The Dish by Darcie

Kent and I want to thank you so much for your prayers, love, and understanding for us to SitStay.com and to The Dish since Dancer died. Personally, I’m having a pretty hard time with it and your support really helps. We know that you are the best people on earth.

Someone wrote to me and said, “Isn’t it nice to be surrounded by people who get it?”

Yes, it is.

Thank you,

Darcie

Just wondering if clicker training will work for excessive barking. We live in an area with lots of widlife, other dogs and neighbor children. Rita and sometimes her brother Rico will bark at anything that moves outside. The spray bottle seems to have no effect. Sometimes when I try to pick Rita up to remove her from the room, she’ll snap at me. I’ve tried using a soft voice, using a loud voice and giving her a toy as a distraction, but nothing seems to work. It seems to be a bit of a “guard dog” type of behavior when she’s in the house, since she doesn’t bark when she sees other animals when we’re out on walks. She has some other obsessive/compulsive behaviors as well, but this is the most annoying one. Please help. Paula

Dear Paula,

The best help I can give you is to one, understand what your dogs are talking about, get the book Barking, The Sound of a Language by Turid Rugaas. And two, bark with your dogs and put a cue on it to stop.

Yes, clicker training can work wonders with just about everything, stopping and starting behavior. With barking, I like to start first working directly with the dog, no clicker, no treats. Their reward is that they know I know they have something to say. If this doesn’t work for you, get the clicker training going, it really is good stuff.

Dancer was a talker when she was young, she barked and carried on conversations with a truly amazing verbal range. We worked together as a team to help her get her barking under control.

When she barked at the window, I’d go over and look to see what she was barking at. There was always something, it was never just nuisance barking. Most dogs have a reason when they bark. I leaned like she was leaning to look outside and I’d said, “Oh, yeah. I see that guy. It’s okay, he can be in the park, he’s our friend. Thanks, Dance.”

My cue for Dancer to stop barking was, “Thanks, Dance.” That’s it. It was kind of like “That’ll do, Pig” from the movie. It meant, I see you and I understand you. You did a good job.

When she barked in the back yard, I’d go to the fence with her. “I know, I see that rotten kid, too, but barking at him won’t help. I’ll tattle to his Mom. Thanks, Dance.” The kid really was rotten, he’d throw rocks at the dogs even when I was in the yard with them. Right up until the day I turned him in to his Mom. It never happened again. Anyway, Dancer would bark and I would go see what she was barking at and tell her thanks, she did a good job. Now, let’s go do something else inside the yard.

Getting a dog away from a fence takes a little practice for both of you. Go to see what’s being barked at. Acknowledge it and thank your dog for the good job. Then go do something else, preferably something more fun.

Sooner than later, your dog will come away and stop barking because you said thanks. Changing behavior is usually a simple a matter of understanding why they do it.

Don’t leave your dogs outside alone. Or in the house for too long alone. Those things can create barkers. Barking is a self rewarding behavior. It feels good to bark and it feels better if you bark and that thing moves away, like the mailman or little kids and even a squirrel. Barking out of control is like panicking, it’s hard to come back down by yourself. You need a little help. And it’s always better with understanding.

We have barking parties on our deck just to get the exercise. We all bark at nothing until everyone is barked out. It can get pretty funny sometimes.

Barking is as essential to a dog as talking and laughing are to us. Knowing why they are barking is key to helping them bark less. You may want to put a leash on for the first week or so, see how it goes to see if you need to continue with a leash. Soft martingale collar, please, like the ones we carry at SitStay, Premier or Lupine.

Metal collars and shock collars, which we don’t carry because they can and will hurt a dog, can make matters worse.

There is a time and a place for everything and the dogs need to know to stop barking when we ask. Please don’t make your dogs stop barking altogether, though. Barking is fun.

Dear Darcie, I’ve been feeding my four month old puppy by hand and our bond is incredible. Thank you for that advice. Now she won’t eat out of a bowl, though, and we’re going to need that some day if she ever has to stay with my Mom. Can you help? Hilary

Dear Hilary,

I love that you have a great bond with her, the hand feeding really works to accomplish that, doesn’t it! It amazes me over and over again with puppies and with adult rescue dogs.

I’ve never had a dog who won’t also eat at least some things out of a bowl because they were hand fed first but you’re right. Dogs should know how to eat from a bowl. Lots of different shapes and colors of bowls and dishes including paper plates, plastic, glass, ceramic and stainless steel. And in lots of different places, like the kitchen, outdoors, the basement, the garage, on the street when you’re walking, and in a car. And they should also eat out of other trusted people’s hands. That way, no matter who has to take care of them and what stress they’re under when something different happens, they will be more likely comfortable enough to eat any where, any time.

(There are some trainers who will tell you that a dog should not take food from anyone but you because they could be poisoned or lured away. I guess that makes sense if you let your dog roam the yard and the neighborhood. It doesn’t make a lot of sense for my dogs and me. If I need somebody to care for my dogs in an emergency, I’d sure like them to eat while I’m gone.)

