The Dish by Darcie

These puppies give me the giggles. I swear they know what makes me laugh and they give that funny behavior to me over and over again just to see me laugh. I have to quit laughing when I tell Oliver to “down”. He gives me that wide eyed innocent look and I can’t help myself, I fall into a fit of giggles. He’s a goof. I’ll tell you more about teaching a dog who is a little more slow than some to “down” in Oliver’s Category.

I use a clicker to teach just about everything. It’s a fast and easy way to open communication between me and the dogs. They understand what I’m asking for and they learn English much faster with clicker training, too.

Yesterday Kent took Frankie (3 months) to work with him and Oliver (6 months) stayed home with me so we could work on walking on a loose leash. Oliver is a rescue and has been with us for several days. I wanted to wait to start training until he’d gained some strength back, he’s doing good so we started. See Oliver’s story in The Dish blog.

Oliver was a puller, a big time puller. He’s going to be a big boy and is gaining weight, muscle, and strength fast now. If Oliver, who is six months old, learned any tricks or loose leash walking before he came to live with us, he’d forgotten it all.

Within seven minutes of starting loose leash walking with Oliver, he was walking nicely beside me. That happened so fast that I added just a little heeling, too, that was good. Now that Oliver knows loose leash walking, we’ll practice very day of his life.

Here’s how we did the no pull, loose leash walking. Loose leash is not heeling or walking directly at my side, it simply means that the dog does not tighten the leash. The leash stays loose.

Martingale collar on (search the Store for ‘martingale’). Leash on, I like a four or six foot leash for training. Either one works fine.

I always fire up the clicker training game with a click, treat, click, treat, click, treat. Here we go, loose leash walking.

I don’t talk. I start walking. Oliver pulls to the end of his leash. I stop. I dig in my heels and lean back, we’re not moving, we’re not going anywhere. Oliver is excited to be going somewhere out there and he pulls and pulls and pulls. He’s gained five pounds since coming to live with us last week, I feel the weight and strength in him. I wait. Oliver sits down still looking out there where he thought we were going, the leash is still tight. I make a smooching noise with my mouth to get his attention away from “out there”. He hears me and gets up and starts back to me. The instant he takes pressure off of the leash, I click. He comes for his treat. “Good boy, Oliver”, I say to him.

I don’t talk. I start walking, Oliver pulls to the end of the leash. I stop. Oliver sits down, the leash is tight. I make a smooching noise. Oliver stands and turns to see what I’m doing. He comes back. The instant he takes pressure off of the leash, I click. He comes for his treat. “Good boy, Oliver.”

I don’t talk. I start walking, Oliver pulls to the end of the leash. I stop. Oliver does not sit down this time. He turns immediately to see why I’m still not coming with him. He comes back. I let him start back to me before clicking this time. When he is headed towards me, then I click. He comes for his treat. “Good boy, Oliver.”

I start walking. Oliver walks beside me, he does not go to the end of the leash, he does not pull. Click, treat. We keep walking, click, treat, click treat, click treat as we walk on a loose leash. We stop. “Good boy, Oliver, I love you buddy.” Oliver wags his tail.

I start walking. I say, “Oliver, let’s go.” Oliver walks beside me. I click and treat over and over again while he is by my side for the next three minutes. Oliver stays at my side and expects his click and treat. I stop and praise him. “Good boy, Oliver, you are brilliant!” Lots of love and petting. Oliver is happy, tail wagging and he’s over joyed to see me happy, too.

I say, “Oliver, let’s go.” Oliver walks by my side for three steps. I click and stop. “Good boy, Oliver.”

I say, “Oliver, let’s go.” Oliver walks by my side for ten steps. I click and stop and instantly give fifteen treats fast, one at a time; treat treat treat treat treat treat treat, etc. That’s a jackpot!

That’s loose leash walking. And now it’s just a matter of practice. Every day for the rest of his life.

Oliver learned quickly that pulling gets us no where. A loose leash is good for a click and a treat. We went for a nice long walk. We walked for a half mile around the meadow, I let him sniff and explore clicking and treating many times rewarding him for the loose leash. He never tighted the leash but one time. I stopped. He thought about it for a full ten seconds. He decided that a loose leash was better than going nowhere and he came back to me, loosening the leash again. Click and treat and off we go again.

The test of what Oliver learned in short training session yesterday? Kent took both Oliver and Frankie in to work with him today. Both walking nicely beside him to the car…both walking beside him on loose leashes. I am so proud of my kids.

If you have a pulling dog, go to SitStay.com and search on the word ‘pulling’. Definitely get the book My Dog Pulls, it’s a marvel and it’s how I train dogs not to pull. It works quickly.

