Retractable leashes are responsible for thousands of injures every year, including eye injuries, eye loss, amputations, and rope burns. Most of these accidents would never have happened had a regular leash been used. The problem with retractable leashes is what makes them so appealing. They allow the dog to get too far away–and they are self winding.

The “Freedom” of Distance

The most appealing part of the retractable leash is how far it lets your dog get away from you. While this is useful in situations like camping, when your dog may not necessarily want to do his business next to you, and you don’t necessarily want him to get eaten by a cougar, it’s not so awesome for walks. Retractable leashes can be deadly in places like pet stores and groom shops, where dogs can get into fights with other dogs, become entangled, and clothesline other people. This applies to all sized dogs, even a Chihuahua can trip up an unsuspecting person.

Another unfortunate place where they can be deadly is on the sidewalk. If your dog is 20 feet ahead of you, and the traffic is 3 feet to one side, there is nothing you can do to stop your dog from running into traffic. It happens all the time.

The Evils of Tension

Unlocked retractable leashes teach pulling, and are often banned from training classes for this reason. Here’s a quote from trainer Jon Borcherding:

“I would sell a lot more retractable leashes if I could just ignore the truth about them.  Unfortunately, I can’t.  Retractable leashes teach dogs to pull.  When a dog pulls on the retractable lead, the first thing most dog-guardians do is press the button to give the dog more freedom.  This reinforces the pulling behavior.

With a retractable leash, I think I could train a dog to pull faster than I could train the same bad behavior with treats and a clicker!  Retractable leads for large dogs should come complete with contact information for a talented dog trainer and an orthopedic surgeon.  It’s just a matter of time before the person at the human end of the lead will need both!”

And When the Dog Comes to the End of the Leash:

The sudden extension of the leash and sudden stop at the end is just as dangerous as the rest of the lead. It’s responsible for rope burns, eye injuries, and amputations. Even the best trained dogs can accidentally cause injuries with these leashes.

A Better Choice

If you want to let your dog run free in an on-leash area, use a 30 foot training lead. These leashes do not place tension on the neck, do not have locks that fail, and have thick, wide straps that are less likely to result in fingers being chopped off. Take the time to teach your dog long distance manners such as recall and yielding to pressure, and keep your dog out of reach of traffic, other dogs, and people.

A Word On Puppy Mills

Horrible treatment and mass breeding is not the only thing puppy mill puppies are known for. They are also known for severe health problems that could cost you thousands, as well as behavioral and training problems. While over-breeding—and poor breeding stock—is a part of this, environment is also a big part of it. The first few weeks of a puppies life are crucial for how they look at the world.

• Ask pet stores where they get their puppies from. If they won’t give you a specific name, they probably got it from a puppy mill. You want to hear, “So and So Rescue” or “Such and Such Breeder”, along with a phone number to verify. If they won’t give you a specific name and a phone number, don’t buy it.
• While there are reputable breeders who breed more than one breed, most of them don’t. Avoid any breeder who advertises multiple breeds of puppies available, as they are likely to be a puppy mill.

Finding A Breeder That Cares

Who ever you choose as a breeder, by far the most important thing to ask is how they socialize their puppies. If you don’t immediately get a response about running vacuums, introduction to different types of flooring, nail trims and other things they may encounter in day to day life as a pet, run away. Behavioral problems are the #1 reason why healthy animals are destroyed, and early encounters like this make everything else so much easier.

Another important thing to ask your breeder about is how they introduce the puppies to potty training. If they’re allowed to poop indiscriminately, house training is going to be a thousand times harder than if they’ve already started paper training. (Think about it, all the puppy has ever known is…it’s okay to just let the bowls go. There’s no inhibition at all.)

If your breed is known for any health concerns (and every breed has at least one health concern) ask your breeders what they do about it. If they don’t seem concerned, you should be concerned. A good breeder will guarantee their puppies health, and may even have a contract requiring a minimum level of care from you. Don’t be offended if the breeder requires a contract, it’s just another sign the breeder cares.

Last but not least, find out if one or both parents have titled at anything, in anything. (Any sport, any discipline, regardless of whether or not they are registered dogs or not.) While not absolutely necessary, this is proof that the parents are trainable, and intelligent.

If you keep dogs for any length of time, you will eventually have a potty accident in the house.

Why is that?

