Ollie the Schnauzer.

Meet Ollie!

This guy is a wonderful bundle of Schnauzer energy but something his parents wanted to address was Ollie using pee-pee pads when left alone in the apartment. He had learned to use his pee pads very well, but the problem with these pads is that it's tricky to use them in the beginning of a relationship and then ask your dog to start to going to the bathroom outside. This is because dogs don’t get the idea of “sometimes." The word just isn't in their vocabulary!

By using the pee pads, Ollie had learned that it was okay to go to bathroom indoors. When left to his own devices, it's likely he’ll just go inside the house. It is possible to teach a dog to use pee-pads, but only if you want to use them for the rest of the dog's life!

If you want to train your dog to go outside, it's better to teach your puppy that going to the bathroom inside is never okay. Make sure he's supervised 100% of the time, or use a crate or gated-off confinement area to minimize mistakes. Diligently interrupt accidents and rewarding (with lots of praise and treats!!) your puppy whenever he goes outside, and he'll learn what you want to teach him.

We provide our clients with our Housetraining eBook along with our Simple Summary highlighting the important things to remember. In addition, we include a Housetraining Log so you can:

1. track your puppy's pee and poop "activities,"
2. identify your puppy's "problem times" when mistakes happen most frequently, and
   
3. share with your household whether your dog is full and needs to be taken out.

By understanding your dog's natural tendencies, communicating with everyone in the family about what needs to be done, rewarding good behavior, and, er, "eliminating" the chances that your dog can make a mistake, you can have a new puppy house-trained in less than one week!

To learn more about housetraining, crates and confinement areas, visit Zen Dog Training Online. Check out our Housetraining eBook, Simple Summary Housetraining and our Housetraining Log.

Berkeley the Spaniel Mix.

Meet Berkeley!

This is one fantastic and friendly all-American mutt. Unfortunately, he's not the most confident of dogs and recently his life got turned around on him — not only did his family move to a new and strange place, but his parents are expecting a new baby!

One stressful day, Berkeley was munching on his favorite bone. When his mom came over to him, Berkeley decided he didn't want anyone to take away his bone and so he did what many stressed out, grumpy dogs do: he growled at his mom to back off!

The snarling made his mom leave Berkeley to his chewing. Berkeley growled, so he got to keep his bone on his own terms. In other words, Berkeley won! He figured out that he was able to get his way… by using drastic methods.

The incident left the family feeling a bit shaky and a bit unsure around Berkeley. Our first goal was to make sure things were safe and manageable; we recommended leaving a drag line on Berkeley or at least having one easily accessible for the next few weeks while training. Though we wanted to work with Berkeley on sharing his toys and food, our most important goal was to make sure that the family learned how to set up safe training situations.

At Zen Dog Training, we focus on understanding and communication, but we also want dogs to know that their human parents are in charge. When people speak to dogs, those dogs must listen to the rules (and should be rewarded for good behavior). For rules to stick, your dog has to always do what you say — he won't learn if sometimes he can get away with not listening to you.

For resource guarding, our solution is limiting our dogs' freedom with drag lines and tethers if they gets grumpy about having their bone taken away. This way, we can safely teach them to share. The good news about resource guarding is that it responds well to treatment. The bad news is that if it goes undiagnosed people — especially young people and children — are at risk of getting bit or injured by a dog who doesn't understand our rules.

If you want to teach a puppy to share, please check out Preventing Resource Guarding at Zen Dog Training Online. If you have an older dog who makes you feel scared or worried, call a Zen Dog Trainer right away!