Is Your Dog a Digger?

Dogs love to dig but this can be a problem if that lovely landscaped yard of yours looks like a minefield from all the holes that your dog has dug.

No doubt if you have a dog that likes to dig you have tried all and sundry to get it to stop from smacking it to yelling at it when it starts to dig and you probably still haven't resolved the problem.

Once again, like all methods of dog training, if you can address the reason why the dog is doing something you will be able to eliminate the problem.

There are many different reasons why a dog will dig, from boredom and frustration to the search for a cold place to rest in humid weather.

Consider the surroundings that you have made available for your pet and see if there are any areas that need attention.

Does your dog need more shelter, or is the current shelter just a little too hot for the climate that you are living in?

Is the dog digging to gain your attention and if so you will need to look at earlier lessons on how to give your dog the attention that it is seeking without encouraging it to continue with the behavior that you wish to stop.

Maybe your dog needs more toys to play with or more exercise to relieve some of it's pent up energy.

Maybe you will need to fence off parts of your yard where you know your dog prefers to dig.

If you have a dog that just prefers to dig for no other reason than the enjoyment of digging you might need to offer it a dedicated area of the yard where it can dig to it's hearts delight.

This might help to keep your dog contented while you are away.

There will always be a solution, you just need to look at the circumstances and take the appropriate action.

Your dog's behavior is a reflection of you

A dog is as good as its owner has taught it.

Family friends of mine have a German Shepherd and as they are an elderly couple they weren't quite so inclined to train their dog when it was young.

After a while of disobedience they decided to take this dog to a dog training school but as would be expected from a dog that has never had any training from a puppy the dog didn't like the training school.

The easy solution was to discontinue the training and hope for the best.
Unfortunately the best will never come from a dog that has not been trained and will not respond to any of their requests.

They were disappointed with their pet and assumed that it was because it had a poor personality.

Little did they know that having spent some time on this dog when it was a puppy would have given them a pet that they would have enjoyed a whole lot more and they would have had an obedient dog that they would have been happy to take anywhere without fear of it running away and causing trouble.

German Shepherds are intelligent dogs and this dog has been quite bored for most of it's life as it hasn't got any purpose in life and will not listen to any commands.

After seeing the dog become somewhat depressed I started to retrain it to improve the life of both the dog and it's owners.

Progress has been very rapid as the dog is happy it has some new challenges and loves the attention and rewards that it gets on a regular basis now.

It is a lot more sociable and is easier to manage when out in public.

The owners are a lot happier and so is the dog.
It just seems a shame that they didn't persevere so much earlier in the dog's life and they all would have enjoyed many more years of fun and entertainment.

How To Teach Your Dog Tricks And What Dog Tricks To Teach

The best way to teach your dog tricks is to practise little and often. Take one trick and practise it with her several times a day if you can. Don't move on to a different trick until she has mastered the first.

Keep each session very short because your dog will be become tired, especially in the beginning while she is trying to figure out what is going on. Be sure to always reward her when she does what you wanted. At first, you can give her a treat that you know she likes. Later when she knows the trick well, it is still important to praise her every time - even years from now.

Shaking Hands

This is a simple trick to teach. Have the dog sit in front of you, reach out your hand and then take her paw. If you have noticed that she is more likely to raise one paw than the other, pick that one. At the same time, give the command which could be 'Shake'.

After a few practices she should start to put her paw into your hand when you reach out and say 'Shake'. Reward her when she does this, then end the session and repeat a few hours later.

Some dogs cannot do this trick because they need both front paws on the ground for balance. If your dog is very unwilling to let you pick up her paw, you may have to forget it and move on to something else.

Catch

Again this is a very easy trick and a dog will often do it automatically. Choose a treat that is big enough to see, but not so big that the dog could choke on it. You want something they could swallow whole without a problem.

Let the dog see the treat or sniff it, then throw it in the air and say 'Catch!' The aim is for her to catch it before it hits the ground. When she does this, praise her. It may take a little time before she first does it.

With this trick, try to end the session with a 'failure' - that is, end it when she has let one fall on the floor. Otherwise she will learn that you throw her treats until she catches one, then you stop - so catching them is bad.

Stand And Beg

This is easier for smaller dogs, and unsafe with very large ones who may do some damage to themselves, you or your home if they lose their balance!

