How To Keep Your Home Together When You Own A Dog

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When you’re house proud, there’s often nothing that you love more than to have a home that looks great. If you know that you want a house that is well kept and clean, and incredibly beautiful, you will often do anything and everything to keep it that way. So much so, that you may be put off from owning a dog, because you’re worried about how the dog would fit into your home life. But when your family wants a dog, or you are actually a dog lover, this may be something that actually happens in your life. 

And then, you may worry that your perfect home won’t be so perfect after all. Because maybe you’re concerned that having a dog will mean that your house will get messed up so much more easily! But that doesn’t have to be the case.

Or maybe you aren’t super insanely house proud, but you just want to be able to keep your house together. Maybe you already own a dog and you’re realizing that your house seems so much harder to keep together because of the dog! 

It’s something that happens to a lot of families. But, just because you have a god, it doesn’t mean that your house has to be a mess. Instead, it just means that you need to work harder to make sure that your home looks great. With the right tips and tricks, you’ll be able to make it happen. So let’s take a look at what they are.

Set Boundaries

So the very first thing you need to do, is to make sure that you’re setting the right boundaries in place. And this is non-negotiable when you want a house that you love. If you let your dog run wild all over the house, it’s going to get messed up. Instead, set boundaries on what they can do and where they go. Maybe you want to keep them off of the couches or out of the formal living room to keep it a little more together.

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Create A Cleaning Schedule

The next thing that’s really going to help you here, is to come up with a cleaning schedule. Because if you’re worried that you’re home is getting too messed up, a good routine can help. And if you already have a schedule in place, you may just need to tweak it a little to make sure that your home is just as clean now you have the dog.

Get Your Dog Groomed

It’s also going to help you if you get your dog groomed regularly. Dog grooming can be especially important when you have a dog with a long coat or a coat that tends to malt easily. Because this can minimize the shedding and keep them looking trim and tidy too!

Train Your Dog

Now, a super important thing, is often to train your dog! Because if your dog rules the roost, then you may have absolutely no chance at keeping your home in order. SO make sure that you work on training them as early as you can. Because when you have a well-behaved dog, they aren’t really going to have an impact on your home at all.

Use Super Strong Products

So from here, you’re going to find that using the best products help. Because if you know that your carpet needs more cleaning or that you need to make sure that there’s no smell around the house, take a look for strong but natural products that are pet-safe. That way, you will find that your home stays beautiful more easily.

Get A Cleaner

And, a really simple move, is to get a cleaner! That way, you don’t have to worry about doing things yourself (especially if you’re super busy). Here, even a dog waste removal service could be perfect for you. Even more so when you’re worried about taking care of that yourself. And when you know that your home is being cleaned professionally, it’s going to always look great.

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Get A Dog-Friendly Vacuum

Next up, you definitely need to make sure that your vacuum is strong enough to pick up all of the dog hair around the home. Even if you have a cleaner, you will want to know that you can run the vacuum around and be able to keep things looking great when you want to. Plus, if you do vacuum daily, it’s so important to make sure that you invest in the best kind of vacuum - and they usually are super strong and pet-hair friendly.

Keep Things Organized

A huge thing for you to focus on is organization here. Because if you’re just all too chaotic with your stuff, it’s going to make your house look messy. And this is definitely the case with your dog-related stuff! So try to find a way of keeping their food and bed and everything else organized, so that they fit into your decor and lovely home, and nothing else.

Choose Durable Pieces

And if you really want to get smart about this, you need to make sure that you’re picking furniture that you know will withstand having a dog around. Don’t pick out pieces that will show dog hair or that can be scratched or marked easily. If you’re being tactical about what you bring into your home, then it will be so much easier for you to keep it looking great.

Let Go A Little

And finally, the last thing that you could think about doing, is just letting go a little bit. Because maybe you’re just being a bit too much of a control freak. And the thing is, when that’s your personality - it can be hard. But if you’re letting things get to you, even though they are beyond your control, you’re only hurting yourself. 

So let go a little. Don’t worry so much if there house isn’t perfect. It’s still clean and tidy! And that way, you and your family can enjoy a happier life with your dog.

Clicker Training: 5 Popular Myths

from Wileypup

Clicker training. You have heard of it and even seen some folks walking around at the pet store with their bag of treats on their waist and an eager dog waiting for the sound: CLICK….Yum! Learn more about clicker training here.

You may have also heard some myths surrounding this training technique. Some “Old School” trainers and common-sense-experts may have made the case that clicker training is a fad and that the only way to train a dog is with a rolled-up newspaper and plenty of consistent reminders of “their place.”

Let’s take a look at some of the mythology a little closer:

Myth #1: Dogs will only obey if you are “dominant” over them.

The so-called “Alpha Dog” theory that is so prevalent in popular culture is supposedly based on the behavior of wild wolves. It must be correct, right? Unfortunately, the original studies that first floated this theory were actually done on captive wolves by animal behaviorist Rudolph Schenkel in the 1930’s and 40’s. 

His experiments were repeated and confirmed: Yes, when you place unrelated wild wolves together in a contained and artificial prison with limited resources, they will have bloody struggles over those resources. Call it dominance if you must, but the struggle for survival is hardly unique to wolves, or dogs, or humans.

It turns out, recent studies in wild wolf populations suggest that constant dominance struggles are not even typical of wolves (David Mech, 2000). In fact, wolf society includes a wide variety of social interactions, only some of which can be understood through the rhetoric of dominance. It’s a limited paradigm that has been grossly overextended. Domestic dogs are still paying the price for this hubris.

Are humans capable of dominance posturing? Obviously, yes. Should the sum total of human learning and psychology be based on how people act in prisons or in survival conditions? Obviously, no. 

