Occasionally we run into people who say that their dog hate their crate and ask for advice on how to help that.

Normally if introduced properly dogs will LOVE their crate.  But if they dont here are some tips to help a dog that does not like going in his crate at all.

First, only feed the dog his meals in the crate.  This will start to make the crate become a positive thing because it means food!  Some dogs might not eat in the crate the first couple days if they really dislike their crate but keep offering the food to them twice a day in their crate.  Once in the morning and once at night.  This alone normally can make the difference if done consistently for a few weeks or a month.  Dogs wont starve themselves, they’ll eat!

Second, offer the dog a high value reward (chicken, old steak, really good treat) each and every time they go into the crate.  Try to lure them into the crate with the treat and then reward them with the treat when they go in.  While basic, alot of people dont ever try to make the crate a happy place they just force the dog in and expect them to like it.

Third, put the dog in there with a rawhide bone or a kong.  Use some sort of chewy toy that they can eat and keep themselves busy while in the crate and ROTATE the bones or peanut butter or cheese thats put in the kong.  Dont give the dogs the same thing ever day, mix it up for them and keep it fun.  And only give them their special bones or peanut butter filled Kongs in their crate.  Once they like the crate you can give them bones and kongs outside the crate but to start with the crate is a JACK POT!!

Meals, treats, bones and kongs.  Make the crate a happy place!

Putting a nice bed in there can help too, but make sure the dog is old enough that they arent going to chew it to shreds!

We get asked this question alot!

There are alot of different types of foods out there.  We prefer feeding grain free dog food.  There are different voices out there but dog in the wild are not eating rice or corn, yet alot of dog foods are primarily rice or corn.  In a good dog food the first 3 or 4 ingredients should be a meat.  The ingredients are listed in order of weight so for example if you look at a popular food Beneful the label says  Ingredients: Ground yellow corn, chicken by-product meal, corngluten meal, whole wheat flour

So that means the majority of the food is corn and wheat, which we arnt even sure if dogs digest properly because dogs are primarily carnivores. The meat portion is a chicken by-product meal.  Which means they take all the things that are not fit for human consumption and make it a dry rendered product.  By-product can contain organs (good for the dog) but can also contain pretty much anything else even feet, beaks, and underdeveloped eggs.  And it is guaranteed not to contain actual meat.

We like foods such as Taste of the Wild or Blue Buffalo that are grain free and do not use by-products.  While slightly more expensive would you feed your children McDonalds every day and expect them to be healthy for their whole lives??

If unsure if what your feeding your dog please check our friends at Dog Food Advisor . com  They analyze every dog food and give it a review and provide education on how to pick foods for your puppy!

http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/

Then get your pup to training class and lets do some dog training!!

Ok, some people were confused on the sit at a distance blog.  I will admit it is alot of little steps to write down.  Much easier to do in person.

One trick we use alot at dog class that is alot easier to train is have your dog on a leash and walk backwards.  Slow down you walk, tell the dog to “sit”, and as soon as they sit speed up your walk a little (your walking backwards).  Then walk back to the sitting dog, break them and start again.

Its much like the automatic sit but from a different angle.  The trainer has the dog in front of them walking to them.  You can work this first, and then progress to using the place boards and calling the dog.  Just like the automatic sit, the trick is to slow down and do it very slow at first to help the dog because the dog will want to keep moving with you!

Hope this trick helped and see you at dog class!!

As far as dog training goes, sit at a distance is normally one of the harder things to work.  We first work the first 3 facets of sit before sit at a distance.  What sit at a distance means is the dog is say 20 feet away and you say sit and the dog sits right there.  Most traditionally trained dogs will run all the way to you and then sit.  They only know sit as sit right next to you.  Or the trainer might call the dog and in the middle of the dogs recall may tell the dog “sit” and the dog sits half way to the trainer.

The reason we want to work this is we dont always want the dog running all the way to us!  If cars are coming they dont see, they might need to sit right where they are.

To start, we are assuming the dog can already “place”.  We are going to start with some place boards out that are low to the ground.  Boxes that are just a few inches off the ground and 18-24″ wide.  The trainer can start with the dog in a sit stay and then back up and position themselves to where one of the place boards are between them and the dog.  We want the board just a few feet in front of the trainer.  Call the dog with “come” then right before the dog gets to the board say “place” and “sit”.  For dogs that already know place and have proofed it at our group training classes this is no problem, after doing this a few times the dog will be immediately placing and sitting on the board.

Next, we stop saying “place” and just tell the dog “sit” as soon as they are to the board.  Because they will have already place many many times they will place and sit on the board.  (all this is done with the trainer just 2 feet away from the board to start with)

Once the dog is sitting on the place board every time we start increasing our distance behind the place board a foot or two at a time.  Once the place board is in the middle of us and the dog (i.e. dog is 20 ft away, place board is 10 ft away, dog trainer is at zero feet away) and the dog is placing and sitting on it every time then we go to the next part.

Now the hard part!  Now we sit stay the dog and then call them.  Once the dog is on their way to us we tell them sit without the place board there.  Some dogs might try to come even quicker when told sit, but if we have done our foundation work with the boards this shouldnt be the case.  The first few times the dog trainer may have to take a couple steps back to make sure the dog can not make it all the way to them before sitting.

It looks confusing written down, but is alot easier to work !!  See you at group class!!