While you may think the pee you just thoroughly cleansed with carpet shampoo is gone, in all actuality the enzymes in the pee are still there. Dogs frequently look for places they have peed before when they need to go, namely places where they smell that enzyme. The only way to get rid of these enzymes is by using a pet cleaner specifically designed to break them down.

Step one: Remove as much mess as possible

Soak up as much wetness as you can and pick up any solids before you bring in cleaners. The less your cleaner has to break down, the more effective it will be. (Besides, doing otherwise is just gross. Sorry people.)

When dealing with carpet, remember that the stain you see on the surface isn’t the only part of the mess. The urine has also probably reached the padding below it. To get rid of the most pee possible, place a towel over the wet area and stand on it. Your body weight will help squeeze the urine out of your carpet and into the towel

Step two: Use your enzymatic cleaner

I use this one here. You’ll need to follow your specific cleaners instructions exactly. Most cleaners will give you the same advice—drench the pee stain with their product. They’re not kidding, and they’re not trying to get you to waste a bunch so you’ll buy more. Dogs have great noses, remember? So the cleaner has to get the visible pee stain, plus anything that’s sunk below the surface. That’s why I get the gallon jug and slop a huge splash onto any pee stain I find. It might be expensive, but my carpet still looks like new, and replacing carpet costs a lot more!

Step three: Address the problem

While accidents do happen, accidents should not be in every day occurrence. If your dog is not potty trained, consider kennel training him to help with the situation. If he’s having accidents in the house and never has before, consider taking him to the vet. He may be getting incontinent if he’s an older dog, or he may have a urinary tract infection.

A few seconds later, I was using my phone to search the net for dog food ingredients and what they meant. The dogs I knew liked to chew on meaty bones, not cobs of corn. Why then did the first bag of food I looked at read like a bag of pig food?

The answer isn’t very simple. FDA and AAFCO standards only go so far to protect your dog. There is no specific law against including known cancer causing agents such as BHA, large amounts of grain (up to 50%) or even euthanized cats and dogs. The only protection your dog has is your ability to flip the bag over and know what it means.

To help you, I’ve listed the five worst ingredients you can find in your dog food, and believe it or not, corn is the least of your worries.

Ingredient: Meat and Bone Meal

From the FDA website “There appear to be associations between rendered or hydrolyzed ingredients and the presence of pentobarbital in dog food. The ingredients Meat and Bone Meal (MBM), Beef and Bone Meal (BBM), Animal Fat (AF), and Animal Digest (AD) are rendered or hydrolyzed from animal sources that could include euthanized animals.”

…And we don’t even know what sort of euthanized animal it is, because meat and bone meal can come from any mammal, including roadkill, diseased, disabled, dying or dead livestock, and euthanized pets.

Ingredient: Menadione (menadione sodium bisulfate, menadione sodium bisulfite or menadione dimethylpyrimidinol bisulfite)

This additive isn’t only unnecessary, it’s destructive. Added as a synthetic version of vitamin K, it is banned from use in humans in several European countries do to irreversible damage and death. Known effects include everything from skin irritation to cytotoxicity. (Toxic to you on a cellular basis. Eek!)

There is a whole host more, read the rest here.

Ingredient: Butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA), BHT

BHA is a known carcinogen in lab animals, and reasonably anticipated by the US Health Institute as a carcinogen in humans. It is also listed by California, under the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, as capable of causing damage to major organs such as the liver and upper respiratory tract.

Despite these ominous reports, both the pet industry and the food industry (!) continue to use BHA as a preservative when there are other, less questionable, preservatives readily available.

Ingredient: Ethoxyquin

Yet another questionable preservative, the public outcry on this has been huge. Vets, breeders and dog advocates firmly believe this substance is highly toxic and possibly causes cancer. It is allowed only in very small doses in humans, but much larger in dogs.

Some of this is supported by the NTP’s study, some of it isn’t. You decide for yourself whether you want it in your dogs food or not.

Ingredient: Propylene Glycol

Also known as the “pet friendly” version of anti-freeze. While it’s true Propylene Glycol is less toxic than Ethylene Glycol, it’s still extremely dangerous. So much so in fact, that 9ml per pound will kill 50% of dogs without immediate treatment.

The poison control center for pets lists seizures, tremors and anemia among possible symptoms caused by this ingredient, and it’s forbidden from use in cat food.

All of the above ingredients are common fixtures in the dog food industry, especially in big box store brands. Please read ingredient labels carefully before feeding anything to your pet, or check your food at Dog Food Advisor. Your pets life may depend on it.

