We went to an amazing workshop on Animal Assisted Play Therapy® and have been studying up on it for over a year. While we have done animal-assisted therapy before, it hasn't included this wonderful fun sense of fun that comes with play. Boy, it can help the child who is usually hard to motivate! When a dog is in the room, the encounter seems much less tense to the child (and much more enjoyable). Continue reading

Notes from a great book, "Chatter The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It". The author is Ethan Kross. The tools include self-talk, plus tips involving interacting with others and changing your environment. Continue reading

When a dog has a behavior problem, the first impulse can be to solve the problem with punishment. According to LIMA, however, (Least Invasive, Minimally Adversive, publicized by Karen Pryor), punishment is virtually never required because there are many other methods to change behavior (that do not cause side effects such as fear and aggression). These problems can be solved by maintenance (first choice) and positive reinforcement (second choice). Note: Many of these solutions require that you previously train Sit-Stay (with distractions) before the problem happens. Continue reading

Short answer: Wake up in the middle of the night, then walk the puppy out to potty.  A puppy can't make it the whole night without peeing, and it's not good to have the puppy pee in their crate. For one, the puppy would soon learn that it's okay to pee in their crate (plus, it would delay potty training for a long time). Continue reading

See section on crate training, also, because using a crate is such a big part of this process (and it lists the equipment to get). Dr. Dunbar has a very precise method of potty-training puppies. He says that in some ways, they are very easy to train, but they have very small bladders and can only hold their pee for a little over an hour. Thus, if you can bring your puppy outside every hour (on the hour), then the pup will never pee or poop inside.  What do you do at night? At night, puppies can hold their pee and poop for about 4 hours. So set your alarm for 4 hours into the night, then wake up, go wake up the pup, and lead the puppy outside to pee. (Note: Don't carry the puppy, but rather, insist that the puppy actually walks out with you). What do you do when you have to leave the house for more than an hour? Well, sometimes you may have to leave the puppy alone (although it's best to bring the puppy with you because then they can get more socialization). In this case, set up a fence around the crate (see this post, which is two blog pages of notes on Dunbar's potty training book, for details). In the area between the crate and the edge of the fence, put down a potty pad. That way, the puppy can pee in a "designated spot" rather than randomly peeing on your floor. Again, this method is only as a backup. Usually, you shouldn't be leaving your puppy alone for more than an hour (because you want to bring the puppy outside to pee every hour, thus never letting the puppy pee inside).   Continue reading