The KC Dog Guy

Just a quick blog tonight. I created a YouTube account to be able to post some videos on another dog site. Then I thought why not put some of my best training and dog behavior videos on YouTube for my Wayside peeps, Akita peeps and anyother peep that wants to watch. www.youtube.com/user/kcdogguy I have three videos posted right now. One is a corny video of Jade coming when called at the lake. The other two show two sets of dogs playing in slow mo. If you want to get really good at reading dog behavior watch it at 20-30% of it's normal speed, without the sound. Listen with your eyes, I'll say it again. Listen with your eyes! When I work with people and their dogs, they break up the good play and let the bad behaviors escalate into a fight. My rule of thumb is to stay about 3 feet away from a dog when I first bring them into a playgroup. It's close enough for me to read the b ehavior of the new dog, others in the group and intervene if I have to. This is Jade and Devito p

Another Milestone with Jade I've been busy with my Wayside Waifs dogs this week, but I did hit some new milestones with Jade this week. It's funny that so many training classes spend a whole day of class on Sit and Stay. In reality a trainer could spend 8 weeks alone on sit and stay. How so you ask? Most classes are happy the dog sits with the owner standing there with a leash, or stay when the owner walks a measly few feet away. Today Jade performed a Stop,Sit and Down and come from 50 feet away in my driveway. She's up to a 5 minute stay, but that's with her in a down or sit stay in my driveway and me in the house. I call that an out-of-sight stay. She also has learned to stay even if I sprint away into the house. I'm usually not a big stay p erson with my dogs, but I know she needs to learn a good solid stay command. On this last lake trip we walked for two hours and I'm not sure she balked at even one come, stop or sit. Jade is becoming quite the dog. Her

Today was my 4 th trip with Jade to a park and trail setting. The first three were to Smithville Lake in Kansas City. This trip was to Tiffany Springs Park. I used to run my old jeep on the trails until the police started cracking down. It's a series of overgrown trails in a canopy of trees with deer everywhere. Needless to say if your dog runs off, you will spend days finding the dog. Eventually you have to keep challenging your dog and your skills as a dog trainer. This is one of the tougher venues I take my dogs to. The dark area behind Jade is the entrance to the trail. If you want to hike with your dog you need great Stop and Recall control over your dog. If I lost Jade at this park, I would not be writing this blog just 2 hours after hiking with her. Smithville is much more controlled. When I walk the shore, the bluffs act as a natural barrier, but it's a great spot to start with hiking. Before I took Jade to Tiffany Springs we worked on a Recall and Leave it exercise

It's late, for me, but I wanted to continue my post on Social Enrichment. I was struggling for the words and I found the word- coping. How well does your dog cope to different environments, situations or people? The dog I wrote about a few days ago, was returned to the shelter for growling at the children and not playing nice. Not sure what not playing nice is, but this dog was trained. He knew sit, stay, down, shake and was leashed trained. However, is not safe to be around small boys. When you get a puppy, yes think about training, but get out and let that puppy experience all it can each and every week. Help to teach your canine to cope to a variety of environments, situations and people. Each of these experiences need to be positive, but if the puppy is scared or nervous, help them cope. If you have an adult dog, do the same thing. All you need is a few basic control commands, Come-Sits or Look will do. Visit each new spot a few times and then move on. We need to quit think

Traditional Training Is a trained dog a safe dog? It depends on your definition of a trained dog. The most common dog classes around America focus on certain skills in their classes. Mainly sit, down, stay, look, walk on leash and other commands. Once the dog or puppy comes out of the class it should have the basics mastered. To the owner and society the dog is now "trained" and would probably be considered safe. What our current puppy and our dog classes lack is any type of focus on social enrichment, or socialization . Some instructors touch base on handling and other social exercises with the puppies, but after the class our puppies become socially isolated in our Midwest homes. Current dog classes are even worse. Read most dog class descriptions and you will notice no social interaction between the dogs. Trainers cite, safety, liability or a simply tell the students dogs should never be off leash in public. See My Goals for your dog for my opinion of dogs and leash

I get a lot of emails from people about aggression. Either between dogs and humans or dogs and dogs. In many cases you can track it down to a resource. Especially between dogs. My own dog Jade will guard and fight over high value items with another dog. I'm working on it, but it's not really a surprise. They are dogs! Humans do not like to share or have their items stolen either. Unfortunately , we tend to work with the food bowl and toys with dogs to make sure we can take it away without an issue. I see trainers teach it as a "leave it", "mine" or some other verbal command. That's fine, if everyone knows your "word". I teach a verbal leave it, but also teach the dog to respond to the universal sign that their item is about to be take...an open human hand. Jade will see my hand coming towards her food bowl or item, look up scoot back and wait. That way no matter who reaches for her food, she should respond the same way. I won't get in

