Darcie: I read this article about how to create a less boring day for your dog by providing food type toys but wanted to know how you feel about each of the foods being suggested for the dogs and the way in which the toy is being married to the food… is this a good idea? (SNIP web address) Blayne Douglas

Dear Blayne,

It’s a great time to talk about treat and food dispensing toys. SitStay is having a big sale right now! Take advantage of us, save some money, and buy a lot of things for the dogs you love. The holidays are right around the corner. Do your shopping early!

I snipped the article web address you sent so I don’t embarrass the writer with my answer to your question. The writer is a young person who probably didn’t stop to think about what harm could come of the suggestions they made. The things that the writer suggests are things that have caused many people a great deal of heart break and thinner pocketbooks, too. It might seem at first glance that it was a good article with good and cheap ideas but when you think about it for a minute, maybe not. The things suggested as toys and treat dispensers might be okay if you’re there to take them away before the dog eats them and if you don’t mind teaching your dog some bad habits at the same time. They are not good as time passers if you’re not going to be home with your dog.

I’d suggest that before we take someone’s advice for our most beloved dog, we give that advice the three point test. Will anything about the advice hurt our dog during or after we use it? Are the products recommended safe for dogs? Who is the author and why do they think they know so much? These three questions will usually be enough to help you decide what is good advice or best skipped.

The food items mentioned aren’t a problem for me, just about anything that you eat is okay for your dog. (Check this list of foods that are not good for dogs, it’s an older article but still relevant today.)

The “toys”  recommended in the article aren’t all that safe for most dogs. I was pretty surprised that they are being recommended as toys and treat and food dispensers. My Dancer would have never eaten or swallowed anything that wasn’t food but Oliver and Frankie will. They and thousands and thousands of other dogs are the perfect reason not to leave dogs unsupervised with the “toys” and “treat dispensers” suggested in the article. A friend of mine had a Dalmatian who would eat socks and panty hose even when they weren’t filled with treats, it was a terrible habit. That friend spent a lot of money paying for surgery to remove those from the dog’s gut until she asked me what to do. I said, “Put your socks away.” Once you teach a dog how fun it is to play with your socks, it’s not so easy to unteach it.

You’d think that paper wouldn’t be a problem, it gets all soft and gushy when the dog chews it up. But what about colors and scents and chemically treated paper and the glue that holds the paper to the roll, what’s that made of? Toilet paper and towel tubes, cereal boxes and cardboard boxes might be fun to tear up but they are not good as food if somebody should swallow and what happens to the boxes you didn’t say the dog could have? Like the Christmas presents under the tree, the UPS delivery, and the shoe box that your brand new, really expensive shoes are still in? Aren’t they all boxes? Your dog will probably think so. Smearing any of these with peanut butter or cream cheese will almost insure that your dog will eat at least some of the paper, that stuff is hard to lick off without getting the paper wet and wet paper goes down the throat along with the goodie. AND you will be teaching your dog that playing with paper is a lot of fun. Think your favorite books, the family bible, magazines, newspapers, your incoming mail, your paycheck….

Plastic containers like cottage cheese, empty yogurt cups, plastic water bottles, and milk continers are a no no in my house unless they are supervised play. If you have a dog who can tear them up, like my Dancer and our Oliver, the dog may also swallow and a vet visit might be next. Dancer could and would tear these things up and spit them out, it was something that she only did when I said she could. Oliver? He can tear up just about anything no matter who’s looking and he tries to eat some of it. Plastic can have sharp edges so surgery is not only about removing undigestible things but also about repairing a torn digestive system.

Socks are okay as toys if you don’t care that most dogs don’t usually know a play sock from a sock that you like to wear. If you give a sock to play with tie a knot in it and keep your real socks in your drawer. I wouldn’t put food into a sock, it’s too easy to eat through the sock and swallow some or all of the fabric. For all the dog knows, “Wow these treats taste just like a sock. I’ll eat the whole thing!” and proceeds to put holes in your sock and swallow some of it. Filling socks or other fabrics with food or treats isn’t a very good idea and most definitely not if you’re not going to be there to rescue the sock from going down somebody’s throat. Rope and rope toys are another big reason for surgery. Dogs chew the rope and eat the strings which can twist around inside the gut and make blockages. Indigestible things that are eaten often become caught in the throat or gut, another trip to the vet and often surgery for that.