This picture would have been impossible without a solid distance sit.

Most dogs learn how to sit on cue during the course of their lifetime. If you’ve had a dog any length of time however, you know there is a difference between the puppy who plops his butt down for one second, and the service dog who does not break sit until specifically told to.

While the average house pet probably doesn’t need the degree of training a service dog does, teaching a quality sit has its benefits. A dog that sits to be petted is far more approachable than the one lunging at the end of it’s leash. A dog who can sit by your side while you have a conversation is more pleasurable to walk than a dog dragging you off into the bushes.

In order to teach your dog to sit—and stay sitting—until you tell him otherwise, you will need to teach him several different behaviors, including:

• Sit
• Sit at a Distance
• Sit Without Eye Contact
• The Sixty Second Sit
• Sit With Distractions
• The Off Leash Sit
• The Break Command

What are you waiting for? Click the available links to get your dog started on the perfect sit.

Leia got rewarded for just sniffing the toy at first

This may seem like a silly trick to teach, but the hold command is a prerequisite for tons of other useful tricks. With this command, you can teach your dog to play fetch, put his toys away, sort laundry/recycling, or even bring you a beer from the fridge!

You will need:

Complete the Prerequisite: Clicker Conditioning
Treats
Clicker
An easy to hold object for your dog, such as a toy.
Distraction Free Work Area

Don't reward for behaviors outside of what you're trying to teach, even if they're good behaviors.

To begin:

Take your dog to a distraction free work area, and either show the dog the toy or place it on the ground. Most dogs will sniff it out of curiosity. As soon as he so much as looks at the toy, click and reward. Click and reward for anything your dog does related to the toy. If he picks up the toy, click and jackpot.

Repeat this over the course of two or three sessions, no more than fifteen or so treats per session. Do this until your dog responds to the toy in some way 100% of the time.

Get pickier:

Now that your dog knows what you want has something to do with the toy, start getting pickier about what will and will not earn a click. Eliminate looking at the toy one session, and then in a couple more sessions, eliminate pawing. If your dog gets confused or frustrated, go back to something he knew for two or three sessions before trying again.

Jackpot your dog when ever it picks up the toy. Even if its just for a second!

Eventually eliminate everything but actually grasping the toy. Congratulations! Your dog knows how to hold a toy. Probably for about one second. Never mind, the sky is the limit, as with everything else in the dog world. Continue to shape the hold by asking for longer periods of time or other behaviors along with it.

For those who are curious, Leia started nose touching the toy right away, but didn’t offer any other behavior for 3 sessions of about 5 minutes each. By lesson 5 she was biting the toy, by lesson 8 she was lifting it, but still offering other behaviors such as chewing and pawing the toy.

I’d love to hear how other people do with this trick, and where they go from here. Please share!

We’ve used this product for the past two years, using a grand total of 4 gallons of this product during that time. (Yes, I said gallons.) These are our findings:

Positive:

• We never had a problem removing stains on plush carpet, linoleum, or laundry.
• It did seem to keep the dog from using that spot specifically to eliminate
• It works amazing on baby related stains. If you have children, throw it in with every wash. What a time saver!
• It never damaged anything we splashed it on, which is pretty much everything made out of cloth.

Negative:

• No matter how long we let it soak for, how fresh the stain was, or how much we scrubbed, it did not do a great job of getting stains out of berber carpeting.

Our plush carpeting has endured two dogs start-to-finish potty training, and a baby, and still looks like new thanks to this product. If you have not tried this product, give it a try!

In most developed countries, negative reinforcement in the classroom, in parenting, and in dog training, has become a thing of the past. Our culture does not tolerate spanking children, or using shock collars on dogs. Maybe we’ve grown beyond that, or maybe we’ve lost something vital. That’s up to you to judge.

When I trained Rocco’s core behaviors, I used negative reinforcement. Sit, or I will yank up on your collar and push down on your butt until you are forced to. It worked. He learned how to sit. He sits every time I ask him to, and I don’t have to worry about lugging around a baggie of treats or praying he’ll listen when we’re in a high distraction environment.

Why Negative Is not Necessarily Awesome.

Here’s why I won’t do it again:

You can take a lunch break in the time it takes for him to get his booty on the floor. This behavior is a common phenomenon in dogs who only receive negative reinforcement. They’re trying to keep you, the Boss Dog, calm by being very slow and respectful in their movements. This is great, if all you care about is your dog knowing he’s subordinate to you. It’s not so great if you want immediate, sharp responses.