A woman in her eighties told me once that her dog would not eat unless she cooked it for him on the stove. She took the raw food from the fridge, turned on the fire to heat the pan, cooked the food just enough to make it warm, then put it into the dog’s dish with a pancake spatula and said, “There’s your breakfast. Eat”. She wanted to start feeding totally raw so instead of going through the motions to prepare it, she put it into his dish with a spoon directly from the fridge. The dog refused to eat. She thought it was the cooked food that the dog wanted, that he didn’t like cold raw food, and that’s why he was refusing his dinner so she kept warming it up for him. I asked her to try this. Go through the motions of cooking the food, pan and all, but don’t turn the fire on. Use the spatula to move the cold raw food from the pan to his dish and say “Eat.” She did it, the whole routine. The food was cold and her dog ate just like he usually did, all of it. Then she changed the routine to leave out the pan and transfer the food from fridge to spatula to dish, said the word “eat” and he ate. Then she changed again and used a spoon to transfer cold food to his dish and said the word. He ate. She found out that her dog wasn’t concerned about the heat of the food but the routine of how it came to him including her words. In the end, it was just the word, “Eat” and he ate any time she told him to. Routine can take some time to change for some dogs but they did it. She was happy that he would finally eat simply because she said the words, “Eat.”

Dogs love routine but I don’t always think it’s the best way to live with them.  We need routine for potty training so we can work with urine tracts and bowels but I’m not sure we need it for anything else except maybe specialized training where the dog needs to know what the start of the activity is.

Our dogs should know that when we pick up our keys, no matter what time of day or night it is, we’re going out and they are probably staying home. They should understand that we could go out at any moment, maybe to work, maybe next door, maybe to the store for a forgotten gallon of milk, and that’s okay, it’s just the way it is and they can relax. Our dogs should also understand that food can come to them in many ways at different times of the day from different hands and different kitchens some times. They have to eat to live so let’s help them be stress free at meal times. It’s not a problem for most dogs, most dogs will eat any time, any where.

Daily life shouldn’t get too routine. Our days can get so messed up if something happens, like a funeral, trips, people stopping by unannounced, or even an unexpected day off of work. If your dog isn’t used to all different things in his life, it’s most likely he won’t know how to handle himself without worry when the time comes that he needs to eat and sleep somewhere else or at different times of the day. And the time will come. Some day. We may as well get ready for it now.

Your dog should eat his food from a dish when you offer it if he’s hungry, no matter what dish or what color it is. He should be able to eat off of the ground, too. It takes some practice for some dogs. Especially those who aren’t motivated by food. I like my dogs to understand that the word “eat” means eat whatever I give you no matter how it’s presented. It’s a clear message that the food is for them and it’s safe to eat no matter how it comes to them. When I give food in a dish to my dogs, they must wait until I tell them to “eat”. Then eat. It teaches them self control and keeps me from getting run over at dinner time.

Puppies will grow into adult dogs and they usually eat when they are hungry so you don’t have a lot of worries about your puppy being scared of a bowl. You can start now, though, just don’t give up the hand feeding completely.

You’ve already tried her regular food in a bowl and it didn’t work. You might start this way.

Start saying the word “eat” when you hand feed her, she already knows her name and you are closely bonded so you won’t mess anything up. Say “eat” each time you give her a bite. When she understands what eat means, you’ll know, put a little bit of food into a dish and set it on the floor. “Eat”. Then go about the business of cleaning up your meal dishes, sit down and have a cup of coffee or whatever you normally do. Don’t try to coax her or make a big deal of it. It smells normal, give her a chance to eat it on her own. If she doesn’t eat it, pick it up and try later at the next meal. (Many trainers will tell you that your dog should eat after you do and that’s okay. Do your dishes and clean up while she’d getting the chance to eat or sit and have a cup of coffee or something. That way, you’re still in the same space. Sooner or later, you’ll be able to give her a dish of food and leave the room knowing that she’ll clean it up. If you have more than one dog, supervise the others so she gets the food, not somebody else.)

Withhold all treats until she’s eating out of a bowl so they aren’t filling her up. You want her hungry. I’d start bowl feeding for the meal that she’s most usually the hungriest. I feed canned Tripett tripe in a bowl. (Search www.sitstay.com for the word ‘tripe’ to see it.) It may smell stinky you but it’s really good for the dogs and they have a hard time turning it down, bowl or no bowl. I don’t feed tripe by hand to my dogs unless I absolutely have to. I put it in a dish or on the ground.

Let me know if it doesn’t work. We’ll try something else. Dogs are pretty clever, though, they usually eat when they’re hungry. A dog can go for a few days without eating and still be just fine. Your puppy has an appetite, use it to work with her. Make sure she has plenty of clean, clear water just in case it takes a day or so.