Just like humans, dog psychology is complex, emotional, and sometimes even just plain old logical.

Myth #2: Dogs that are clicker trained will only work for food.

Clicker training does involve using food in rapid succession during the training of new behavior. Techniques such as luring, shaping and refining are used to encourage certain behaviors. When a dog offers up behavior in the direction of the final desired behavior, the sound of the click “marks” the behavior, followed by a reward.

Your dog will quickly learn how it works. He hears the click and he knows that what he was doing that very instant is what earned him a reward. For him, clicker training sessions are just a fun game he plays with his person—a game that is totally rigged in his favor!

When using reward-based training, the faster you can dispense rewards, and the more accurately you can pinpoint the correct behavior with a sound, the faster learning happens. This is why almost all professional dog trainers that have devoted their lives to competitive dog sports, training companion and service animals, and rescue dogs have shifted to using clicker training or other reinforcement-based techniques.

Food is preferred for clicker training because it can be repeated very quickly without disrupting the flow of training. Sure, you could use a toss of the ball as a motivator during clicker training, but it would really slow down the learning process. When it comes to training NEW behavior, or reconditioning emotional states in response to certain stimuli, nothing beats food. 

However, using techniques such as chaining, fading, and randomizing rewards, professional trainers know that once a behavior is perfected, it is time to move away from food rewards as the dominant source of reinforcement.

Just because you use food to teach a new behavior, doesn’t mean you are stuck with food as the only reward to reinforce the behaviors you love most. 

Myth #3: Clicker training only works for teaching silly tricks.

While it is true that you would be hard pressed to train a silly trick in less time than using a clicker (or similar audible or visual marker), it is by no means the only training domain that lends itself to this powerful tool.

In fact, professional trainers also use clickers for reconditioning work. Have a dog that lunges on the leash around other dogs? Clicker training can fix that. Have a pup that is afraid of walking on shiny linoleum tile? Clicker training is still the best training method to help her overcome phobias. 

Myth #4: Clicker training is too complicated.

• Decide on a criteria. (Set the bar for what behavior you will accept to earn a reward.)
• 
  
• Wait for or use various techniques to encourage the desired behavior. 
• 
  
• Click the instant your dog offers the behavior. 
• 
  
• Follow with a small food reward (many dogs will actually just work for pieces of their kibble!)

There, you have the basics down. Sure, will you need some practice getting your timing down and perfecting technique? Absolutely. However, while you learn you will be improving your relationship with your dog because your training program is built on trust and focusing on success rather than failure and fear. 

Myth #5: Trainers that use clickers don’t believe in punishment.

While there are some trainers that claim to never use punishment in their training, the fact is that most trainers do use punishment in the “proofing” stage of training. However, people that understand the power of reinforcement in training don’t use punishment as a “go-to” method.

Instead, professional trainers follow some basic guidelines before bringing punishment into play:

Manage the environment to make problem behaviors impossible to practice as the first step in extinguishing “bad” behavior.

Focus on training positive alternative behaviors FIRST, ignoring inappropriate behavior as long as it is not unsafe.

Never use punishment in formal training contexts since the goal is to have a confident, focused, engaged learner that has no fear of volunteering new behaviors—critical for shaping and refining behaviors.

Take advantage of the power of non-physical punishments such as a “Time Out” when adding a consequence to an already learned behavior. This and other “negative punishment” techniques operate by taking away something good (like freedom to run around) as a means of communicating to the dog that xyz behavior is not paying off!

Conclusion

Hopefully this article has encouraged you to reconsider clicker training, and other rewards-based training programs by debunking some of the common myths surrounding this wildly effective training technique.

If you have a chance to get involved in training classes that teach this technique, definitely give it a try. You and your dog will be well on your way to developing a language to communicate with each other based on rewarding success. Your dog will quickly gain confidence, and so will you!

Note from Family Disaster Dogs

Many people who visit Family Disaster Dogs are training dogs to find people and working actual Search dogs or police K9s and scent discriminating dogs. 

For trainers and handlers who will be working dogs in garbage dumps, and landfills full of discarded food it's easier not to train with food :) and here's why.

Most working Search dogs or K9 are not trained with food because these dogs have to work in garbage piles and dump locations that contain discarded food !

Many drugs, explosives and human cadaver parts are hidden in garbage cans too. Especially at airports and public places where dogs work to detect and discriminate illegal items in garbage cans where food is discarded. 

Not only will a food rewarded trained dog either want to eat the discarded food in the public garbage can instead of continuing to look for the scent he was looking for; the dog becomes confused as to why he could not eat the food in the can instead of the food in your hand...the reward just came before the job was finished..so he will think he is done finding the drug or explosive scent he was put on. 

So to use food rewards in training a dog who will be looking for items in food creates extra steps in training that have to be made to insure the dog only accepts the food in the hand first and foremost which adds more to the teaching or the dog would have to be untrained on food in the can which again is another step and if the dog is not confused by then, the handler is :)

  

Also how does the handler or court attorneys, judges and jury in a criminal case know if the dog is indicating (testifying) on the food in the backpack or the drugs hidden if the dog is trained with food ? A good lawyer , jury or judge will throw the case out and the criminal get away. Bloodhounds go to court all the time and have to prove exactly what they are indicating.

A bloodhound is not expected to do obedience work to pass certification qualifying to work under fema and other agencies like other breeds of dogs that must be obedient because we want the bloodhound most determined (some call stubborn) once on a scent trail. There is no stopping a good bloodhound so consequently a bloodhound on a food trail is not going to stop until dinner is done :) The dog will expect us to find the items without him, job done, he found the reward and is sitting down to eat!