Have the dog sit in front of you. Let her see the treat then hold it above her head at a height where she will have to stand up on her hind legs to reach it. At the same time give the command, e.g. 'Beg'. You can hold her front paws at first to support her.

Make her continue a little longer each time before she gets the treat. That way her balance will improve and soon she will not need your support. Never tease her by taking the treat away.

Generally, younger dogs will learn more quickly. As the saying goes, 'You can't teach an old dog new tricks'! But a young puppy may injure herself in frantic attempts to get her reward, so don't push too hard when you start to teach your dog tricks.

Train A Dog To Fetch: Quick And Easy Method

It is a lot of fun to train a dog to fetch. Most young dogs are very happy to learn this new game, although they may initially be a little confused about the rules.

Many people start out wrongly with sticks in the park, perhaps putting the dog on a long leash. Although you will later be able to throw sticks for your dog in this way, it is not the best place to begin. Both the park and the stick itself are much too stimulating for the dog. She is going to find it hard to focus on you and your game there.

Instead, start in the house. The best place is a hallway where there are not too many distractions and you have room to throw. Close doors into rooms so that she really only has one place to go with the object: back to you.

Begin with the dog's favorite toys. You should come armed with as many as you can find. You will also need treats for when she gets it right. If you don't like to give her sweet treats, try carrots, which many dogs enjoy chewing on.

Take the first toy and wave it around the dog's nose to get her interested in it, then throw. If she goes after it, she gets a treat. She doesn't have to bring it back to be rewarded at this stage - chasing is enough. If she doesn't go after it but just looks or ignores it, let it lie where it fell and throw another one. Sooner or later she will chase after one of them as you throw.

The next step to be rewarded is when she picks up the toy you just threw. (Don't reward her for picking up a toy that you threw a few minutes before - she will not learn the game that way).

If you have already trained her to come, you can call her back to you, but at first she will probably drop the toy. Don't reward her for coming back without the toy, unless she brings it close to where you are. Sooner or later she will bring one all the way and that is the moment for the rewards to start again. Even if she will not give you the toy, she gets a reward the first time she does this.

Finally, she will drop the toy in front of you, panting happily, and wait expectantly for you to reward her or throw it again. And again, and again, and again.

Most dogs can easily be taught this game and they love it. If you have a dog who does not seem to want to learn, you may be able to teach her by getting together with another owner whose dog is a good fetcher. Play with the other dog and let your dog see that you are rewarding him for fetching correctly. If your dog still doesn't join in, maybe she is not interested in the treats.

When you can play fetch with your dog in the park, she gets tons of exercise without you having to do a lot of running around or worrying about where she is and what she is into. So it is worth continuing to train a dog to fetch.

How To Teach A Dog To Stop Barking

Hearing a dog happily barking as it chases after a ball in the woods can be a wonderful sound, but if the neighbors are complaining and you and your family are suffering from having a dog that barks constantly that you cannot control, you will probably want to learn how to teach a dog to stop barking.

The first thing to consider is why the dog is barking so much. A normal puppy or young adult dog is like a baby in that it will bark when it wants attention or has a need, for example if it is hungry or thirsty, wants to poop or needs exercise. With most dogs, if you figure out what they want, you can supply it and that is the end of the problem.

But some dogs bark a lot more than this. Often it is because they are bored. This is most likely if they are either kept in the house alone all day when you are at work, or if they are not getting enough exercise.

In the case of exercise, maybe you are not able to walk a big dog as often or for as long as it needs it. You could be sick or not have time, or in some climates it may be difficult to get out a lot in winter.

Letting the dog in the backyard will probably not be enough. It knows the backyard too well and there are not enough new and interesting sights and scents to keep it occupied. Instead, consider hiring a dog walking service.

Some dogs will bark whenever they see or sense someone approaching. This is what is known as 'reactive barking': barking as a reaction to events.

If a dog barks reactively, it is often because the dog has learnt to act as a guard dog in the past. If you have an adult dog it could have been trained to do this from a puppy by a previous owner. Perhaps it used to live in an isolated area and was rewarded for barking whenever there was a noise outside. If you live in a city, this will mean a lot of barking!

If the dog is used to being rewarded for barking and has been specially trained to do it, it will not understand that you do not welcome the noise. In this situation you may have to consider finding another home for the dog - or moving out of town yourself!