I read recently that some of the kiddie pools are made with a chemical that you don’t want your dog or your children to absorb either through their skin or eating or drinking water out of. If you want a pool for your dogs and kids, check out the food grade livestock pools. You can find them online or at your local country store. Check with the maker, before you buy, that they are food grade.

To make a digging spot for your dog, dig a hole in the yard about two feet deep by at least four feet around, fill it with sand. Play with your dog for a while so he knows “this is where we dig”. Burying toys is a fun idea. Not food though, unless you want rodents moving in. If you don’t have a yard, get the food grade pool and fill it with balls from SitStay. Your dog will have so much fun!

The SitStay Dogs do get to play with treat and food dispenser toys. They love them! We like the safe toys. Go to www.sitstay.com and click on Toys in the left menu to see them all. Treat and food toys are a really good way to give your dog mental and physical exercise. We have several choices to match any dog. They are strong and are made for this purpose. I’ve never yet heard of any dog being hurt by any of these toys. Know your dog, supervise until you know that your dog can be left alone with the toy.

Twist ‘n Treat was Dancer’s favorite, she had hours of fun with it; Oliver the Black Lab Mastiff with power jaws can destroy it, it takes a while but he can do it.

The Yuppy Puppy Treat Machine has always been Tilli’s favorite. Try it with Liver Biscotti or any dry treat about 1/4″ size. Most dogs are working to get the treats and haven’t tried chewing this one up. It makes a great Christmas present, too.

Original Kong toys and Kong Stuff-a-Balls toys are always great. Freezing food inside, stuffing with treats, or as plain old empty toys that jump all over the place, your dog will like these. Even Oliver hasn’t been able to chew up a Kong yet.

Frankie loves all toys. I watched her have a ball with the HI.Q. Puzzle Orbs and Toys stuffed with treats right up until Oliver came over and bullied her out of them. If she won’t let go, he lays on her. Immediately after we watched what was going to happen, Oliver was relieved of the toys and they were returned to Frankie. She didn’t blink an eye. She never blames him for taking her stuff, she’s grateful when someone will go and get it back for her, though. Kent is working hard to get Oliver not to be so much of a bully. Poor Ollie, remember he was almost drowned as a puppy, shouldn’t he have special privileges because of that? No. No. No. LOL!

The Buster Cube is an all time favorite of all of our dogs. This is a tough, tough toy. Our shipper returned one to us one day years ago, it was in pretty bad shape but it still worked! The driver had dropped a package and accidentally backed over it. He said he brought it back to us because he was amazed that it was still working, his truck squooshed it down but couldn’t break or flatten it. That’s a pretty good trial for a toy. We let our customer know why her shipment was going to be late and shipped her a new one. She was so pleased that she bought three more for her daughter’s big dogs.

When you read someone’s advice or recommendations, step back a step and take a breath. What will happen after you give those things to your dogs? Will you be creating habits you want your dog to keep? Does your stuff mean the world to you or is it okay if the dog chews it up? How deep is your pocketbook? And would you or your children be safe eating this stuff?

If your dog is eating the house because he’s bored while you’re out, crate or find a really good doggie day care or a dog walker. It’s cheaper than buying a new couch, less time consuming than contacting the bank to send the account statement again, easier than being mad because your People Magazine is unreadable, and replacing a pair of socks daily.

Or if you’ve supervised the play with the toys, treat and food dispensers, and you’re sure that your dog will not ingest them, go, leave your bored dog to amuse himself with all of them. We leave our dogs with Bully Sticks, too, we have the best you’ll ever find. Well, we leave everybody except Oliver. He’s a powerhouse chewer. We’d rather supervise that guy. Maybe when he’s older. He’s only eleven months now and still deciding what he wants to be when he grows up, a monster dog who chews up everything or a sweet cute cuddly armful of warm sweetheart. While he’s in his power chewing phase, we’ll continue to use him to test your toys.

