Blog • Page 29 of 37 • Three Dogs Training

Happy T(r)ails – A Fond Look Back at 2011

As we head into 2012, we stop to fondly remember all the furry friends who left us in 2011 and touched our hearts on their way past.

Groundhog Day, Imbolic, St. Bridget’s Day, Candlemas, and others all land somewhere on or around February 2nd.

No matter what you call it or what religion celebrates it they all mark a time of renewed life and it’s our human nature to look back on the old as we stand on the cusp of the new. Oftentimes we are hoping for better yet to come and sometimes we are fondly looking back.

2011 brought a number of losses to the community of doggie folks that I know well and this brings emotions of mixed sadness and joy.

The year started out with the loss of our little eight-week-old Callie – it was a sign of the year to come. However, following her passing we took in her only brother (and the only one of her litter mates still waiting for a forever home): Pinball.

Things started looking up at that point, but then the avalanche began. HEART dogs who had been working in animal-assisted therapy for years or training for the work began to slip away from us:

Vesta who had exchanged her Guiding Eyes career for one in animal-assisted therapy left her family after eleven years. Her devotion and love of her family and work was legendary.

Then we saw the loss of Riley, a little Wheaton who loved the “paws up” command so much that she passed it onto her Golden sister before she suddenly passed away. She was even remembered by Santa this year when the rest of her pack went for pictures and he asked where she was. Riley’s sweetness clearly touched Santa, too.

The loss of Kinsey – the little Mini Schnauzer who seemed to be born with a power pack that just wouldn’t quit – came at the end of her battle with a host of illnesses and left a not so mini-sized whole in her human’s hearts.

As if three were not enough HEART dogs to lose, one of the founding dogs, Hunter, left his family to cherish his memory and all of us the legacy of his work.

Thinking the year was almost over and what more could happen we lost Beau and Maude in quick succession.

Beau was fairly new to animal-assisted therapy but he was a champ. When he and Boo would visit together at the library the name confusion between the two made for a fun game with the kids when asking them if they wanted to visit Boo or Beau.

Maude was a seasoned veteran in the world of animal-assisted therapy. Always the trooper, she started fading when her sister Vesta passed and just wasn’t able to rally back to her old self after the loss.

Layla, the chocolate lab who patiently let kids cover her with band-aids – and taught Boo how to wear them, too – left her family and a young puppy she had been training.

The lovely Miss Torrie, a white German Shepherd Dog who had been a puppy mill breeding female only to be rescued for a new life as an animal-assisted therapy dog – and one of the greatest testing neutral dogs I have ever met – left her family on Christmas Day.

Now, forty days after the last of these losses we can look back and while sometimes their sadness can seem overwhelming each comes with a stream, and sometimes a flood, of sweet, loving memories.

This is the gift that our dogs give us when they are alive and it is the gift they keep on giving even after they pass. The joy they bring us is so great that even in the wake of the sadness that comes with their passing we are still filled with the joy they leave behind.

Dogs will come to us and they will leave us but the love they bring stays with us always.

As the groundhog pokes his head up today we can hold in our hearts that as the wheel of the year turns and Spring dances before us the love of these animals will sustain us until we can meet them once again and forever.

Things Your Dog Will Love: MannersMinder

The MannersMinder is a wonderful positive reinforcement tool that allows us to reward good dog behavior at a distance but is a bit pricey.

Do these scenarios sound at all familiar:

There’s a knock on your door and it’s a race between you and your dog to see who can get there first?
Is the first thing company hears when they come for a visit the sound of barking and you on the other side of the door trying to get your dog to sit quietly?
How often do your guests have to greet your dogs before they can say hi to you?

These are all incredibly common behaviors in dogs and ones that I’m consulted on frequently, but they can also be extremely difficult for owners with less-than-stellar compliance to deal with because the things in play – a knock at the door, the commotion of guests coming, and the possibility of someone new entering the house – all can combine to push a dog’s buttons for good or bad.

Luckily, there’s a great tool out there for situations just like this that I’ve been using since it came out: the MannersMinder.

In short, the MannersMinder is way to dispense treats remotely for times when you just physically can’t give them to the dog or when you want to redirect the dog into a different location.

At its heart, the MannersMinder is a base unit that sits on the floor, filled with rewards, and a remote control. When the remote is clicked, the base unit makes a distinctive beeping noise and the treat is dispensed into a small tray on the side.

In addition to the manual remote control, the MannersMinder incorporates into the base unit volume control for the beeping and a good selection of automated timing controls that allow you to manually set the variable reward schedule. Similar to how it works remotely, when the automated timer goes off the base unit makes the same beeping noise and the treat comes out.