Since then we’ve added two more dogs to our collection, and I’ve switched to clicker training. I get the same consistency, plus better speed with clicker training—as long as there isn’t a better “Reward” for not listening out there.

I don’t think I need a cute cartoon to show you why that doesn’t work either. I won’t risk my dogs getting run over because I didn’t have a treat and a click handy for my recall.

I realize both negative reinforcement parties and positive are aghast right now. If neither works, what does, right?

I think it depends on every dog and every trainer. What I’ve learned with my three dogs is that the quickest, most thorough results come from 90% positive reinforcement and 10% negative reinforcement.

90% of the behaviors I want are shaped by the clicker. Behaviors I absolutely do not want are corrected either by a light tug on the leash (if on) or a sharp verbal correction. At present, results have been good. I get the speed and consistency I want with clicker training, and also the consistency I want during highly distracting situations.

So far it’s worked for me, but I’d like to hear from all sides of the equation. What works for you?

You can't get cute poses like this without sit

Teaching Your New Puppy to Sit

“Sit” is the first command most puppies learn, and it is a vital one. Teaching your dog to sit on cue sets it up for a lifetime of living with humans, and gives you the much needed chance to bond with your dog in a constructive way. Fortunately, it also happens to be easy.

You Will Need:

Treats

A distraction free environment

The Beginner Sit

Take your dog to a distraction free environment, such as a small room, or even the bathroom if your dog is small enough. (Most of my beginning work takes place in the bathroom.)

Hold the treat to your dogs nose, and begin to move it back over your dogs head. Most dogs will sit in order to get the treat. A few will rear up, paw at your hand, or back away. If your dog does this, be patient. Do not reward your dog, but don’t punish it either. Keep repeating until your dog sits.

Repeat practicing until your dog is sitting consistently, then start adding the sit command alongside the lure.

Fade the Lure

Gradually begin asking the dog to sit without the lure, by first showing him the treat and asking for the command, and then not showing him the treat but rewarding every time. When he can sit without seeing a treat, you can begin to stop rewarding the behavior every time.

Keep Practicing

Once your dog sits consistently, without a food reward, ask him to sit for things he wants anyway. If they want to chase a squirrel in the backyard, fine. Sit and I’ll open the door. You want your dinner? That’s cool, sit for it. Want to play with a toy? Sure. Sit and I’ll get out the tug rope.

Asking your dog to sit for things he wants will keep his training fresh and strengthen your bond with him all at the same time.

Is this gonna hurt?

In my first year of college, I took an astronomy class where the teacher would chuck candy at the head of anybody who got the answer right during his morning pop quiz. The questions varied in difficulty from, “Which star is closest to the Earth?” to “What is the chemical composition of the atmosphere of Venus?”

It was an awesome class, with an awesome teacher, and if you weren’t the kind of person to go for candy, there was an extra-credit slip wrapped around each piece. I wasn’t a big science buff, but I miraculously got every question right whenever there were Dots in his candy bag.

My much loved and long remembered astronomy teacher used positive reinforcement to get us to succeed in his class, and it worked. It was by far the most effective teaching method I’ve ever experienced.

Clicker training is very much the same, except it uses a clicker to precisely mark which behavior is being rewarded. You can teach your dog anything with clicker training. but in order to start, your dog has to associate the sound with the reward.

Teaching your dog to respond to the sound is super easy. All you need is fifteen or so treats, small enough to be eaten quickly by your dog. (My trainer recommends booger-sized treats, but in the beginning phases of training when I’m only working with a dog for 90 seconds at a time, I just want the treat devoured quickly so I can offer another one.)

How to Clicker Train Your Puppy

Take your dog to a small area free of distractions. Hold your clicker in one hand, and a treat in the other. Click the clicker, and then quickly give your dog the treat. Let him eat it. As soon as it is swallowed, repeat the process until all fifteen treats are gone. End the session.

I would suggest doing this twice a day, for a week. It may sound like over-kill, but you’re not just getting him to mentally figure out the treat comes with the click. You’re activating Pavlov’s Response.

Important: Do not ask your dog to do anything before clicking for the first week (All 14 sessions.) You want your dog to associate the click with the treat, not performing an action with the treat.

Once your dog has been exposed to click = treat for the necessary period, you can begin teaching your dog to perform a behavior in order to get the treat!

Curious to see what it looks like? Sandy Pawz has never been exposed to a clicker before. Watch her first session here.