Use common sense and be practical with your dog. It will keep your most cherished friend safe and healthy. Thanks for asking and for listening. – Darcie

They grow up so fast! See new pictures of Oliver and Frankie who were both rescued last spring. Oliver is Black Lab Mastiff and Frankie is Black Lab Border Collie.

Go to www.sitstay.com

Oliver is on the home page modeling the Big Shrimpy Bed. (Click on this to go right to the bed Big Shrimpy)

Search for the words jingle bells to see Frankie. (Click on this to go right to the Jingle Bells). Frankie is beautiful! Look at those eyes.

While you’re there, do some shopping. It’s the best dog supply store on Earth and only carries Good for Your Dog Supplies.

Thanks, Everybody! – Darcie

“Police: Lincoln, Nebraska man suspected of shocking disabled teen with a dog training collar”.

Ah, it had to be local, didn’t it? It happens all over the nation but the news today is from my home town. Maybe this guy had been reading the comments that shock collars don’t hurt people. It reminds me about the outrage of the Alaska trooper who shocked his ten year old son with a taser. That didn’t leave any lasting marks, according to the Trooper, but it sure did make a lot of people mad. The comment was “Who would shock a child like that!”

It’s been determined by some that an adult dog has the equivalent understanding and intelligence of a two year old person. Some even as high as an eight year old. I haven’t seen anything that has determined that a dog can reason like a normally developed adult human being although some dogs do reason. My Dancer seemed to reason which of three cups had the treat inside even though it was hidden by the cup and all the cups had been moved around from the starting position. She was a smarty.

There have been several references in comments to Cesar Millan using shock collars lately to the tune of “shock collars don’t hurt people so they won’t hurt dogs”. Shock collars set at high levels do hurt and they do leave marks and a lasting fear of the shock, even for people who know they are being shocked and why. I’ve been shocked by one set at a high level and once was a plenty. I agree that if the shock is set at a low level or on a vibration, the pain is tolerable and even though I still jerk my hand back from it, it leaves no lasting mark on my skin. I don’t want to touch it again, that’s for sure, so in effect, it does leave at least a lasting impression. The problem I have with using even the low level shock or vibration is that you never know what the dog is thinking at the moment or how it might scar him for life, physically, mentally, or emotionally. Dogs don’t tend to forget ill treatment, it’s one reason why so many are in rescue right now.

I am completely against using shock collars on dogs or any animal or persons. A person who loves pet bunnies or horses wouldn’t use it on them to train. Why on dogs then? I believe that shock collars are used by people who haven’t been able to communicate with the animal, they can’t get results any other way or they want the quick fix or quick result without regard for the dog.

No matter how good you are at training or behavior changing, there are some dogs who aren’t going to talk to you or work with you willingly, they need someone else. If I had my way, if a trainer can’t change behavior in a dog, they should find the person who the dog does want to work with and do it all without hurting or harm. I do not agree that a dog who is otherwise a lovely dog but tears up the house because of separation anxiety needs a good shock. There are better ways. Maybe Cesar could use my Anxiety Exercise just once to see if it would work for him. It does work. It takes a little longer than a quick shock or two but the dog learns to trust again. Way better, in my opinion.

I think we can all agree that there are shock collars that, set at higher levels, do cause pain and will leave a mark. Who uses that pain to “train” dogs? The expert who has what they consider a hard headed dog or its their regular mode of training? The amateur trainer who doesn’t know very much about shock collar training or the harm they can do? The arm chair trainer who wants a quick result to a dog who barks or tears up the house?

There’s an article in our local paper about a man using a shock collar on a disabled person. According to the story, the disabled person wouldn’t have known why he was being shocked or what it was supposed to mean to him. He simply knew that it hurt and he reacted to that pain. The shock collar left red marks on his skin.