When you first start using the MannersMinder you’ll need to show your dog what it does the first time or two, but you’ll be amazed by how quickly they realize that it pays out and before long they’ll camp in front of it like seniors at a bank of slot machines.

Don’t just take my word for it, though. Here are photos of two of my students, Boomer and Stella, demonstrating the awesome power of the variable reward schedule:

Now that you know what the MannersMinder is and what it does, why would you want it?

Let’s go back to the scenario above: someone knocking on your front door.

Rather than the mad dash to the front door to corral the dog with all the barking and jumping, when the doorbell rings just grab the MannersMinder remote, give it a click, and your dog will go running to the base unit rather then to see the company. Keep it in-hand and give it a click every now and then and your dog will be too distracted by yummy snacks that you’ll be able to greet your guests on your own terms and let them get comfortable before their furry friend comes to say hello.

Another great use for the MannersMinder is when you simply can’t physically get to your dog in order to be able to treat them for good behavior.

For example: we have very high ceilings and walls in our house and we’re frequently up on tall ladders painting.

If you’ve ever house painted you know that there’s a million different things that you don’t want your dog getting a hold of – wet mixing sticks, damp cleanup rags, paint lids, etc. – so if you’re up on a high ladder and you notice your dog going for something it shouldn’t have, how do reward them to leaving it alone when told to?

Simply click the MannersMinder remote that you’ve taken up with you.

Now this isn’t to say that the MannersMinder isn’t without a couple of areas for improvement:

The MannersMinder is on the pricey side. Most positive reinforcement tools are very economically priced, but this one comes in on the high side of things.
The MannersMinder only ships with one single remote control. If your dogs are like ours they may very well learn that it’s the remote that causes the yummy beeping, so the remote can become a valued resource they will want to get a hold of. A second one in the box would be great.
The batteries the MannersMinder remote control uses isn’t one of the normal type that you’re used to – AA, AAA, C, D, etc. – but is one of the kinds that you’ll need to look around for or order online. Stocking up is necessary.

Those minor quibbles aside, the MannersMinder is a great positive reinforcement tool that allows us to maintain our reward schedules without needing to be within close physical proximity to our dogs.

I find the MannersMinder to be an invaluable tool in my positive reinforcement bag of tricks and, if you choose to make the investment in one, I’m sure you will, too.

Ever wonder what our Puppy Pre-School class is like? Let these goofy pups show you what it’s all about!

Our puppy pre-school is a fantastic class, but it’s so much easier to show a video of what it’s all about rather than describe it in words.

Whenever I get a call from an owner with a new puppy in their house the conversation nearly always turns to me describing what the Three Dogs Training Puppy Pre-School is like.

I’ll step them through the incredible importance of early, positive socialization to puppies, how structured play and regular breaks in that play helps to form and cement a bond a trust between you and the new puppy, and walk them through the skills I teach in the class, but invariably that talk gets interrupted by the barking, crazy puppy on the other end of the line.

As I’ve said before, a picture – or movie! – is worth a thousand words on my part, so without further ado here’s the Three Dogs Training Puppy Pre-School as demonstrated by Bowie, Tucker, and our very own Pinball:

Let us know what you think!

Happy Holidays from Three Dogs Training!

From our family to yours, we wish you and all your furry little friends a happy and safe holiday season!

All our holiday thanks from Lisa, Lawrence, Boo, Porthos, Pinball, and Freya too– our honorary dog in cat’s clothing.

Three Dogs Silly Holiday Photo Contest Winners!

The moment we’ve all been waiting for is here! Without further ado, the winners of our first annual Three Dogs Silly Holiday Photo contest.

The moment we’ve all been waiting for is now upon us!

Lawrence has been diligently collecting all the silly Holiday photo contest entries (and there were a lot!), sat me down to go through them all, and then told me who the winners were.

So, without further ado…

Our first Honorable Mention for Excellence in Being a Good Sport About It goes to Hunter:

Regular readers our our blog will remember that we’ve written quite a bit about Hunter in the past (here and here) and are just thrilled to see him in such a great home!

Our second Honorable Mention for Excellence in Being a Good Sport About It (and being cute as a bug) goes to Kya:

Now the three finalists!

Our third-place winner is the The Traveling Peebuddies Christmas Tour (AKA Leon, Edna June, and the late Sancho singing his heart out):

Our second-place winner is Duke looking disturbingly happy with his Santa beard:

Finally, our first-place winner is Maggie, who shows us all – dog and human – that too much nog is never a good thing:

Congratulations to all our winners and thanks to everyone who entered!