they were all on newspaper that was covered in feces and urine. One run had two nursing chihuahuas who each had a litter of 4 or so puppies. One run was stacked to about 5 feet high with crates and each crate had a cat in it. The animals were filthy and the whole situation made me so upset that I actually cried in my car in the parking lot after I left. I felt so sad that I couldn't help any of those dogs. 

Dogs that are fortunate enough to secure a foster home at least have a better quality of life than those left in shelters, but those are challenging to come by and most fosters can only house one or two dogs at a time.

The story above is my own personal experience and I am sure there are shelters that do not reflect my experiences. What I took away from the whole experience was that the "good guys" are not always so good, and the "bad guys" aren't always the villains either. 

This is hopefully part one of a series about rescue dogs. I intend to talk more about this issue in future posts. Thank you for taking the time to read about this issue and I encourage you to reach out to local shelters to volunteer or donate supplies. 

-Jo Beth

Sources: [1] [2] [3] [4]

Oh, You're Still Talking?

When training your dog, it is important to focus on not only when to use a command, but also when not to use a command. Knowing when to use a command, or what command to use, is second nature to most people when training their dog. Something that is often overlooked, however, is when not to use a command. Here is a helpful phrase for you to remember:

"Don't command it if you can't demand it."

What does this mean? 

It means that you'll want to take a second before you ask your dog to do something and consider two things: How likely is my dog to respond? Can I correct him if he doesn't respond?

If you don't think your dog will respond to your command the first time you say it and you have no way to help him be correct, it is probably wise to avoid using the command at all or you will teach him that it's okay to ignore you sometimes.

The most common example of this scenario that I've seen involves people calling their dogs and the dog just happily wandering around, completely ignoring their owner, or even worse, they run the opposite way. The dog has learned that commands can be ignored if it seems inconvenient for them. Not only can this lead to dangerous situations, like chasing a squirrel into traffic, but it also limits the amount of freedom you can comfortably give your dog, like not being able to go to the dog park because your dog won't come back.

So how do we apply this skill to training?

Pay attention to what you say to your dog. Do you find yourself asking for basic obedience and then just saying "Close enough." and letting it go? Do you get their attention or talk at them and then provide zero stimulation or reward? Do you repeat commands over and over until they finally respond?

All of these scenarios result in what's called a dulled response. Just like a dull knife, a dull dog is not going to perform ideally and can cause quite a bit of frustration. Additionally, just like it takes effort to sharpen a dull knife, it takes effort to sharpen your dog's attention as well.  

Un-training dullness takes a lot more energy than avoiding dullness in the first place. To avoid creating dullness, or to begin to correct it, start by telling yourself "Don't command it if you can't demand it." Also, avoid rambling at your dog to the point where you become background noise. Dogs don't talk to each other and don't relate to talking the way that we do. If you want to interact with them, do it in a way that includes them. Play with a toy or go for a walk. 

Some quick tips to avoid dullness include: 

1. Use a leash to maintain control and provide a way to help them be correct. Avoid giving commands off-leash until you are far along in your training.
2. Instead of calling a dog that won't come, quietly walk up to them and grab their collar instead.
3. Avoid activities that require sharpness, like big dog parks.
4. Don't use their name or a command absently. Use a nickname if you want to avoid dulling their real name and don't say any command words outside of training.
5. Never punish a dog for finally responding to a command. If it takes them a long time to respond, but they eventually do, reward the response and don't punish the lack of response. Make a note to avoid that command in the future until you can create a sharper response.

Set yourself up for success and you'll have no problem creating an attentive dog who enjoys interacting with you. 

Beating the Winter Blues

Winter is upon us and with that comes snow days, muddy paws, and freezing temperatures. It's not always pleasant to take your dog for a walk when it's raining or cold and windy, and it's always those nasty days when it seems that your dog has the most energy to burn. So what do you do? 

I've raised a border collie from a puppy in one of the rainiest states in the country. There were a lot of days that we couldn't go outside for longer than a potty break because of thunderstorms. So how did I survive with all of my belongings (mostly) intact? Games! Lots of them! I spent a lot of time researching different indoor games for dogs and when she got bored with those, I would change it up to make them harder and try again. We loved them because it worked as both a mental and physical exercise.