In our last two dog training methodology blogs we covered remote sit (sit when told) and automatic sit (sit at our side automatically).  This blog is going to cover the sit in motion.

What that means is while the trainer is heeling the dog, the trainer say sit and keeps walking and the dog sits while the trainer remains in motion.  The finished product is the dog dropping into a sit while the trainer keeps walking and never breaks their stride.

Once the first two areas of sit have been worked this is next.

While it looks fancy, once your dog has a solid sit and automatic sit its really easy.  While the dog is at heel, the trainer slows down to a very slow walk and says “sit” while pulling back on the leash.  We slow down real slow as if to have the do automatically sit but as soon as the dog sits we creep forward another step or two.  Then we take two steps back to the dog, say “heel”, and start walking again.

At first the dog is going to want to keep moving with you, that is why we slow down really slow to start with.  As the dog starts sitting faster and not getting up, only then do we start increasing our speed.

BIG NOTE – Make sure you walk back to your dog each time to break them and start heeling again.  If you are 3-4 steps ahead of the dog and say heel each time the dog will more than likely start to time you and “pop” or start again before he’s told.

We do this regularly in our group Tulsa dog training obedience classes at the park.  If you need help please see one of the instructors.

The first Facet of sit is the Remote Sit – Sit Every Time I tell you.  This must be done before continuing. 

Teaching the “automatic sit” is not hard.  What the automatic sit entails is that while you are heeling the dog when you come to a stop the dog automatically sits by your side in the heel position.  As a reminder the heel position is where the dog is on the left side of the person training the dog with the dogs shoulder lined in line with the handler’s left leg.

For the automatic sit the dog needs to first be heeling and staying with the person when walking and when turning right and left and 180 degree turns.  Once the dog is heeling and is following us on all of our turns only then do we start to work the automatic sit!

Why teach a dog to automatically sit?  For one it makes the dog look highly obedient.  But more importantly it frees us up to talk to someone or answer our phone or text someone without having to worry about our dog, because they already know what to do!  They wont pull you over and make you drop your phone or try to go get attention from someone but will sit patiently at your side until either given another command or you resume walking.  When your dog is sitting at your side they can’t be doing anything else which avoids any potential problems.

OK, on to how we do the automatic sit.  Start in your neighborhood heeling the dog on leash.  Once heeling good, slow down the heel, stop walking, put some backwards pressure on the leash and at the same time tell the dog to sit.  Our goal is to have the dog sit at our side facing squarely straight.

Most dogs will not face straight the first time they will turn in or sit in front of you.  To practice, take just 4-5 steps then sit the dog again and again and again. Until the dog starts to learn that a sit is going to be coming every time we stop.  Some dogs might fight this a little or because of work on “come” will face you instead of straight forward when they stop.  To fix this we are going to choke up on the leash to about 4-5 inches off of the buckle, up real close and do it with our RIGHT hand.  So we are reaching over our body.  Then as we stop we will use our left hand to help guide the dogs rear into a straight position while going back with the leash.

It looks like alot written out but normally if the dog can sit and heel well its just putting the two together and to start with help place the dog into a sit when you stop every few steps and doing about an hour of repetition!  We want a dog that sits automatically as soon as we stop walking.  As with any of our other new exercises we train we will start with how ever much leash or hand pressure we need to help guide the dog but we will use less and less as soon as possible as the dog learns how to move correctly.

So the system of dog training that we use is TR Systems which only a few dog trainers in the U.S. are training with.  In our system the sit command has 4 facets or 4 different areas of focus to make sure that a dog knows sit no matter what is going on.  We teach them that sit means sit no matter what you are doing.  Our 4 facets are:

1. Remote Sit – Sit every time I tell you

2. Automatic Sit – From a heel, sit automatically at my side when I stop walking

3. Sit in Motion –  While we are heeling the dog we say sit and the dog sits while we keep walking at the same pace

4. Sit at a distance – While the dog is at a distance from us they sit on command, without coming first, they stop what they are doing and sit.

We will blogging on the 4 facets of sit, each part teaches the dog how to do it at a more advanced level, most dogs can sit.  But not all dogs can sit while their person is moving or sit if their owner who is 50 yards away tells them to sit.

Before moving to part 2 make sure your dog is sitting on command even with other dogs as distractions, even with balls being thrown.  Make sure the dog is not sitting off a leash tug but remotely off of your word and doing it every time before moving on.

Its getting hot outside, July is coming fast!  Last summer we heard of quite a few dogs having heat stroke during the super hot month of July.  Please be careful and follow these tips this summer:

1. Do not leave your dog outside all day during the hot summer days.  Even if you leave water out for your pet its best to not leave them out all day.  Last summer we trained a guys dog and his neighbor left his dog out all day with a big bucket of water but it seems the dog knocked over the bucket right away and then ran the fence during the day and had a heat stroke and died.  Heat stroke if it doesnt kill them can seriously mess them up.

2. Do not train your dog hard during the day or go for runs in the heat of the day. – In July and August especially, try to keep training or running to either morning or late evening.  Do not have the dog out working if its over 95 Degrees.  Many dogs will be fine but dogs dont sweat like we do, panting is the only way they can cool them selves down so if you see their tongue coming out and lots of saliva they pry need to go in to the shade and cool down.

3. Dogs can over exert and heat stroke while swimming.  Swimming is very active so please be careful in full sun swimming for long periods with your dog.