Jade's training is coming along. We made our 3rd trip to Smithville this weekend. I keep pushing while we are up there and letting her have more freedom. On this trip I let her pursue a mouse all the way to the hole. I got Jade to about a 90% recall without any issues. She's an Akita with a high predatory drive so I need to be able to stop and recall her when I need to. I'm a lucky trainer, Wayside Waifs has allowed me to bring Jade to the shelter on Saturdays when I volunteer. As a result she has met over 200 dogs in the past 4 months I've had her. Jade's dog to dog skills have increased 10 fold. She's able to adapt to a variety of dogs. Even if a dog really snarks at her she will walk away. I still need to work on her issues with resource guarding items from other dogs. Even for me, that takes a bit of work, but I am working on it. Tonight we went to Petco and for a walk at Zona Rosa (an outdoor mall). Every week for the past 4 months I've had Jade s

Today Jade and I took another trip to Smithville Lake. It's my favorite off leash training location tons of distractions from varmets, people, boats, jet skis and the always present dead stuff. Other than that for a 2-hour walk she stayed within her 30-40 zone and recalled, stopped, sat and stayed when I asked. We did run into something that scared her today. It was a beautiful day so the lake had numerous jet skis and fishing boats around. Jade and I came upon a pontoon boat and family along the shore. We were in 3-4 foot tall weeds and neither her or I were thrilled with this. Jade popped out on shore and was interested in this thing called a pontoon boat. In the water were several people, including a bobbing child in a life jacket. He floated over and stood up out of the water and Jade gave a gruff, and took off about 30 feet into the weeds. I called her back and she was visibly nervous. The little boy gave her some treats and we repeated the exercise 3-4 more times. Jade the

As a dog trainer who has handled and worked with over 10,000 dogs over the past 10 years I have read on, researched and experimented with just about all methods of dog training. I teach shelter staff and others how to train dogs, along with training dogs myself. During an average week I will work with 15-30 dogs. Thirty years ago William Kohler was the big name in dog training (The Koehler Method of Dog Training). There are few trainers in KC who still swear by his methods, which are now considered inhumane. His famous method to stop a digging dog. Fill a hole with water and submerge the dog's head in the hole. To teach a dog not to eat strange food - put the food on the end of an extension cord with bare wires. I think you get the idea. I actually read his book to be able to at least defend my conflicts with his training method. Then again, that was 30 years ago and trainers did not start to train dogs until 6 months of age. This was based on the thought that dogs could not lea

Dogs need to play! Never, ever forget that. When I meet with new dog owners they are focused on the problems with their dogs. They have absolutely no relationship with the dog and the dog actually has to initiate play with them. When the dog starts play, the average owner is annoyed since it's usually not when they want to. The solution? You, the owner initiate and control play. No matter how many dogs you have, play is crucial to your relationship. During play you can work on basic commands and even advanced handling. Always start and stop play frequently in your interactions with your dog. Play for about a minute, then stop, leash your dog, sit and wait for your dog to relax. One relaxed, count to 30 and start play with "Let's Play!". Repeat this 8-10 times and in the span of just 15 minutes your dog will be both mentally and physically exhausted. I run this same game at Wayside Waif ( www.waysidewaifs.org ) with 5-8 dogs at a time. By the time I'm done I ca

Just about 4 months ago I adopted about a 9 month old Akita from Wayside Waifs ( http://www.waysidewaifs.org/ ). I got lucky, Wayside transferred her from another shelter right as Midwest Akita Rescue was looking at her ( http://www.akita.org/ ). So I consider her both a rescue and a shelter dog. I also have 2 old shibas, 12 & 13, so getting everyone to adjust was a little work. Jade was a little possessive of her toys and food around them, but has gotten much better. Since she's just a year, I need to keep working on her dog social skills. I don't really by in too many Akita myths, but they do have some dog aggression and stranger aggression in the breed. Other studies , Steven Lindsey, show that dog aggression can increase and become evident up to two years or age. Luckily, I have Wayside and I've been taking Jade there every Saturday when I work with the shelter dogs. It's been an interesting ride. Jade had pretty good dog skills to begin with, but I have seen he

I get really tired of people telling me there dog is an "outside" dog. Why have a dog if you have it outside all the time? Our lives now rotate around work, computers and television. I can drive through my neighborhood on a beautiful day and see few kids or adults outside. We mow and take care of the yard because we have to, not want to. So the outside dog, yard dog, sees humans at feeding time and then the other 23 1/2 hours it's alone and bored. Bored dogs are destructive, noisy and can become territorial. The normal excuse is that their parents had an outdoor dog on the farm. I'm 42 years old and I am the first generation of my family to never live on a farm. I highly doubt all these other people are directly off the farm. This is where the myth kicks in. Farmers had dogs that were pets. Yes, they spend most of there time outside, but so did the farmer. My Uncle Roger had a little dog named Spot. Spot was a Jack Russell terrier with scars and chewed up ear