Do you want to know how you get a dog to stop digging up the yard?

Give us an appropriate place to dig! Instead of suppressing the behavior, let us dig to our heart's content in a digging approved area! Sandboxes work great for this!

Here is a video of Rocky and Amp to demonstrate... with a guest commentary by yours truly. ;)

(Please ignore the human commentary. They don't know what they are talking about.)

If we have an appropriate outlet to get our energy out, we are usually much better behaved!

If your dog had an online dating profile...

...what would it say? 

Here is one for Treasure:



Screen name: Mamasgrrrl07
Age: 5 years
Breed: Dachshund
Hair color: Red Dapple/Piebald
Eye Color: Blue
Body Type: Average
Status: Spayed

Hey boys! My name is Treasure. I am a fiery little redhead dachshund with a passion for blankets. If there is a blanket on the floor or couch, you can almost always find me under it. I just loooove being warm. So if you are looking for a cuddle under a nice, warm blanket... I'm your gal! Some of my other interests include: trick training, staring out open windows, long walks by the canal, playing with kong toys, eating raw meat, and rolling in worms! I also love puppies, and will adopt any little abandoned pup I see! I have three adopted chihuahua children, that have all found great homes! So, if you like blankets, worms, and puppies... and think you can keep up with me... send me a message!

It Starts...

Treasure here. I am here to tell you that since Ellie's new job started, we have been left home alone more often. She is able to take us to work with her, but she says she wants to get used to the routine before she has to worry about us being there. Hmmmph. At least the boys and I have each other for company. Before Ellie got married, if she had to leave me home, I was all alone with only my kong and some treats for company. We do get some yummy kongs stuffed with really tasty treats, so it's not so bad I guess. Anyway... I am rambling. I wanted to show you some photos of something else Ellie does while at work.

Yes, she is a dog trainer, but she is also a groomer as well! She showed me some pictures of some of the first dogs to be groomed at this new building. I thought the before and after of these two were pretty dramatic. What do you think?

Oh, and Ellie has a foster dog at the new building! Ellie's boss and a rescue group Ellie knows teamed up to see if we could foster 1 dog at a time while we try to find it a home! Ellie is going to work on training them while they are at the kennel, to help them through any behavior problems they may have. The first one is Sissy:

Sissy was owned by an 8-year-old girl who loves her to death! Everything was fine until Sissy's herding instinct kicked in, and started chasing the cats and horses. Her girl was terrified that Sissy would get seriously hurt or even killed if she kept chasing the horses, so she gave Sissy up to the rescue. How difficult that must have been for her! She even hugged Ellie, and started crying on her shoulder on the day she gave her up.

Sissy is a really sweet, and VERY smart dog who loves to be around people. Ellie is trying to find her a home without other small furry critters (or horses) around. An active home that will engage her brilliant mind would be preferred. She would do great at agility, canine freestyle, and trick training. Ellie has started to work with her on her leave-it, and stay training... to teach her some impulse control.

Ellie and Sissy had the opportunity of a lifetime last Tuesday. They were invited to be part of a new dog training instructional workshop dvd about a dog sport called Bikejoring. The instructor is Sue Sternberg a well-known dog trainer from New York with over 30 years of experience! The workshop was filmed by Tawzer Dog LLC., an awesome company that sells a bunch of dog training seminar dvds and books!

This is Ellie and Sissy with Sue Sternberg after filming was over:

I am kind of jealous that I didn't get to go, but Ellie said I wasn't big enough to pull the bike. Oh well!

Ellie's New Job

Hello all! Sorry that I haven't been posting lately. Ellie has been really busy getting ready for her new job, and hasn't had the time to help me write my blogs! She was hired by a brand new company called Emerald Street Kennels. It is a doggie daycare/boarding/grooming/training facility which was built from the ground up! Ellie even got to have some input on what to include in the different rooms. She was hired to create the dog training program there, and she will also be grooming and sometimes supervising the daycare people to make sure things are going smoothly. She has been training the employees on dog body language and behavior, to help keep them and the doggies safe and comfortable.