If you are feeling frustrated because your dog needs more exercise or you are just looking for a way to change things up and have some fun with your pup, here is a list of all of the things I've used to entertain my dog while stuck indoors.

1.) The 'Find It' Game

    The premise of this game is simple: I'll hide the toy and you go find it. This game is made to give your dog's nose a workout. Put your dog in a sit/stay (use a kennel or a leash if you are still working on their stay command) and show your dog their favorite toy. Set it on the ground about five feet from the dog, look at them and say "Find it!" and make a questioning gesture with your hands. As soon as they pick up their toy, give them lots of praise and play with them with their toy. After a few seconds, take the toy away, put them back in their waiting spot, and repeat the process. Slowly increase the difficulty by making them look around for the toy more each time. After a few games, you might be able to drag the toy through different rooms and make a scent trail for them to follow to find it. Once my dog started getting really quick at this game, I started naming her toys and asking for specific ones. The process is similar, except when you are at the very beginning of training the game, you say "Find your <noun>!" and then work towards adding multiple toys to the game. 

2.) Snuffle Mats

This is another nose workout. According to some websites, 15 minutes of "snuffling" is equal to about an hour of walking. While I'm not entirely sure if that's true, it definitely makes for a good boredom buster in our house. You can buy them online or make your own and both are equally effective. They are basically small rugs with strips of fleece that you hide snacks in and they dig around in them and use their noses to find the treats. Some people use these to feed all of their dogs meals in. I mostly use mine for play and try to find healthy alternatives to treats like a diced up apple or cucumber. 

3.) Treat Puzzles

These are a great workout for food-motivated dogs. Puzzle toys like this one and this one are great for getting a dogs brain working and keeping them active. Spend a few minutes showing them how these toys work and that they can find treats inside. They'll love searching for treats and you'll enjoy watching them figure out each puzzle. Start with easy puzzles and work up to harder and harder puzzles as your dog gets smarter each time. Make sure you don't pick something too hard at first or they might get discouraged and lose interest. If your dog is brand new to puzzles, a treat ball like this one is a great place to start. 

4.) Trick Training

I used to keep a list on my phone of the most random things I could try to teach my dog to do. I would re-teach obedience commands in different languages. I taught her to wave hello, spin in a circle left or right, jumping over my leg or arm, and I even taught her to read once. She loved to learn, and if you have a dog that thrives on attention, this will be a great way to spend quality time with your dog and also burn off some extra energy. For more inspiration, just search "cool dog tricks" and you'll find hundreds of videos. Have fun with it and you'll soon have a bunch of fun new tricks you can show off to your friends!

5.) Treadmill Training

This one is a good mental and physical exercise. The act of training them to use the treadmill will be a good mental exercise for them and then once they are really good at it, you'll be able to work them for long enough that they get a good physical workout from it. I found our treadmill online for cheap. Like really cheap (it's very old). But it works fine for what we need and so far, our dogs are really enjoying it. They make treadmills specifically for dogs but they can be pricey. A human treadmill will likely work well for all but the very largest breeds of dog. Here is an article that breaks down one method for training this skill. I had to use a different method for each of my dogs because they each handle challenges differently. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out and we can come up with a strategy specifically for your pup. With practice and patience, your pup will be happily trotting away on the treadmill in no time!

Hopefully, these activities will help burn some energy when you and your pup are stir crazy and going for a walk just isn't an option. If you have any other activities you like to do with your dog, leave a comment below!

Can I Have Your Attention, Please?

Often enough our unruly or bad mannered dog is a direct result of actions we’ve taken, or have neglected to take. In other words, behavior we’ve either created or enabled in some sense. ...Many of these behaviors are self-reinforcing, meaning that the activity or the outcome is rewarding.   

-Armando Morales

How often would you say you pay attention to your dog? Do you pay more attention to him when he is misbehaving or do you provide him with positive attention when he is being good? 

Dogs do not differentiate between positive and negative attention. They may look sad or upset when being scolded as compared to happy and wagging during praise, but ultimately they really only care about attention versus the lack of attention. This is why the most common advice during training is to ignore the dog for offering the wrong behavior. Giving him negative attention is not as clear-cut of a punishment as removing attention altogether. 

