For a very good guide to all sorts of dog training processes and dog behavior challenges, I use and recommend Clickertraining ...that link goes to the description of this terrific ebook you download immediately, wherever you are! -- Rosana

Halloween! Trick or treaters! Some wild and crazy energy at times! And what about your dog or dogs?

Will there be treat-or-treaters coming to your door, or teenagers roaming around with possibly more mischief than usual on their minds?

Making sure that your dog gets through Halloween just fine is really quite simple. Know your dog and don’t push his limits.

People in costumes, especially groups of silly people in costumes, can frighten dogs or bring out an aggressive reaction. So if you walk your dog, do it before the silliness begins. If you are inviting trick or treaters into your living room, or even just greeting them at the front door, be sure there is no way your dog could get loose. Use a real or makeshift-but-sturdy dog gate of some kind, have your dog on leash, or maybe crate your dog — either where he can see the fun or where he can’t, depending on his temperament.

Some of the children who come to your door may be afraid of dogs, of big dogs, or of barking dogs, so plan for that.

We’ve used an herbal tranquilizer on occasion, or get a full fledged one from your vet for a dog who really has a rough time. Luckily, Halloween isn’t usually as loud as the 4th of July!

Also remember that chocolate, floating around so freely on Halloween night, can be very harmful, even fatal, to dogs. Walking your dog after Halloween as well, watch out for dropped bits.

As for your cats (especially any black ones!) keep them inside and out of the way.

If your dog likes wearing one, a Halloween costume for him may be fun, whether for a pet parade during the day, when you take him out for a walk, or while you’re home with trick or treaters coming. Be sure that whatever he wears is comfortable and that it allows him full movement.

For costume inspiration, see

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIaFsNh_JpU

which runs under two minutes and had me giggling through it. Not all the costumes are ideal, but a lot are.

Every now and then I get an email from someone who is having problems with crate training. Here are bits from the most recent one:

We just recently got a new puppy and are trying to crate train it. We put him to bed (in his crate) when we go to bed, and then let him out in the morning to do his thing and run around a bit. Then when we leave for work we put him back into his crate where he stays until the kids get home from school and let him out again.

My problem is that i am constantly (twice a day) having to change his bedding as he both poops and pees in his crate. I thought that maybe putting an exercise pen up for him during the day would be better but several friends have told us NO!

What would be the best solution for this as we don’t want him to think of his crate as a “bad” place?

Well, it’s always risky to guess about a situation without knowing all the details, but to me it seems that it’s time to think outside the box… um, crate. Here are some thoughts…

Many problems of this sort can be handled by paying a lot more attention to the puppy’s bathroom needs. You are clearly already being very conscientious but if you take your attention to an even more intense level for a few days or weeks, you may be able to solve the problem completely.

On the weekends and during the night, you can get an idea of just how long the puppy can hold it. Different breeds mature at different rates, and individual dogs will vary too. We once had an Australian Shepherd pup who could hold it all night from the first night we got him, at 9 weeks (gloat), but that is unusual.

Say you discover that your little pup can go about 4 hours. (Review my potty training puppies page here for a suggested routine.) That means you’ll do best if someone can come in once during the time all your family is gone. This would be nice for the puppy anyway, since he is likely pretty lonely. A trusted neighbor, a paid pet-sitter or dog walker, or one of those friends who is telling you not to use an X-pen are all possibilities. They would take him out for a chance to pee or poop, play with him for a few minutes or longer, and perhaps take a pre-stuffed Kong out of your freezer to coax him back into his crate before they leave.

This also means that a middle of the night potty stop outing should take place. Set an alarm clock if you are heavy sleepers.

Seems to me that what you want is to break the habit of using the crate for a bathroom as quickly as you can. I personally would consider combining the crate with an X-Pen, and putting newspapers down in the pen. If the dog is tiny relative to the crate, maybe you can define two spaces in it, but I am guessing this is not the case from your description. Or if you happen to have a mudroom or other small and totally puppy-proof space (or can invent one somewhere in your home), you could put papers down in it and have the crate in there with the door open.

If you begin to think this is going on longer than it should (of course, it already feels like that!), then be sure to consult your veterinarian. It all sounds pretty normal so far, though.

So in a nutshell, I’m suggesting closer management and experimenting more with the size of his space. Best wishes!

Recently we took Lola, now 9 months old, up the street to visit a family of three female dogs.

Socializing puppies is a very important part of their growing-up process! This was good for Lola and also for the two litter-mates about her age that she would meet.

Lola’s hackles raised as we went in the gate and the three others were all in her face. But that tense moment passed and we let her off leash.

Unfortunately, something bit Lola and took her total attention for a few minutes.

Then my friend Susan brought Sam and Mindy to Lola:

That was fine, so the 8-year-old Schnauzer, Julie, joined the party:

The three other dogs played together while Lola watched from afar:

Lola began to get into it, being sure they knew she was no threat:

And finally got to romping!

We’ve been back several times, and now they are all great friends.

For two or three years now, I’ve had another dog website but I’ve never quite figured out how to make it work.

This week, I had an AHA and now it’s finally got some content on it.

The website is www.online-dog-resources.com and my plan was to bring together a variety of places where you can get dog supplies online. But I never quite got around to it, maybe because it seemed like a daunting task to pull together.

My AHA was to use eBay as the main resource. I have a program which provides eBay data to be put on a website and continuously updates the listings, and since I’m already a fan of the “world’s largest marketplace,” it was fun to do this.

You can see sample results for a page I did on small dog carriers. There are plenty of other topics I’ve done there too, and now I’ll give the site some time to season before deciding whether to put more up.

Besides eBay, I do also have a link on every page (upper right) to the specials page at one of my favorite dog supply companies.