Turn Don’t Leave into Please Go!

Does your dog become more alert once your alarm goes off? Does your dog shadow you around while you’re doing your morning weekday ritual of getting ready for work or school? Once you leave, can you hear your dog barking or whining? Do your neighbors complain?

Has this happened to you? Does your anxious dog HATE it when you leave? This is for you!

Well, if you answered yes, your dog feels some sort of a way about you leaving. Dogs are sentient beings and they are here in this world to be with us. They definitely don’t want us to go, but there are times when its necessary and its your responsibility to get them to be more settled when you and your furry friend are separated.

How to help your dog feel more settled when you’re away? Well, first, I want to set you up for success. I will tell you will need some time and some patience and these will be the first things in your bag of tricks. Time and patience is necessary for the sheer purposed of creating a calm and less hurried departure. If you are usually rushing around during your work week and leaving abruptly, your dog learned your routine and you will need time desensitizing him to your pre-work day rituals.

Calm and Quiet Behaviors: Take notice of your dog when he’s comfortably laying around in his designated area or in area away from you. You don’t think your dog is doing “anything” when he’s calm and quiet? Think again. Your dog is doing EXACTLY what you’re wanting from him. Now is the time to pour your energy into praising and loving on him when he’s chilling on his own.

Help Your Dog Settle: Making the time alone, the best time. We are now moving into getting the behaviors you want when you’re not home. Create your dog’s down time even when you’re home. The void of your attention being gone is less when you’re in the vicinity. We must build up your dog’s endurance for your being away. First, give your dog his own space and giving attention for calm, quiet behaviors like laying in his own den area can help him know being alone is OK. Also, leaving good stuff to do when he’s in his own space like long lasting chews, kongs with wonderful treats stuffed in it, toys-all of his favorites-will lead him wanting his own space to settle. He will make the mental connection, “when I don’t have my human’s attention, I get all these wonderful things to do. Maybe I WANT my human to leave!”

Goodbyes and Hellos: Other pieces you will want incorporated as part of your dog’s “getting comfortable” plan is making your arrival and departure non-emotional. Amping up the energy when you arrive home while greeting your dog can be perceived by your dog as overwhelming. If your dogs has a history of being destructive, you can arrive home anticipating your favorite shoe being eaten or the garbage tipped over and rummaged through and this most likely has you feeling frustrated and upset even before coming through the door. Our body language changes and our verbal expression may indicate more hostility even when we greet our dogs without anything happening. Your dogs perceive this negatively and become more distressed.

On the flip side, your overly excited or interactive departures can also send the message to your dog “don’t leave, don’t leave”. Giving an abundance of affection and attention is something most dogs crave and love and then for you to leave for any length of time, highlights the void of you not being there. This is also quite distressing for your dog. One moment you’re there giving him all the wonderful things and then the next minute you’re gone and he has nothing to do. Help your dog feel comfortable being alone without feeling lonely.

Time and Patience: Get started now even if you are not sure of the exact day of when you return to work or school. Go slow. Practice leaving your dog with wonderful things to do and leave the room for a few seconds at a time. Return back before your dog realized you left the room. Slowly increase the time of being away. This is not exciting training, but so necessary. Have patience with yourself and your dog will be key

Look At Who? Look At Me!

👉👉Pro Training Tip Tuesday👈👈 Look At Me is a useful cue for your dog. Helping your dog build his ability to look at you instead of getting caught up in staring at something which may be triggering for him.

This cue will put the attention back on you!

The 🔑 for any training is practice. Practice is structured into our daily routine. The same goes for you! 3-5 minutes a few times a day!

✅ In between binging Netflix shows, practiced with luring Jack to do a head turn away from something to me
✅We practiced during our walks-he looked at a person, bird or car go by-lured his head turn back to me
✅We practiced at meal times-Red Porter would get him distracted (Jack turns his head towards him) and I lure Jack back to me.

This is how I coach you to spend time with your dogs! Sprinkling in bits of training and bonding throughout the day is:
🐾 manageable
🐾 includes real life rewards
🐾 establishes a routine for your dog

🤔🤔You may be wondering what is a lure? A lure is anything your dog sees as the high value-food, toys ect AND your dog’s attention goes to that object! If your dog is so excited for something use and save it for training! The goal is twofold: the more you incorporate what your dog automatically loves, you will then become the best thing because you give the best thing to your dog #Pavlov #bellequalsfood

Shaping behavior is also important because we are aiming for precision rather than perfection. As we are teaching new behaviors we want to keep distractions, distance and duration to a minimum. We then reward for any behavior towards the end behavior, in this case the slight head turn in Look At Me (shaping).

Have you ever learned something new? Did you fumble and get confused? Well, this is the same for our dogs 😁.

Rewarding the slightest of movements toward the goal behavior is encouraging for our dog! This will help him be motivated to keep working and that is what we want!

Once we become precise with praising at the time of the behavior occurring and our dog becomes better responders because of our praise, then we move towards incorporating more Distraction, Distance and Duration!

The video demonstrates practicing with higher levels of Distraction, Distance and Duration.

Increasing complexity after practice, practice, practice!

We are also having lots of fun which you can see Jack 💕

Get started and together we can help your dog understand what you want 🤩.

Beware of Thunderstorms No More!

Summer is upon us and we are going to focus on helping our dogs feel more comfortable when thunderstorms happen. Does your dog hide, bark, shake or show body language signs like tail tucked, head down, ears back or pursed mouth when thunderstorms happen? Then your dog is feeling distressed and scared. Since Mother Nature does her own thing when she wants, therefore we must set up the environment for practice before the main event happens! Now is the time to get started.

Step 1: Find storm sounds you can play from your computer, tablet or phone. YouTube has some great options which allow for a variety of experiences. One suggestion is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVKEM4K8J8A. Once you find a few you think are good for you, you’re ready to get started.

Step 2: Get prepared with something super high value. Many dogs love food. Food is necessary for survival and one that our dog’s inherently understand. A long lasting chew is great and there are many varieties. One I know is a cut above the rest are Himalayan chews https://www.himalayan.pet/. These are great since they are long lasting and help with keeping your dog’s teeth cleaned. You can also use a kong stuffed with food works well, freezing it is even better!

Step 3: When ready with your high value reward, play the storm sounds and a low level and pair the sounds with the long lasting chew or Kong. When your dog continues snacking, you know he is comfortable with the sounds. Do this for 5 days. Varying the time you’re playing the sounds, but keeping the volume the same.

**If your dog is extremely sensitive to thunderstorms or suffers from panic attacks, consult a positive reinforcement trainer or behaviorist**

Step 4: Move to this step only if your dog was comfortable and relaxed while you played the storm sounds at the low level. This step moves to increasing the volume little bits at a time and repeating the above steps. You always want your dog to be relaxed when the storm sounds are on. Move between increasing and decreasing the volume of the storm sounds (never just increase the sound alone-this can be too overwhelming). Repeat this for 5 days. If at any point, the volume was increased too quickly or the sound was too startling, stop the session and try again later-repeat step 3 at the lowest volume or move the device into another room.

Step 5: Once you’ve played the storms on a variety of volume levels, move to increasing the length of time of the sounds from lower volume to higher volume. Follow Step 3 and step 4, but you’re focusing on the length of time the sound is going on for during each session. Increase time slowly with each volume change and if you’re dog stops snacking or shows distress, stop the session and progress more slowly the next time.

The key is practicing often and consistently, so our dogs become accustomed to the sounds and feel more relaxed during storms. Follow our dogs lead when progressing. Your dog will tell you when to keep moving along.