Now that we have some background information, lets talk about how this can apply to your dog during everyday life. Specifically, lets think about how it applies to a dog that can be described as "needy" or one that chronically misbehaves. Maybe this dog barks all of the time or is very destructive or likes to jump on people. What happens when this dog misbehaves? You look at him, maybe you push him off of you, or you talk to him, albeit in an angry or frustrated tone. What happens when he is being good? You don't look at him or talk to him and if the dog is across the room, you probably won't even pet him. What does this actually tell your dog? When I am "bad", I get attention and when I am "good", I get no attention. Which choice do you think your dog is likely to pick? 

Obviously, most dogs are going to choose attention versus no attention, even if it means negative attention. Being acknowledged by you is enough of a reward for them that it doesn't really matter what you are doing and saying.

Try to notice the times that you give your dog attention. If you notice that he is rarely rewarded for making the appropriate choices, make more of an effort to pay attention to him during those times while also focusing on removing all attention while he is misbehaving. You might find that he becomes better behaved and you'll get to enjoy spending more quality time with him.

(PS: A quick training note- Suddenly ignoring a behavior that used to get the dog a lot of attention, like barking for example, will often lead to an escalation of that behavior for a while since he trying to work out why it doesn't get him attention anymore. If you give in to his demands during this increased barking phase, you will just teach him that now he just has to bark louder and longer to get what he wants. Try to have patience and make sure you reward him as soon as he stops doing the bad behavior.)

Under New Management

 Not all unwanted behavioral habits in dogs require training solutions; sometimes, managing the dog's environment is the best way to stop bad behavior. -Pat Miller

 When addressing a behavioral problem, many people often assume that training is the only way to correct it. While training can certainly help, sometimes the solution also lies in management or a combination of both.

Management is when you modify a dog's environment in order to prevent or discourage undesirable behavior. There is short-term management and long-term management and which one you choose depends on the type of behavior you are dealing with. The easiest example of management is when you get a new puppy and you "puppy-proof" your house. This usually means adding baby gates and picking up items you don't want chewed up or peed on. Even though it seems like you are just protecting your stuff from damage, what you are actually doing is limiting the ability for your puppy to rehearse undesirable behaviors. This type of management is usually a short-term solution until you can train your puppy to behave appropriately. 

Long-term management is used when a behavior either can't be corrected through training or when management of the situation is easier than training. The importance of this type of management is based on what is ultimately at stake in the situation. For a dog that has discovered counter-surfing, it is incredibly challenging to find something that is more rewarding than the ham sandwich he found that one time that you could use to retrain him. The reward for counter-surfing was so high that he is likely going to keep trying it no matter how many times it results in no reward. Using long-term management in this situation would be introducing a baby gate that prevents him from going into the kitchen unattended. The management of this situation is much easier than trying to train him not to counter-surf. 

There are other situations where long-term management is the only solution because the issue cannot be retrained. An example of this would be a dog that is aggressive towards strangers or children. This type of behavior cannot be trained out of a dog to the degree that they become 100% trustworthy. For the safety of everyone, especially children, an aggressive dog requires intense management for the rest of its life, even if it appears to no longer behave aggressively. 

Management is most commonly used in conjunction with training. It is a way of preventing the dog from rehearsing the incorrect behavior while they practice the correct behavior. This is where my favorite training phrase comes into play. 

Make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard.

Management is a tool to set your dog up for success without any direct action from you. You can make it impossible for your dog to steal food from the kitchen counter if you have a gate that blocks him from the kitchen entirely. You can make jumping on guests hard if you put a leash on his collar and stand on it to prevent him from being able to jump up. You can prevent a dog fight from happening in your house if you isolate a food-aggressive dog at dinnertime. All of these examples are situations where your dog has no choice but to do the right thing because the right thing is the only option being presented to him. Remember, it takes five correct responses to a situation to undo one bad response. Managing the situation effectively can prevent a bad response and help speed up your training.