Another possibility is that as a puppy it learned this behavior from adult dogs and has simply never been taught not to bark. In this situation you may have more success. You can train it to be quiet in the same way you would train it to do anything else: use the command 'Quiet!' and always reward for obedience.

Remembering to reward the dog for being quiet is difficult because it is a non-behavior: instead of doing something that demands your attention and a reward, like fetching back a ball, it is not doing something. It is easy for you to give a sigh of relief at the sudden silence and move on. But it is vital to remember the reward, otherwise the training will never be successful.

If the dog is alone in the house all day while you work, it is not surprising that it gets bored. Dogs love company and leaving a dog alone for 10 hours a day, as many people do, is sure to have an effect. If it wasn't barking it would probably be either tearing the furniture apart or becoming seriously depressed. So what can you do to stop your lonely barking dog from driving the neighbors crazy?

First, the dog walking service is something that you might want to consider in this situation too. You will need to find a service that you trust enough to give them a key to the house. Then they can come when you are not home, pick up the dog and take it walking. This will break up the dog's day and make it much more accepting of the times that it is left alone. You want to make sure that the service will walk the dog as close to the middle of the day as possible.

Other things that you can do to keep the dog calm while you are working:

- Close the drapes or shades. The best is to have shades or shutters that the dog cannot get behind. This will keep their focus indoors, so they do not look out the window barking at everything that moves outside. But this will increase boredom so it is not enough by itself.

- Get another pet, either a cat or another dog. Even an aquarium can help to keep the dog interested.

- Leave the TV on at a low volume.

A dog that barks at every little thing that happens, even when you are home, may have a problem - for example if it barks every time that you stand up or sit down. This is abnormal behavior and could be due to a difficult early life (especially if it is a rescue dog) or some physical condition or illness. You should see a veterinarian in this case, because you probably will not be able to teach the dog to stop barking by yourself.

Selecting A Used Dog Training Collar

You can often find a used dog training collar online if you keep your eyes open. But before you bid or buy, there are some things that you should know about electronic dog training collars.

The way that these collars work is quite simple. They fasten around the dog's neck and can emit a small electric shock to the dog. The idea is that getting a shock each time he does something unwanted will teach the dog not to do that any more.

Strength Of Stimulation

The strength of the shock can vary and the first thing that you should do is consider whether you know what strength your dog will need.

Just about all professional dog trainers these days agree that the best way to train a dog is by rewards and reinforcing good behavior. Punishing a dog for bad behavior is not nearly so effective. Often it confuses the dog and just makes him scared of life, without changing his behavior at all. So it is very important that the training collar that you buy just gives the dog a slight buzz that he would prefer to avoid, not any kind of painful or frightening shock that could be considered a punishment.

Other things being equal, you would expect a large dog to require a stronger reminder than a small dog, but this is not necessarily the case. Some breeds and some individual dogs are more stubborn and harder to train than others. So it is a good idea if you are looking for one of these collars, to choose one that has a variable setting. Start with the lowest setting and see how your dog responds.

Owner-Controlled Collars

Collars vary in the type of control. Some collars are remote-operated by the owner and others are automatic.

With a remote-operated collar, you would only use the collar when you were actively training the dog. You would hold a small instrument like a pager and you would press a button on it when you wanted to control the dog.

Some people choose to train the dog this way because it seems like an easy option. Instead of spending hours playing and speaking to the dog, you can just press a button. However, people who use training collars this way do not find they work very well! Reinforcement is vital in dog training and even if you use a collar method, you should reward the dog for correct behavior at the same time.

Automatic Collars

Other collars are worn by the dog all of the time and will automatically give the electric shock reminder when the dog does a certain thing. These are most commonly used for 2 purposes:

1. Keep the dog within a certain area

These collars will activate when the dog crosses a perimeter boundary that you set up on your land. They work a little like an electric fence, but instead of a physical fence there is a sensor system.

This can be useful if you have an unfenced yard or if you want to restrict the dog to certain areas of your property. However, it is not effective on every individual dog and will work best on a dog who is new to your property.

If the dog has been allowed to go all over the property in the past and suddenly you try to restrict him with a collar, the reminder may not be enough to make him drop his habit of wandering. If he braves it once, he will find that after he is through the barrier, he is free. So an older dog may blast his way through - not every time perhaps, but enough to make the barrier unreliable.

2. Stop unwanted barking

The collar senses when the dog barks, and administers a shock. These collars are mostly used by people who have to leave their dog alone a lot and have neighbors complaining about the barking. They can be very effective in this situation.