(Know how to use clicker training before you start. It’s just as easy to create bad habits as it is to train good behavior and tricks and it happens almost instantly. Go to SitStay.com and search for the words ‘clicker training’. Both books and DVDs for your pleasurable training. I learn faster by watching but I read everything I can get my hands on about training and dog behavior. I sort out what I don’t like and use what I do like. Positive training is the only kind of training I use. It works and my dogs love me for it. We have a great library to help you live a better and happier life with your dog.)

I found a treasure.

In winter and spring, the mud and water that come into the house could drive a person crazy if they weren’t already totally crazy over love of the dogs. In summer and fall, the dust and the dirt follow us everywhere. It’s hard to get upset over something as trivial as dirt, mud, snow, ice, and water when you’ve just had a hardy good time outside with your best friends. Then there’s the clean up that comes next. Sigh. Relax and start cleaning. I wished there was a better way.

If your house is like mine, you know what I’m talking about. We go to the lake and get wet and dirty, then come back into the house. Sometimes we wait until everyone is dry, usually we don’t. With four sets of paws and two people who love to get down and dirty with the dogs, that’s a lot of dirt clinging to feet, fur and clothes. Not to mention the added lovely messes we make when we have company of people and dogs, too.

We hike and in dry weather the dust settles on our clothes and on the dogs, we bring it into the house. I ask the dogs to shake before they come in and they do, but that’s not enough, dense coats hold that dirt. The dirt finds it’s way indoors every way it can.

If your house is like our house, you and your dogs bring in dirt and water all year long. It’s hard to keep up with the housework and the dusting and mopping of footprints never ends. I found something that really works to help keep the house clean.

Waterhog Mats. I really love the leaf pattern mats, they are very pretty. And the Perfect Size Evergreen and Tan match our decor and look really nice in our rooms. Our floors are concrete poured with river rock, which gives the floor a multiple color which looks like huge tiles.

I bought my Waterhog Mats from LL Bean.com

I hesitated over the cost of the mats and wondered if they would really be as good as the reviews they were getting. They are. I am so pleased. Almost all of the dirt, dust, and water gets stopped at the door. I bought both inside mats and outside mats. They are well made, they look so nice.

I even bought some Waterhog Mats to go under our dog’s water bowls. Our little Frankie likes to get a drink, then play in the water a little bit. It was a mess and made our floor slippery. Our friend Munchkin is sloppy drinker, he can’t help it, bless his big beautiful Bernese Mountain Dog heart. Now the water goes into the mat and evaporates. No muss, no fuss, no slipping, no mess.

Customers call SitStay.com the LL Bean of dogs supplies. We like that. And we love LL Bean, they do business much like we do. Quality products for fair prices and they are nice just like us. They’ve often send customers to us for dog supplies and we like to return the favor to them for other things like these great time saving mats.

I’ll be buying these as gifts for friends. Those friends with dogs will hug me and kiss me and hug me and kiss me. I like that.

P.S. To get the dust that gets by the mats, get a Blueair from SitStay.com. They clean the air of dust and dander from both people and pets, air purification is a blessing and it makes breathing easier. There’s even a smoke filtering one. Purify your air. You’ll sleep better knowing that your house is as clean as it can be and your dogs will sleep better, too. Our friends with allergies say they love their Blueair. I know I love mine.

I have to share this with everybody. It’s too good to keep to myself.

The front part of our house was getting too warm in the summer months. It’s an underground dome house which wouldn’t heat up at all except that I wanted the view so I designed a traditional front on it with a turret for our viewing pleasure. The garage, which is attached and also underground, stays an even 55 degrees all year round…just garage door windows in there.

I built 14 huge windows into the traditional part of the house and turret on the east, north and west sides for a full view of the lake and surrounding trees and hills.

Our house is quiet inside. It sits inside of a hill, yes, just like the hobbits. Our view is terrific. We watch thunder and lightning storms and rain but without the sound that my Dancer doesn’t like. We have an uninterrupted view of wildlife and the dogs playing outside.

We didn’t want to lose our view of the out of doors with heavy curtains or any of the other window coverings and insulating remedies we found that claimed heat protection. We searched and searched until we found V-Kool.

V-Kool is a clear window film. You can see right through it. You can’t tell there’s anything there but a window, you can’t see the film. We kept the view and lost the heat.

As soon as the film was on the windows, the temperature went down inside the house by 10 degrees. Right now at 3:00 in the afternoon it’s 92 degrees outside and 72 inside. That’s perfect for me, I don’t like air conditioning.

We don’t have air conditioning yet but we may add some in July and August to keep Kent happy, he likes it cooler than I do. I say just go run around the house a few times, it’ll feel a lot cooler when you come back in. We have some pretty hot summers here. We’ll see what happens in July and August. We may not need anything else to control our heat.

I can’t wait to see what heat V-Kool will keep out in the deep of our Nebraska summer.

I’m not affiliated with the company. I just like spreading the word that there is help out there for heating problems. The installation took the better part of a day and our installer was a really nice guy.

Beat the heat. We did. See the windows we covered, lots of photos of the house at www.thedomehome.com