Sources: 

www.thesprucepets.com

www.whole-dog-journal.com

No Means No(thing to Your Dog)

The word ‘No!’ is the most over-used term in dog training – and yet surprisingly it has the least meaning to a dog. -Danielle Shelbourne   

  One problem that I've seen with many dog owners is that they use voice commands with their dogs that they don't understand and then get upset with the dog when nothing happens. How many owners say "No!" at their dogs? Most, if not all of them. How many dogs actually understand what "no" means? Probably very few. If someone suddenly started giving you commands in Latin and then got mad at you when you didn't understand, you would feel pretty upset and confused. The same is true for our dogs. Just because we know what we are saying, it doesn't mean our dogs automatically speak our language. 

    Now, I am not a huge fan of using the word no because it's too abstract for dogs. It requires them to identify what they are doing that is incorrect and then find a way to correct it by themselves. Am I guilty of using it sometimes as a reflex? Absolutely. But then I immediately try to give my dog positive instructions to provide better information for them. Most cases where the word no is used can use a different word instead that provides more clarity. Is your dog jumping up on people? Swap no with the sit command. Barking? Teach the "quiet" command instead. Begging for food? Have them go to their bed while you eat. All of these substitutions provide very clear instructions for your dog that he can actively follow rather than try to guess what he should do next. Dogs aren't typically great at guessing, so it's up to you to make his job very clear. 

    Leave it or drop it are two other great examples of phrases commonly used with no training. A dog will put something in their mouth and the owner will immediately rush over, saying (or shouting) "Drop it!", and then start trying to pull the object out of their mouth. What does this look like from the dog's perspective? 

    Look at this thing I found! It smells nice, I bet it tastes even better. (Owner: "Drop it!") Oh no, now they're going to come grab me and take this great thing I found away from me! I don't want that to happen so I'm going to run away from them so they can't take it!

    When you see it through their eyes, you can see why this isn't a great approach to this situation. An alternative approach is to use a combination of management and substitution. Management in this scenario is simply preventing them from accessing things that they can't have. Dog-proof your house like you would for a toddler. Don't leave a bag of chips open on the coffee table. Pick up items you don't want chewed up. Create as little temptation as possible. If they do manage to find something they shouldn't have, then use substitution as a way to get it back. Also, avoid reprimanding as much as possible because it will lead to the dog running away from you which could then evolve into a game of chase, which they might find even more fun.

    Here is how to use substitution in a non-training situation. The phrase you can use is: "That's not for puppies, this is for puppies!" There's no correction or harsh tone which could lead to your dog avoiding you and making the situation worse and it's also not a command that they can ignore. Keep something available that the dog loves. The best thing would be a favorite toy, but food substitutions work well also. If your dog is chewing on something they shouldn't, grab your replacement toy and calmly walk toward the dog. Keep your body language friendly. When you get to them, try to discreetly reach for the item in their mouth while showing them the substitute item you brought. Use the new toy to encourage them to drop what they have and then give them the new toy or treat. As they drop it, you can say the phrase above or "drop it" or you can just make the swap without saying anything. 

    Be careful about using the command drop it though because if they were to ignore it, you are setting yourself up for a tough time later. Outside of a training session with a controlled environment, it might not be best to use commands that might be ignored. This sets you up for later success because your dog won't have rehearsed ignoring that command already. Training the drop it command is just adding a command to the substitution method but you would practice it in a controlled situation for many repetitions before trying to use it in the real world. 

    Old habits die hard. It's something I need to be more thoughtful about as well but I know my dogs will benefit from it and I'm sure yours will, too. 

K9 to 5: Training Your Dog is a Full-Time Job

 "Repetition builds success and consistency speeds it up." - Unknown

"Prevent what you can not control and control what you teach." - Duke Ferguson 

    In dog training, there are no "days off". Once you've committed to creating a new behavior, or ending a bad one, it’s permanent. Think of it as a contract you signed with your dog to make a rule and uphold it in a fair and consistent manner. His side of the agreement is that he will always do the best he can with the information given to him so that information has to be the same all of the time. Your dog doesn't understand why he sometimes isn't allowed in the kitchen and sometimes he is. He can't connect the dots that he's allowed to jump on some people but not others. He doesn't know why sometimes he has to walk nicely on the leash and sometimes he can pull. Just because you can rationalize when some things are allowed and when they aren't, doesn't mean he can. To be inconsistent is to be unfair.  