Here’s the article, I don’t know how long it will run online so read it today if you can. Lincoln man suspected of shocking disabled teen with dog collar

Until a dog can read the instruction booklet and understand the shock itself and the reason behind the shock…so you’ll be an obedient dog…we might want to put the shock collars away. Otherwise, we could be causing harm beyond what we think we know.  Thanks. – Darcie

Bruno relaxing

Bruno was afraid of flies. I picked up the phone at work one day years ago and the woman on the line said, “If you don’t come and get him today, we are going to euthanize him.” The story she told me was that this dog would not come when called, he would not do anything for them, he was untrainable, and their youngster had become allergic to dogs…they were just going to keep the cats when they moved. Dancer and I met them in Kansas that very afternoon.

Bruno was as ugly as a Belgian could be, which if you love them isn’t ugly at all, you know how that goes. He was overweight by thirty pounds, his nose was pink, he couldn’t take five steps without heaving for breath and he was excited. Poor guy. He could not catch his breath and he was standing still! I took his leash to go to the van. He didn’t even look back at the man who handed him to me, I’d never, ever seen that before in a dog who was changing homes. He was ready to leave that home behind. My Dancer was waiting for us and surprised the heck out of me. I’d taken a crate for Bruno because Dance didn’t usually like dogs moving into her space very much. I opened the door and asked her to move back. She moved back and welcomed Bruno into the vehicle. He jumped in and we drove home with absolutely no troubles at all.

I still remember with great affection what I like to call the “Bruno incident”. It turned out not to be an incident at all. He’d been with us for two days. I called for him and he didn’t come. The door to the deck and yard was open and no Bruno. I walked down and around the steps, out to the gate and back to get my shoes. Apparently, I thought, we have a fence jumper on our hands. Oh boy. As I turned around to go back to the house, there was Bruno right behind my knees. He had been following close behind me the whole time. I hugged him thanking him for not taking off and he hugged me back, pushing hard against my body. After that, he became my dog. He was very, very much in love with me.

We’d planned to foster him and find him a new home but I had fallen in love, too, and couldn’t part with him. He lived with us for almost eleven years before he passed on to the Rainbow Bridge a few years ago. He was a delightful, obedient honey of a boy who loved life to the hilt and everyone loved him. We changed his weight to svelte, his nose to black and his breathing to perfectly beyond normal in one year with a raw food diet and natural bully sticks…but that’s not what this post is about. (For more about feeding raw food for health, read Feeding at The Dish and see SitStay.com for books.)

Bruno was afraid of flies. One day early in his life with us, a fly flew into the house. It was a great big fly. Bruno duckedhis head and ran for the bedroom where he crammed his whole self under the bed. I said it out loud as I often do when I’m perplexed. ”What the heck was that all about? A dog afraid of flies?” Every fly, every time. Bruno would run for shelter. Until I figured it out.

Kent picked up a flyswatter one afternoon and headed for the deck with a beer, there weren’t any flies in the kitchen at the time, he was taking it for protection outside. Bruno reacted violently. He ducked his head and cried out loud, he ran for his safe spot. Ah, ha! It was the flyswatter that had caused the damage to his poor sweet brain. To prove it was the flyswatter, we did a few quick trials of lifting the swatter above our heads, at waist level, laying against our thigh, and simply dropping it on the floor. Yep! Afraid of the flyswatter.

The people who had him before had used a flyswatter to spank him when he was “bad”. They bought him from a pet shop when he was four months old. He came to live with us when he was three. All that time his connection was “a flyswatter means pain” and “a fly means that the flyswatter will appear”. See a fly, run for safety.

We used positive training to bring him back to a good place. Connecting the swatter with good things like petting, play and food did the trick. The fear or at least his trained reaction to the swatter never completely went away. When he saw a swatter, his Groucho Marx eyebrows would go up. It was all that was left of his wild and fearful run for shelter. He never ran for cover again.

Dogs are great at connecting “if this happens, then that will happen”. It’s why they are so easy to train. Why one behavior is pretty easy to change to another behavior. Good or bad.

