The KC Dog Guy

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...