    In order to be as fair as possible and increase our chances of success, we have to commit to insisting on a particular behavior 100% of the time. If she's not allowed to bark at the doorbell, then she's never allowed to bark at the doorbell. It doesn't matter if it's just the mailman dropping off a package and you are in the middle of cooking dinner. No barking means no barking and you have to be prepared to insist on correctness at all times. Every single interaction you have with your dog will either train or untrain them. If you allow them to make mistakes without correction, you can lose hours of progress. Unfortunately, unlearning a skill happens much faster than learning one. 

    Now, if you know you aren't going to be in a position to train at that moment, do what you can to manage the situation to prevent the wrong thing from happening. Maybe your dog has to go outside in the yard while you are cooking and can't train right then. Maybe you leave a sign on the door asking people not to ring the doorbell and call you instead. Both of these examples are ways of managing a situation to make sure your dog only ever receives good information from you.  

    What if you are tired after a long day at work and you just want to get the dog walked so you can focus on relaxing. You put the leash on a bouncing dog, open the door and he rushes out ahead and drags you down the steps, and then proceeds to drag you around the neighborhood until you've had enough and go home. This single interaction, which could've been as short as 15 minutes, has probably undone about 2 hours of work that you had previously done. Your next walk is going to require a lot more work than it might have previously because your dog has learned that the rules aren't always going to be enforced and therefore can be tested.  

    Dog training is a lot of work and can be hard to stay committed to when it becomes inconvenient. Through situational management and perseverance, you will reach your dog training goals and come out happier on the other side. 

The Permanence of Puppyhood

 Puppyhood is short-lived, but what about their puppy problems?

 Dogs should be allowed as much liberty as they can responsibly handle. The greatest gift of training is that it increases the dog’s ability to handle liberty." - Chad Mackin 

    Who doesn't love puppies? They are small, fluffy, and can be very entertaining at times. Raising a puppy can be really fun and exciting as you watch them learn about the world and experience new things.  

    But puppyhood is short and they turn into full grown dogs in a heartbeat. Suddenly, a lot of the cute, innocent puppy habits aren't so cute anymore. When your 5 lb. puppy jumps on you, or they bark that tiny little puppy bark, or chew on your fingers, it's just a "puppy" thing. Now you are facing a 40 lb. dog that jumps on guests hard enough to leave scratch marks, or barks all day long. Even if your dog doesn't grow up to be 40 lbs., these types of nuisance behaviors can be just as frustrating in small dogs as well.  

    How do you avoid running into this problem?  

    The answer is training. Start young and train often. Any puppy older than 7 weeks is capable of learning basic obedience. It is often challenging to be consistent when training a puppy, because you'll always have guests or family members who don't recognize the importance of training young dogs. They may even tell you that you are being too strict or "It's just a baby." Puppies need boundaries and a clear set of expectations just as much as an adult dog. They will learn that they can always look to you for guidance in a situation and be more relaxed and trusting with clear leadership coming from you.  

    This goes beyond just learning to sit or lay down on command. This type of training is more like molding the dog you want to have in the future. This includes learning how to greet guests appropriately, how to ask for what it wants in a polite manner, appropriate ways to play and interact with people, and how to respect the rules of the house. It also includes limiting the ability to rehearse undesirable behaviors by limiting access to some situations until the puppy is mature enough to make good choices. 

When getting a puppy, many people expect the typical training they might have to do. Everyone knows to train it to sit on command. Everyone knows they'll have to house-train it one way or another. What most people don't expect is how much work a puppy really can be. They require constant supervision and attention and don't really have an "off" button.  

    To create a truly well-behaved dog, it takes even more work and discipline. That puppy is always learning, whether you are intentionally training it or not. This is why it is so absolutely crucial to put the time and effort in when they are young so that you aren't having to untrain undesirable behaviors they learned they could get away with as a puppy.  It's not very fair to the dog for it to reach a certain age or size and suddenly all of the rules change.  