What happens when a shock collar is used? A shock to the neck happens and, no matter how well timed it was by the button pusher for the punishment or “correction”, what is it pairing with? The behavior the trainer was hoping for? Freezing in place and not moving, fearful of moving again? Or someone sneezes at the same time of the shock? Or a door slams? Or a gust of wind blows? Or a person walks into the room? What happens if a child is the next thing the dog’s attention is diverted to by the shock? The shock, no matter how light or slight, will be paired with any of those things or something entirely different than those things. It will be paired. It’s entirely up to that instant in time what that pairing will be. There is no control over what the dog is thinking or seeing or hearing. The dog’s attention goes to something with the shock. Now, worse case, imagine that the shock collar malfunctions or the dog’s anxiety or excitement level was so high that he reacted to the child and bit. That energy has to go some place. Now imagine that every time the dog sees the child, he has to convince himself that the child is not a danger. Good luck with that. It really is that easy to create a bigger problem than you already had.

There aren’t many people who love their children who would be willing to chance that shock collar training won’t eventually mean a hospital stay or stitches for their child. Or even milder than that, that their dog would become insanely afraid of the child or the wind or a door slamming or a sneeze. Or flies.

Those people didn’t mean to hurt Bruno. He was a cute little puppy. They were taught that when a puppy is “bad”, you swat him lightly with a newspaper or a flyswatter to change his behavior. We’ve all been hit by those things or something like them and it doesn’t hurt all that much. Right? Shock collars don’t hurt people either.

Knowing how dogs learn is essential to changing behavior. A dog is never doing absolutely nothing, not any more than we are. If we stop doing one thing, we start doing another. That change of energy has to go somewhere. Will it go to good or to bad?

Trading one behavior for another with the use of a shock collar isn’t positive training. It’s simply taking the energy from one behavior into another behavior with remote control with at best an unpleasant sensation. With good luck, nothing will ever go wrong. Sad to say, it’s not usually the case. Even the best of experts will tell you that they’ve ruined a good dog with a shock collar.

You can change behavior, no matter how bad it is, by pairing it with good things. That is positive training. No harm or hurt or pain or vibrating or shocking sensation at all to the dog.

Until you can get good results without having to resort to batteries or flyswatters, you’re not really understanding the dog. – Darcie

(P.S. I just talked to a man who said he trained his dog with a shock collar. “It’s my half mile leash. When I want him back, I call him and push the button and he comes flying. If he’s not wearing the collar, he keeps right on going no matter how loud I call him back.” Hmm. Imagine that. A dog who knows what the collar is for when it goes onto his neck. And one who isn’t trained to “come” keeps right on going. I just had to share with you. – Darcie)

Dog training has changed so much over the past 40 years. Can you hear the dogs applauding and singing the praises of the trainers who have evolved?! I can. There are hundreds and thousands of dog trainers who have changed from the old school jerk and pull, choke and shock methods to the methods of Ian Dunbar, Patricia B. McConnell, Karen Pryor, and Pat Miller from the Whole Dog Journal, just to name a few, and the dogs are the better for it. Trainers who change and evolve, moving to positive training (in my personal dictionary “positive training” means no harm) say that they can’t believe they stuck with the old methods for so long. Truly positive training is easier on the dog and the person and the training stays with the dog for a lifetime. Trainers tell me, and you’ll see this in new books coming out too, that they cry when they think of the things they did to dogs way back when in the name of training. It’s sometimes hard to forgive oneself when there has been unnecessary hurt especially when you love dogs so much.

The most prominent of the old style dog handlers is Cesar Millan. It’s only because of TV but it’s as it is. I keep trying so hard to give Cesar Millan an A on his shows. That show impacts so many dogs’s lives. I watched the most recent one about a dog who was tearing up the front door trying to get out whenever his people left him alone. As I watched the good and positive treatment of the dog by Cesar, I breathed a sigh of relief. Good. A show I can write about and praise Cesar for his good guidance to his TV viewers. He showed the people how to crate train the dog and once the dog was happy in his crate, the dog calmed down. The next scene was a split screen. The dog in the the house, the people and Cesar outside watching on a monitor. Here’s what seemed to happen.