Here is Rocky showing his approval of the outdoor play area:

Well, today is opening day! Ellie will be going into work in a few hours to help with the closing shift. She is so excited! In a few weeks she will start teaching group classes again, and plans on doing a variety of classes. These are just some of her many class ideas:

-Puppy Socialization (which will include introducing the pups to things that could be scary... like umbrellas, wheelchairs, etc... plus introduction to other pups and people)

-Puppy Manners (Sit, stay, down, recall, loose leash, potty training, solving jumping up and mouthing, etc.)

-Adult Manners (Sit, stay, down, recall, loose leash, wait, leave-it, drop-it, solving jumping up, barking, mouthing, counter surfing, etc.)

-Beginning Tricks (shake, roll-over, high-five, target, etc.)

-Advanced Tricks (introduction to core positions to build muscles and endurance, rear-end awareness, weaves, backwards weaves, speak, play-dead, back-up, cross paws, act ashamed, cop-cop, etc.)

-Intro to Canine Freestyle (how to pick good music, choreography, heel work, weaves, rear-end awareness, back-up, jumps, everybody show off a short routine at the end)



What do you think? What do you wish YOU could learn in a class?

Puppy Pictures of Me!

As requested, here are some puppy pictures of me! These are from when I was about 4 months old!

Training at the Park and Fun Outing!

Hello! Treasure here. I want to tell you about what we did yesterday. Ellie says that it is really important to train us doggies in a variety of different settings. Just because we know how to 'sit' in the living room does not necessarily mean that we know how to 'sit' outside. In her training classes, the human students used to tell her all the time, "But, Max can do this (sit, down, stay, etc.) at home! I think he's just being stubborn and ignoring me." What most likely happened is that they didn't train Max in different environments, so he was either distracted, or he didn't know that 'sit' means 'sit' and 'down' means 'down' wherever or whenever they are. Training us doggies in a variety of different settings and places will help us to know how to do these things anywhere and anytime!

So, to help us with this, we went to the park across the street from our house to practice! It is important when doing this for the first time, that your human chooses an area that is not very distracting... like your backyard, or maybe a different room in the house that you don't normally train in. If you are used to training in your living room, then you suddenly go to a very crowded pet store, it will be much too distracting for you and your human, and you won't be able to focus very well! You should slowly add in the distractions one at a time to set both of you up for success, and so you don't get frustrated!

There were a couple of human adults, and a few human children at the other end of the park yesterday. We chose the most distant corner from them, so we could still hear them, but they weren't so close that we would be too distracted.

(Please forgive the picture quality! We didn't have our good picture-machine with us yesterday!)

When training somewhere new to you, you should always start with things you already know how to do very well. Start with the simple things, so that you can get used to the new environment while you do things that are very easy for you. Also, if you know how to 'stay' for 30 seconds at home, maybe do it for only 10 seconds in the new environment, and work up from there. Set yourselves up for success! Succeeding builds confidence!


Check out how focused Rocky is on Ellie's face! He is learning to ignore distractions!

High-five:

Devin even took a turn with me. Ellie wants us to be able to listen to Devin as well as we listen to her. So it is important for us to work with him so that we get used to it! This is Devin asking me to do a 'twirl', which is a circle in a counter-clockwise direction. My ears look funny!

This is me focusing on what he wants me to do next (actually, I am focusing on the treat in his hand... shhhhhhh!):

We got a couple of nice rewards after our training session! The first one was more for the boys. They got to play with the fox on a stick at the park. I don't understand why they like chasing that thing so much! (Amp is on a long-line, because he likes to wander off sometimes even when playing with the fox. This makes him easier to catch!)

The next was an outing with our humans! Ellie later told me that this was part of our training too... to get us used to going different places and seeing new things.

Ellie says that going different places like this is good for our mentals. Also, it is part of something she calls "socialization", which is something she feels needs to be done throughout our whole lives so we don't forget!

We had such a fun day! I hope we can do it again soon!


Dog-training blooper: (supposed to be a high-five)

Baby Amp!

Hello! Treasure here... Ellie found some old phone pictures of Amp when he was a pup! We wanted to share them with you, even though they aren't very clear. He was a cute little guy! What do you think?

I guess he's still pretty cute...