Do you have any overweight dogs? Here are some tips to help your dog slim down.

[1] If you feed dry food, make your dog work for some of it. At mealtimes, go outside if weather permits or you can do this inside if necessary or if you have a tiny dog. Take a handful of the food and tell your dog to sit and stay. (If you haven’t trained the stay, just don’t go far at first.) Take a few steps away and then call your dog to come to you. Click if using a clicker, but with or without, give your dog ONE piece of dry dog food. Repeat, building up to longer distances and gradually use more of the dry food this way before allowing the meal to continue.

[2] A variation on this which can be done at any time does need a good bit of space where the dog can be off lead, plus two people. Using part of the dog’s regular rations or tiny bits of carrot or apple, you and your friend stand some distance apart and then take turns calling the dog. The dog gets a treat each time it comes when called. You can really get a good bit of exercise out of this one.

[3] Practice heeling and walking on leash by taking your dog on long walks more often.

[4] The first three  tips don’t touch on the possibility that you might be feeding too much. Train yourself to pay more attention to how much you are giving the dog. If you have a dog who just adores treats, cut them into practically microscopic pieces!

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Every now and then I get a question about agility, and I really know very little about it. So I was delighted to find this blog post on getting started with agility. Here’s the url:http://blog.johannthedog.com/2007/12/foundation-skills-for-agility.html

It’s a long read, but inspiring in terms of dogs and people connecting, even if you AREN’T planning any agility training yourself.

Here’s a bit I liked:

On the first day after Mum adopted me at 12 weeks, I learned my first foundation skill. I didn’t know it then, because agility wasn’t even a twinkle in my eye. But that foundation skill has been very important in every run and every class and every practice we have done in agility in the past three years.

What was the skill?

I’ll leave that question hanging in the air. If you do go to the blog, the question is answered a little ways down from the top.

By the way, I found this because “Johann the Dog” is one of the people, umm, dogs, I follow at Twitter, an enjoyable social networking site. There’s a link to it on every page of my blog.

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Technorati Tags: agility training,social networking dogs

I didn’t start this website thinking that I would be writing about natural dog food, massage, alternative remedies, and so on. But these topics are just naturally flowing from the focus on training our dogs. There are so many interconnections! I’m please to announce an ebook that I edited from writings I got from an online friend of mine, Rebecca Simon. She’s allowing me to offer the ebook at a very low price. I’m doing this to get the information out there. It’s immediately downloadable.

You can tell from the page where I describe the ebook whether you’d be interested. I’m sure it’s too alternative for some people, but if you’re reading this website you’re already interested in what’s effective, whatever the traditional wisdom has been!

Here are some tips from “The Natural Dog.”

[1] The day you get your pup and every day thereafter scour the floor for little items that your puppy might pick up on and swallow: pieces of string, coins, paperclips, pins and needles, dental floss, rubber bands, jewelry, children’s toys and clothes, nails and screws, thread, game station items like Playstation controls and cords, bits of food, napkins and tissues, rags and sponges, remote controls, batteries, etc.

[2] : What types of cleaning products do you use? Have you ever used a cleaning product that made you cough or was so strong you couldn’t stand to be nearby until it dried or dissipated? Consider that same cleaning product from your dog’s perspective.

[3] There’s evidence that suggests that annual vaccinations may not be needed – and in fact, some people suggest that continuing with them may in the long run do more harm than good.

To find out more about “The Natural Dog,” see my webpage where I give the full description….
http://training-dogs.com/natural-dog-ebook.html

It’s only $7, via PayPal

[tags]dog ebooks, dog health[/tags]

If you crate train your dog, you’ll find it useful in a wide variety of situations. For example:

** You can confine the dog if guests come over who are afraid of dogs.
** The dog is at home with being in a small enclosed space, so if he has to stay overnight at veterinarian’s it will be less stressful.
** Ditto any kind of emergency evacuation from your home.
** It’s very useful in potty training, as even young puppies will do their best not to soil their crate, unless they are left in it longer than they can manage.

I think that crate training is one of the best things you can do for your puppy or adult dog when you first get it. While some people have the opinion that crate training a puppy is cruel, it really isn’t if you don’t leave the pup or dog in the crate for long hours at a time. Dogs actually benefit from crate training — my list of examples above could go on and on. It seems to me that typically dogs who are used to their crate find it comforting and homey.

Our year-old Rottweiler, Lola, often needs to be confined in her crate for a while when we have guests over, so we can have a meal without her resting her chin on the table (I’m working on the training bit!) and she is very, very good about it. Specially when we give her a Kong with some peanut butter in it!

FOR MORE CRATE TRAINING TIPS:
See my page, http://training-dogs.com/crate-training.html

It’s got a lot of tips and is the second most popular page on the site. It includes some alternatives to crate training too