The dog was left alone and seemed to be calm. He went to the window to look outside. He looked at the door but didn’t approach the door at all, even though the opening scene of the show showed the dog tearing the molding off of the door and bloodying himself mouth and feet trying to get out. I was pleased to see the calmness and thought that all was well. Then I noticed something and had to rewind and watch again. The dog had flinched and become rigid when he approached the window. What was that? So I rewound the whole scene to watch again. Here’s what really happened.

Aw, there it was, the reason for the flinch and the wariness. The dog was wearing a shock collar. And there was a ScatMat on the floor in front of the door. I don’t have a lot of trouble with the ScatMat, I think it’s the least hurtful of any of the battery driven disciplines and if a dog is harming itself, a ScatMat can make a life saving difference. I carry these in the SitStay store hoping that people will use it instead of a shock collar.

So as I watched the rewind, the dog did not approach the door at all…because the ScatMat was there. He apparently hadn’t been trained to or calmed down enough to stay away from the door, he was avoiding the ScatMat. As he approached the window and flinched he was hesitant to move again at all. There is the shock collar on his neck. Someone had just pushed the button, had just shocked him. He seemed to stay rigid and still not knowing what would cause another shock to come. I’d have to guess that it was Cesar with the shock collar button, he was watching the dog approach the window on the monitor.

The biggest problem I have with this episode is that a shock collar was used but a close second to that was that the shock collar and ScatMat were never mentioned. Not once. Nothing at all about either of them. I wouldn’t have noticed either if the dog hadn’t flinched and I watch closely for anything out of place or different from the words that are being spoken by Cesar and the narrator. Viewers who don’t know dogs or the products may not have seen those things or wouldn’t have questioned them because they weren’t pointed out at all during the entire episode.

So it appeared that simply training the dog to a crate for calming, then letting the dog have the run of the house did the trick. It wasn’t true. It didn’t happen that way. We didn’t get to see what was edited out so we don’t know how many times the dog, who was truly at the peak of anxious energy and had no regard for his own pain in the beginning of the show, got shocked or stepped onto the ScatMat before he learned to avoid those things or react to them.

The show this season seems to be trying to keep it’s viewers this year by appearing to change to more positive training. There are the die hard viewers who’ll continue to watch the reruns and continue to love the show but more and more I see that Cesar, or his producers, are trying hard to change the format to appear positive. There has to be a reason for that. Maybe viewers have started to get smart about what they are seeing and have started to move away from the show. I’m happy that the show is trying to at least appear to change, I hope they will continue to evolve and start telling the whole truth in every episode so the viewer can have some transparency on how the training or psychology is put into play.

Dislike the show or love it, shocking a dog can’t really be called “psychology” can it?

I’m still hoping to see an episode with completely positive training. I know that Cesar can do it. He has such a following, can you imagine what he could do and the changes that could be made for the dogs collectively if he went full bore positive? Evolution from jerk and pull and shock to real dog psychology without pain or hurt is the miracle I’m praying for.

For those of you who love Cesar, I’ve said it before and I still believe it. That he is a guy with a good heart. He said it himself that he’s changed a great deal from a culture where women are second class citizens, he used to treat his wife pretty badly he says, to a kind and loving husband. Maybe he’s just in need of some more evolution and understanding to understand that no hurt to dogs feels better and works better, too. One day he’ll start treating the dogs with the same changed kindness that he chose to with his wife. Honor, cherish, understanding, and respect for another breathing being.

I could sit on my butt and keep my mouth shut and never say another word about trainers who use jerking, choking, shock collars. That’s not likely to happen. My words and those of other positive trainers and consultants have made a life saving difference for so many dogs. Why would we stop? The dogs love us.

Thanks for listening. – Darcie

Albert Einstein is noted for the quote, “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

When I was in the chiropractor’s office, I over heard a woman say this to a man. It struck me that we’re all a bit insane then, look at the things people do.

Drinking to excess: Drink, get drunk, fall down or go dizzy to sleep, wake up feeling horrible and often all with having made complete fools of ourselves.