Sensors can work either on sound, or on the vibration of the vocal chords, or both. The most reliable ones use both. An anti-barking collar that works on both sound and vocal chord vibration is probably the best use of an electronic dog training collar, because there is no other effective way to train a dog not to bark when you are not home to do it yourself.

For this to work as a training system it is vital that the sensor is accurate. If the dog receives random shocks when he didn't bark (e.g. because another dog barked on the street) he will not associate the shock with his own barking and will not learn to stop.

It is also important not to have this type of collar controlling the dog all of the time. You must allow the dog times when he can bark, because it is a natural function to him. So you can have him bark when you are home. But if you only put the collar on him when you are about to go out, he will associate it with you leaving, which could cause a problem in itself. So it is better if you can disable the sensor, or put the collar on him well ahead of time.

Electronic dog collars can cause lesions around the dog's neck because they are often heavy and need to be close-fitting for the electrodes to contact the skin. So if you do go ahead and buy a used dog training collar, check your dog regularly for sore spots.

Our Online Dog Training School Review

This online dog training school review will be very useful for you if you are not able to access a physical class for you and your dog. Online training schools are also great if you just have a few questions about training your dog that you need answered without going to the trouble and cost of signing up with a qualified dog trainer in your local area.

All dog owners long to have a pet who eagerly responds to our every command, and who knows how behave both in the home and out in public places. Or do they? Sometimes, although we think we want an obedient dog, we are in fact constantly rewarding the dog with laughter, attention and affection when he is mischievous. We may even love our dog for those particular qualities.

So if there is a behavior pattern that you really do want to alter in your dog, first be sure that you will not unconsciously undermine the training by rewarding him for being 'bad' in this respect. This doesn't mean that you have to stop loving him whenever he is naughty, but only in respect of this particular behavior pattern. For example, if you want to train your dog to stop chewing your shoes, you must act very cold with him when he does it.

In a physical class the instructor would watch your actions as well as the dog's, to check that you are not rewarding (or 'reinforcing') the dog for the exact behavior that you say you do not want. However, if you sign up with an online dog training school you will either need to do this for yourself or make the whole family aware of the issue and remind each other.

What You Can Expect

Internet dog training schools often offer different levels of membership. First there is free membership which will allow you access to certain areas of the site. For example, you may be able to read articles or receive information by email that is not available to a casual website surfer. Of course you will need to give your email address for this and the site provides this service so that they can stay in touch with you and hope that sooner or later you will register for their paid service.

Be cautious sites that require anything more than your name and email address at this stage. For free services they should not need a phone number, address etc unless they plan to call you or sell your details to somebody else - which you probably would not welcome.

Many membership sites offer a forum where you can interact with other dog owners who are interested in training. Some of them will be experienced and you are likely to find some professional dog trainers in these forums, so you can often get all of your questions answered. You may have to pay a small monthly fee for access to a good internet dog training forum, but it will be very reasonable compared with the cost of a personal dog trainer or group class.

In these forums you will also be able to ask any other questions about your dog that are bothering you, even if they are not related to training. For example you may have questions about health issues like vaccination or dog health insurance or legal questions as in many jurisdictions there are laws about dog owning that it is good to understand.

What To Watch Out For

When you are visiting these sites, look out for these signs. You may want to write them down and check off each one against each site that you find. They will be a great help to you in deciding which dog training website is the best one for you.

1. There are many great dog trainers out there who do not have top web design skills so do not judge a site solely on its looks. However, it is worth keeping in mind that a successful trainer who is focusing on his or her online service - which is what you want - should be spending some money on the website. If the website looks cheap or outdated, the owner is likely to be using the site to attract customers for a 'real-life' class and may not have much to offer you.

2. Can you trust the information that you are given? It is easy for people online (and in print) to gather testimonials from satisfied customers. Every business, even the most unsuccessful, has one or two satisfied customers! Look for people recommending the service on other websites, not only on the training school's own website.

3. Find the 'contact us' email address and ask them a specific question about your dog. A good training school will answer promptly and give you the information that you need. If there is no reply after several days, you should be suspicious about what you will get for your money.

The Bottom Line

Our advice is to find as many online dog training websites as you can and sign up for any free services that they offer. This will give you the opportunity to judge for yourself and select the best online dog training school for you and your dog.