How can you stop your dog from digging your yard.

Many dogs find digging really rewarding and fun. Digging is a natural behavior for dogs and one that can become annoying to their owners and very destructive to the owners garden.

If your dog is turning your garden or your front lawn into an open quarry here are a few guidelines that will help you teach him not to dig and maybe even where to dig.

The first and most important thing you want to know is that dogs can associate cause and effect only if they happen one right after the other. So if you step outside and see a new pothole in the grass it’s too late. No matter how stern you sound and how “ashamed” your dog looks to you he is just afraid of you and has no idea what you want.

So the first guideline to follow will be not to let your dog outside unsupervised so if he starts digging you can tell him to stop. You can also make a loud and sudden noise (like banging two metal lids). We would like the dog to associate that noise with him digging in the garden. If that happens once or twice in a row he will not attempt it anymore.

If you do have a spot that you are ok with the dog digging there take his there on walks and linger there for a little while. If he starts digging praise him and pet him. The most important drive behind your dog’s behavior is making you happy even if it does not always look like it is.

The second guideline will be not letting your dog see you mending your garden. Dogs are very interested in anything that we do. If he sees you working in the garden he may come later to see what were you doing. If there are things you “buried” he may unbury them. Both sides, by the way, are going to be unhappy with the outcome. He did not find the bone he was hoping for your plants might not make it.

The third guideline will be to keep your dog busy. Dogs need mental stimuli and social life. If you don’t find something for your dog to do - he will find it itself. Teach your dog how to fetch and retrieve work on his obedience or teach him agility. He will thank you and you will enjoy living with him.

If there are any places that your dog is repeatedly digging in place some of his feces in the bottom of the hole before covering it and add some gravel right before you reach the ground level. Both will deter your dog from digging in that spot again.

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Training Your Dog Around Distractions

 Training Your Dog Around Distractions

In dog training we aim for our dog to be able to follow commands even in a distracting area. Each dog gets distracted by different “triggers” and will react to them depending upon the context. Our job as the trainer is to help our dog get used to these distractions while performing at the same level when in a neutral environment.

When we choose our training scenario we need to know our dog and his limitations. We do want our dog to be working hard but at the same time we want him to succeed. We do not want to train our dog where there are too many distractions that he cannot cope with at this point in his training.

A good place to start training around distractions will be at the park. You want to choose the far corner of the park, outside the dog park. You should choose a place where your dog can still hear, see and (most important for dogs) smell the dogs in the park but where he can still listen to you. Have your dog perform easy and simple tasks like “sit” and “come” from a short distance. If your dog fails to obey, move the training area a little further or make the tasks easier.  

In order to succeed, you should use exercises that your dog is already good at. For example, sit, down, loose leash walk and leave-it are all activities that are important for a dog to practice while in the presence of can dogs and people. Some dogs will find it hard to lie down at the presence of other dogs.

If your dog is very reactive to other dogs you might want to choose a location where people are present but not dogs. Some big box stores allow people to walk in with a dog. You can use these places to train your dog around people.

If your dog is afraid or reactive to people we will need to use counter-conditioning methods to get him used to people. We will discuss these methods in a future posting.

There are two very important rules that you will need to follow in order to train your dog for good obedience around distractions:

1. Do not teach your dog a new behavior when he is around distractions: take him back to a neutral location where you can get all his attention and teach him the new behavior there.
2. “Back to Kindergarten:” this rule means that if your dog fails to listen to you, you need to make things easier for him. For example, ask your dog to stay for shorter period of time (if you were working on stay) or stay closer to him if you are working on a recall.

Training around distractions can be very demanding for your dog. Keep your training sessions short, rewarding and fun. Your dog will thank you and his training will get better much faster. 

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Using a Clicker - A great way to train your dog.

 In this piece we will discuss the method of clicker training and how it can help you train your dog faster and in a more reliable way.

A clicker is a device that makes a “click” sound every time you press its button. In training we use clickers to let the dog know that they did a good thing and that they are going to earn a reward. We refer to it as “marking a behavior.” The reason behind using the clicker is that it improves the handler’s timing and consistency. In short, pressing the clicker is faster than saying “good dog” allowing the dog to immediately associate cause (sitting) and effect (getting a treat). In addition, a clicker always makes the same sound.

How do we introduce a clicker to the training?

We will use a simple exercise called “ loading the clicker.” It is a simple conditioning exercise that doesn’t even involve training. Simply have a few treats in your hand and repeatedly click and give your dog a treat right away. Do it every day, twice a day, for two minutes in different parts of the house or outside, and your dog will have no problem associating clicks with treats.

At home you will use the clicker to mark good behaviors that we would like the dog to continue doing. For instance, if your dog comes to you and sits nicely – click and treat. If your dog lies down, come to you or any other desirable behavior, click and treat. You want to mark all these behaviors since this adds value to them. Your dog will soon try to figure out how to get you to click and give him treats, by repeating the rewarding behaviors.

Once we have a set of behaviors the dog regards as rewarding (the ones you marked and the dog got rewarded for) our next step will be to teach your dog the names of these behaviors. 

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