The KC Dog Guy

Shelter Dog Playgroups - More than just play Updated 1/2020 Wow, 20 years doing playgroups at shelters. When I started it was unheard of to put shelter dogs in play groups.  There was too great of a chance for disease, fights or the mental barrier related to how can you put strange dogs together.  Now we have great organizations like Dog Playing For Life and shelter playgroups are slowly becoming the norm. Even with that, people fear the fight when introducing dogs to each other. I originally wrote this article in 2013, updated again 2018 and now in 2020! If you were to watch me put together playgroups nowadays it may still look like I am choosing random dogs and hoping they get along. It couldn't be further from the truth.  Shelter dogs need dog to dog interaction, but they need the right interactions to grow and acclimate into a home. It serves many purposes, from exercise, maintaining social skills and decreasing stress - IF DONE RIGHT.  I bold tha

I work with and help many animal rescue groups.  Unfortunately, they mean well, but many do a lousy job marketing their dogs.  They post the most dreadful pictures of the dogs and then put write-ups out there that mean very little.  Rescues and shelters could move more animals into homes by simple shooting fun, but honest videos of their dogs. This is a video I have on SuzyQ that I put together. The short video clip shows off SuzyQ and is only a few minutes long. Very entertaining, but does it really show her personality?  Yes and no, I do have Jade in the video so it shows she's dog and human friendly, and very toy motivated. The second video is a little different shows SuzyQ, but without music or narration. I think the videos need music or narration (for training videos). The second video shows me working with SuzyQ. Each one of these have their pro's and con's. The third video of SuzyQ, has subtitles to highlight certain portions of the video. You need to point

It was probably inventible that I would receive a dog bite that would require medical attention. Since 1999, I’ve had the privilege to work with several thousand dogs.   I worked with dogs through shelters, rescues, classes, private consults and seminars. Much of my dog handling experience occurred in shelters prior to the current protocol in many shelters that include some type of behavior evaluation of their dogs. While I had many close calls and little bites, nothing ever required medical attention. On September 27, 2011 I received a bite from a rescue Akita that required me to head to the ER to get my leg, chest and lip addressed. The end result was puncture wounds on the thigh and stitches in my chest and lower lip. (insert pic.). Some reading this may say, “See Akitas are aggressive!”   This is not about the type of dog who bit me, but should serve as a warning to all of us (trainers, rescues, shelter volunteers, vetinarians, rescue personal etc.) that if you work around dogs lo

Puppy and Small Dog Crate Training Set up Small dogs and puppies can be difficult to housetrain, especially when many of us work all day. In some instances tea-cup dogs may never be able to go more than 6-8 hours without needing a potty break. This set up allows you to teach your puppy or small breed to go on grass and enable you to go to work or be away for more than 8 hours is necessary. Fig 1 Fig 1 shows the set up, a crate, exercise pen (Foster and Smith) and a doggie litter box with a piece of sod in it. The set up should be initially set up where the puppies will spend most of their time with humans. Over the next 6 weeks this set up will be moved into the laundry room and the litter box will be treated much like a cat litter box. In this example it’s being used for 2 tea-cup Pomeranians. At 12 weeks of age one of the Poms was already using the litter box consistently enough to be left out several hours if needed. The puppies were also taught to go outside and since

f you read Akita rescue sites (and other breed sites), they are so black and white.  I don't think any dog that does not have the temperament, training or social skills should be off leash , but to lump Pits,  Akitas  and other breeds all together is silly. It would be as foolish for me to say that since you have a Lab or Golden Retriever you can let them off leash, around kids and pretty much take them anywhere since they're "non-aggressive" breeds.  I've ran across Labs that are horribly dog aggressive and Akitas/bully breeds that are just wonderful around other dogs. My prior  Akita  mix and Jade have great dog skills. As with any prey driven breed (insert all Terriers, Shepherds and just about all dogs) you need to realize they will chase animals smaller than them. Sure, I consider my self a pretty good trainer, but to tell every Akita owner not to have the dog  off leash , around kids, other dogs, in public blah, blah, blah. If I had not already owned a prio

In 2002 I put dogs at Wayside Waifs into small playgroups for the first time.  I had been a shelter volunteer since 1999 (a trainer since 2002), but there had not been an emphasis to let dogs socialize in a group due to fear of dog fights. At the time Wayside did not have a structured temperament test program as it does today, so the incident of dog-aggression occurred a little more frequently back then.   The first playgroups began as a method to get more dogs out of their kennels for exercise and bathroom breaks.  The shelter manager at the time and I played around with some dogs and based on the size of the Wayside play yards and came up with a maximum number of five dogs for playgroups. I still keep to this number today, but for different reasons and the idea of structured playgroups also changed with time to focus on more behavior modification and adopt-ability. Over the seven years, the concept of “structured playgroups” within the shelter industry is more prevalent. I think th