Gambling: Put the money in, push the button and although the pictures are different each time, the results are the same. The casino gets all the money in the end, they have to pay for all that dinging noise and all those pretty lights!

Dog training: The old methods of dog training where the same thing is practiced over and over again to get it right. Jerk the dog’s neck because he’s pulling and he continues to pull. Yell “Shut UP!!!!” from the comfy chair and the dog continues to bark. Kick, hit, pound on and hurt the dogs for jumping, counter surfing, chasing small animals, and essentially not minding our every command…and the dog continues to do it.

I learned a long, long time ago that a drink is a nice thing for me, two drinks and I start to tell my life story, three drinks and I will show you how silly, you can read that stupid if you like, I can be. It’s better for me to drink in moderation and keep my dignity. The last time I had more than one beer is still a pretty well told story in my family. My son and a friend of mine had gone to a Mexican cafe. I ordered tacos and a beer. They brought me another beer and I drank that, too. These weren’t little beers and I am not very big. When we went out the door to walk back to where we were having a meeting, I was tilting to the right, sliding my right foot out in kind of a plia, giggling saying something like, “I’m really, really dizzy. Is the sidewalk all slopey here?” much to the entertainment of the growing crowd on the sidewalk.

Gambling, I’ve done my share of that. My family lives in Reno so going out to dinner and playing nickels after is pretty usual. I’ve had some luck, well beginners luck, I haven’t won anything in years. But this is how it goes. Put the money in, push a button, watch all the pretty pictures, listen to the noise, bells and dinging ringing, and nothing. Nothing. Push the button again. Same thing. Or maybe a little payback, just enough to get you to push the button again. It works way, way too well to keep people coming back again and again to drop their paycheck or for those who have some control, a portion of their paycheck. The casinos are making a killing. Aside from knowing how silly it is to keep putting more money in to watch it happen again and again, it’s the perfect definition of clicker training. And why clicker training works so well. Put money in and push button (click to mark that behavior), give something that makes us want to push again, pretty pictures or a little money back (treat). Dogs are just as susceptible to that conditioning as we are. The only difference is, we fade the clicker and the treat and we’ll still get the behavior from the dog simply because we ask, no more gambling necessary until the next trick. And treats are cheap for the good we get from them. People’s brains have a hard time not falling in love with the reinforcement of gambling and that takes more and more money. It’s okay for the dogs, not so much for the people who want a place to live and some groceries on the table.

Dog training: I don’t use the old method of jerk and pull with the dog, I quit much earlier than some trainers did, I just couldn’t keep hurting them, it was breaking my heart and it wasn’t working. Just like everyone else who learned training from the “old pros”, yes, I did it to dogs, too, in structured obedience classes. I am not proud of it and I remember thinking at the time that there had to be a better way. Every time I jerked a dog’s neck, I felt awful. It had to hurt and it didn’t work so what the heck were we doing that for? Insanity. My own home training with reinforcing the behavior I wanted, just like I did with my kids who were wonderful children, was a much, much better way and the dogs were trained quickly.

We have some new books at SitStay.com. See New at SitStay in the left menu or go to books to see them all. The Thinking Dog is one of my new personal favorites.

I choose to stop the insanity. I’ll keep my drinking moderate, be silly if I want to but not because I’ve imbibed and have no control, and I’ll wake up happy and clear headed every morning. I’ll keep my hard earned money, most of it anyway, remember I do have to go out with the family. Well, I don’t have to throw my money away, nobody is twisting my arm! And I’ll train the dogs with sane consideration for another living being.

I love dogs. It feels good to be sane. – Darcie

I pray for peace and I am eternally grateful for this camera so I can share with you.

This is a peaceful Nebraska moment brought to you by www.thedomehome.com and by SitStay.com the Good for Your Dog Supplies people. Enjoy and share with your friends and family.

I walked by the window and some movement caught my eye. I stepped back a step and did a double take then ran for the camera like I always try to do when something interesting is happening.

