tips

The purity of your pet’s drinking water is a serious consideration. In his book Pet Allergies, Alfred Plechner lists contaminated drinking water as a common cause of health problems. The simple act of replacing tap water with distilled, bottled or filtered water can bring surprising, dramatic improvements.

A crate, or, in other words, short-term close confinement, can be used to help dogs teach themselves two very important skills. The first is eliminating only when and where it is appropriate. The second skill is keeping out of trouble – behaving appropriately in the house. Without these two skills, a dog doesn’t have much of a chance in this world.

There’s a common misconception that dogs jump on people to establish dominance. Balderdash! Dogs jump on people because there’s something about jumping that is reinforcing for the dog - usually the human attention that results from the jumping. If you want your dog to stop jumping on people, you have to be sure he doesn’t get reinforced for it.

It is useful to have a number of behavior management tools on hand in addition to your basic training equipment. The better you are managing your dog’s behavior to prevent him from being reinforced for unwelcome behaviors, the easier it will be to teach him that only desirable behaviors make good things happen. If you do a good job managing your dog, you won’t feel the need to yell at or otherwise punish him for being naughty.

As your dog ages and his metabolism slows, he may require fewer calories to maintain his weight. If you notice weight gain, adjust his food accordingly, and if you’re concerned about him not getting adequate nutritional support, see your veterinarian. On the flip side, if he’s losing weight, that could signal an underlying illness. Consult your veterinarian before you increase his rations.

Have you ever had the misfortune of walking into your house to find overturned furniture, inches-deep claw gouges on door frames, blood-stained tooth marks on window sills, and countless messages on your answering machine from neighbors complaining about your dog barking and howling for hours on end in your absence? If so, you’re probably familiar with the term “separation anxiety” - a mild label for a devastating and destructive behavior.

Living with multiple dogs brings a whole new set of challenges. Adding a second (or third, or fourth) dog means more fun, more love, more joy and more wonderful doggy companionship. But it also means much more from you: more time, more money, more energy, and more working through problems.

Living with multiple dogs brings a whole new set of challenges. Adding a second (or third, or fourth) dog means more fun, more love, more joy and more wonderful doggy companionship. But it also means much more from you: more time, more money, more energy, and more working through problems.

Your positive training program will go much more smoothly if you’re good at interpreting what your dog is saying to you and communicating to him in a way that he can easily understand. Dogs are superior body language communicators. We often reach for our dog’s collars over the top of their heads… They see this is as a direct threat, they duck away in submission (or they bite) and learn to avoid us when we are trying to catch them.

Growling is a valuable means of communication for a dog – something that dog owners should appreciate and respect rather than punish. Of course, we don’t want our dog to growl at us, but neither do we want him to fail to growl if something makes him uncomfortable; that’s very important information in a successful canine-human relationship.

Why don’t more people train their dog? Surely everyone wants a well-mannered canine companion, and new dog owner’s intentions are usually good. Most dog owners make a genuine effort to train their dogs, only to give up because they find that training is more work or harder than they expected. Learning to communicate with your dog can be an awe-inspiring experience of mutual empowerment. Did you know that by receiving rewards for desired behaviors your dog learns how to choose to do the right thing, rather than just how to avoid doing the wrong thing?

The purity of your pet’s drinking water is a serious consideration. In his book Pet Allergies, Alfred Plechner lists contaminated drinking water as a common cause of health problems. The simple act of replacing tap water with distilled, bottled or filtered water can bring surprising, dramatic improvements. Water is the only thing to which your pet should have unlimited access. Animals know when they’re thirsty and they should have free access to clean containers of pure, healthy water.