    The overarching theme here is the idea of freedom and the long game. They see a small fluffy puppy that has to follow a very defined set of rules they are expected to follow and say that its not fair to the puppy. They say that they just need to be free to be a puppy and do what they want and that's how they raise their puppy. But how long is puppy-hood compared to adulthood? Two years later, those same people are watching you let your dog off leash to run around an open space or go swimming in the lake or at the beach while they can't take their dog off of its leash or it might not ever come back or worse, end up in a dangerous situation. What about having guests over? Your dog has learned to sit quietly and wait to be greeted and gets to enjoy all of the attention. Meanwhile, the other dog has to be kenneled in another room when guests arrive because it will jump on everyone or it won't stop barking. Which dog has more freedom? How many more years of freedom will your dog have, including the 10 or so months "without freedom", compared to their dog, who may never get to have those experiences?  

    I want every dog to have as much freedom as possible. There are so many great things in life that you can share with your dog if they are well-trained, like becoming a therapy dog and visiting sick children in the hospital, hiking through the mountains and sticking to the trail with you, or going with you to dog-friendly restaurants and stores. These are just a few examples; there are so many more.  

    Building that foundation as a puppy will set you up for so much success later on in life and it's my hope that everyone can put the time and effort into molding their puppy from the start so that they can live out their lives with as much fun and freedom as possible.  

The Quick and Easy Way to a Perfect Pooch

Surprise! There isn't one! And that's okay!

 When it comes to success, there are no shortcuts. -Bo Bennett 

    Owning a dog is a lot of work. Dog training is hard. Behavior modification is extra hard. This isn't something that gets talked about much. There are a ton of articles and videos about how to teach your dog to walk on a leash or how to sit on command. What's hard to find is how to stay motivated as an owner when the task ahead seems daunting or even overwhelming. 

    Watching an instructional video on the internet, spending an hour with a trainer, or reading books or articles about training are the easy part. The real work comes in after the trainer left or when the video has ended. It's thousands of repetitions throughout the dog's life. It's finding new ways to motivate yourself to push forward when it feels like you are stuck. It's all of the hours spent molding your dog into a perfect citizen, who makes you proud every time they demonstrate how all of that hard work paid off. These victories, which can be small or large, are incredibly rewarding and affirming for owners. For some, victories happen quickly, and they rack up new skills like levels on a game. For others, however, initial success is rapid and then begins to take more and more time. After long enough without a big victory, owners tend to lose hope that things will ever get better.  Some owners have the patience to put in those long, slow miles. Others start strong but eventually lose patience and give up. Sometimes, it’s the same owner who is pushing forward with one skill and giving up on another. It's okay to feel stuck in the mud sometimes. It happens. Ideally, you can find a training buddy or a group class who can help hold you accountable and provide encouraging words to push through the tough times. Unfortunately, owners don't often have that type of external motivation and either give up completely or start looking for a quicker way. This is where they will run into problems.  

    There are no shortcuts in dog training, period. It takes consistency and repetition. Even once you get the desired behavior, you'll still need occasional refreshers with your dog to make sure the undesirable behavior doesn't come back. It gets even harder when you have a dog breed that's predisposed to certain nuisance behaviors or is prone to stubbornness and independence. It takes the time it takes and that's all there is to it. You can buy harsher training devices or attempt other shortcuts, but you'll find that you either end up with new problems or that the behavior returns the moment the training device is removed.  They become a crutch on which you will always lean until you can put the proper training in place.  

    I feel that training through punishment or excessive force is a bit like playing the video game, Guitar Hero, and thinking you are playing guitar in real life. It may look comparable at first glance, but ultimately, it is an illusion. If you suddenly had a real guitar and had to play on stage, the truth would come out. 

    

    The same rule applies to dogs. A behavior that occurs only under threat of force or pain is not a behavior that can be relied on. Do you have a dog that only comes back to you when he has a shock collar on? What happens when that dog accidentally slips out the door and is running through the neighborhood? If his collar isn't on or he isn't in range anymore, do you think he'll come back? It's a coin toss. He might or he might not. And because you don't have that solid recall foundation that comes from hours of practice, you don't really know if he will come when you call. The distraction of cars passing by or a squirrel running across a yard may prove far more enticing than you. So of course, in a very controlled situation, it looks like he's got good recall, but out in the real world, his missing education becomes apparent and that could lead to dangerous situations. 

    The best thing you can give any animal is an education. A well-trained dog will get to experience more of life, have less overall stress and anxiety, and be much less likely to end up in a dangerous situation. It's hard work, but in the end, your dog will be so much better off because of it.