As you can see if you watch closely, neither the cat or the snake intended any harm to each other. It’s rare to find such great footage of animals being animals together. It’s a garter snake, they are not poison, they do not have fangs. If it had bitten her, it would have been a good hard pinch. Actually I was hoping that the snake would pinch her so she’d be afraid of snakes. It didn’t happen. We haven’t had a poisonous snake in our part of the country for a long time. Garter snakes, we have a lot of those guys. This particular snake is probably a female, she’s pretty big.

I’m sure this is not the first snake DC has ever played with, like I said, we have a ton of garter snakes around here. Oh yeah… if you’re afraid of snakes, you may want to pass up this movie.

I used to play with snakes when I was a kid. If I was a cat, I’d be DC, the country cat.

It’s official, at least for one. No thumb sucking for 30 days with chiropractor and massage therapy and I quote, “Miraculous. I didn’t go a day without sucking my thumb for 48 years.”

Sometimes it’s good to share the things we learn and hear.

Read the original post on Adult thumb sucking. A Cure?

A young family was at the house today. They told me that a few years ago they adopted a terrier who had some issues, nothing major at the time but definitely in need of some training. They’d watched Cesar Millan’s The Dog Whisperer and saw dogs doing things like their dog was doing and being fixed by Cesar “like it was magic”, so they tried it on their dog. They did everything he told them to, walked, no affection before discipline, and they handled the dog just like they’d seen him do on TV. They lifted him high off the ground when he tried to attack someone, using a leash up close behind his ears, they ‘alpha rolled’ him when he threw a temper tantrum, they cornered him to catch him and put pressure on him to move him away from things, “touched” him with a foot, grabbed him with a hand that was suppose to be translated as “a bite by the dominant dog”, and made the sound ’ssst’ just like Caesar showed them. Their dog went from warning people to stay away from him to attacking with no warning at all. Now they have a dog who is so aggressive, no one can look even at him.

After several weeks, which is what the TV programs told them, they thought they’d have a great dog with good behaviors. They quit using the TV show’s methods when the dog got worse instead of better.

To this day when they have company, no one can look at the dog at all. If their eyes happen on the dog, they reach to pet, speak to or try to come into the house, the dog attacks. This young family doesn’t want to put him down because he is pretty good with the Mom, who adopted the dog, and pretty good with the Dad. The children have to completely ignore the dog to be in the same house with him. When he warms up to them, then they can carefully pet him until the next time they come into the house.

These are the stories I’ve been hearing from people who use the show’s methods to train or change their dogs’ behavior. They are creating biting dogs when they only hoped to do the right thing for the dog.

I gave them some ideas to keep everyone safe and strongly suggested that they find professional positive training. I hope they take my advice and get some help. The dog has already bitten and means to bite again when he attacks. If they stay in touch with me, I’ll share the end of the story with you.

The TV show warns and warns against trying the methods at home because partly, I believe, the training you see on TV is not complete. What you see on TV is not all there is to it. If you are having behavioral problems with your dog, please find a positive trainer and get them to help you. Even some of the worst dogs have been turned around with positive training. The best thing? The positive training is more likely to stick with the dog. The old traditional training may change things for the short time while someone strong and unafraid is in the room, but it probably won’t last. I have noticed on the new episodes that even Cesar is saying that this is not magic, it takes time and effort. I’m happy to see that no episode this season has ended by claiming a cure like in the past several years of shows.

The ironic part of this story is that I just watched a new The Dog Whisperer on TV. Cesar was dealing with this same problem only with a bulldog, not a terrier. The problem with the terrier was created with the old episodes of the program and “fixed” with a disclaimer that the bulldog was not “cured” in the new episode. The dog on the new TV episode will probably always be scarred but at least they are managing his biting now. There were a few stitches in faces shown on this new episode. It just doesn’t have to be that way.

[If you saw this new episode, you saw one of our SitStay Service and Therapy Dog Vests being used for the series, the vest is on backwards but that's not the part you should notice. Cesar had a warning embroidered on the vest that said don't touch or look at this dog. That did help warn people to stay away so the dog would not bite them.]