Health & Wellness Archives • Page 3 of 3 • Three Dogs Training

Things Your Dog Will Love: Atomic Treat Ball

The Atomic Treat Ball is a great positive reinforcement tool to control speed eating in dogs as well as to keep them cognitively challenged.

Dogs and other canids are natural problem solvers: you can see it when wolves hunt, when the dogs in our Nose Work classes are tracking down the scent target, or when our own dogs are rooting for that single piece of kibble that fell behind their food bowls.

It’s what they’re wired to do, what they evolved to do, and it’s what they love to do, but the normal life of a dog living in a house doesn’t make for too many riddles to solve – except for the one we don’t want them to solve like how to open the garbage can lid, how to get into the closet, etc.

That’s where the Atomic Treat Ball comes in and why I’ve been using and recommending it to clients for years.

What initially drew me to the Atomic Treat Ball was Porthos had developed problems related to speed eating and I needed to find a way to allow him to get his full dinner in a measured, controlled way. It worked wonders to keep him from bloat and torsion, but after a while it became clear that although he loved the Atomic Treat Ball because it was filled with food he enjoyed it equally as much for the fun involved in getting the food out.

The trick behind the Atomic Treat Ball is in its design. If you take a look at the picture above you’ll see that it’s essentially shaped like four stacked hollow balls – in essence, a molecule – with a single loading hole in one of the balls. The pyramid shape allows dogs to easily roll the toy around without it going out of control under furniture and the single loading hole gives them a reasonably good chance of getting some food out with each go, but it’s an irregular enough reward schedule to neither bore them nor have them run out of kibble too quickly.

Also, unlike a lot of other puzzle toys the empty space inside the Atomic Treat Ball accommodates quite a bit of kibble or snacks. For Porthos we can actually fit about half of his kibble for each meal into his, which helps to slow down his eating greatly but is also really useful if you need to keep your dog busy for a while or if you want to give them a nice treat that will last if they need to spend extended time in their crates, playpens, taking a break from company or the fix-it person who doesn’t need your dog up their backside, etc.

The Atomic Treat Ball is cheap, easy, and – most importantly – it works. It’s a great tool to keep your dog cognitively challenged, which is as important to them as it is to humans as we grow older, and I believe that it’s an indispensable tool to have in our bag of positive reinforcement tricks.

Summer Encounters with Skunks, or Love Stinks

Don’t spend another dime on store-bought skunk washes for your dogs. Here’s a homemade recipe we’ve been using for years.

Ask Professor Boo is our recurring, positive reinforcement dog training and behavior question and answer column. If you have a question that you would like to ask Professor Boo, please feel free to contact him.

[dropcap]Q[/dropcap]: Professor Boo, being small and black with a white stripe do you find yourself having to deal with unwanted attention from female skunks?

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]: Being the intellectual, female skunks are generally more attracted to my wit and outgoing personality than they are to the in-your-face physicality of my brother, Dante. While I’ll regale them with stories about studying in Paris, Dante will sprint toward them to say “Hi!” and more often than not ends up with a mouth full of skunk spray.

When that happens, we happen to have a homemade Skunk Wash formula that works just as well as any store-bought solution and is made out of ingredients nearly everyone has in their pantry:

Skunk Wash Formula

1 quart of 3% Hydrogen Peroxide

1/2 cup of Baking Soda (Sodium Bicarbonate)

1 teaspoon of liquid soap

Mix together to make a shampoo for your furry pal.

Rinse well to remove the shampoo from the fur after vigorously shampooing.

You may need to double or triple this recipe depending on the weight of your dog.

Because I enjoyed answering this question, just for fun I’ll pass along a Professor Boo Fun Fact: In French, the word for shampoo is “shampooing” and is pronounced sham-PWAN.

Go Speed Eater, Go!

The dangers of speed eating in dogs and the best ways to get them to slow down their eating using positive reinforcement training methods.

[dropcap]Q[/dropcap]: Professor Boo, our puppy’s been with us for two weeks now and the speed at which she eats is starting to get out of control. She’s a breed that’s prone to bloat so we purchased a stand for her bowl, but is there any way we can slow her eating? We tried putting half of her food in her bowl at first and then the second half later but she just wolfs it down just as fast no matter how much we give her. Help!

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]: For as much as the super-speed eating your puppy is doing seems like a problem, it’s actually something of a mixed blessing.

On the one hand, it is a problem because swallowed air can lead to bloat and gastric torsion which can be huge medical emergencies. On the other hand, though, your puppy is telling us that she’s extremely food-motivated – which will make training her as she grows up just that much easier.

There’s a two-word answer to this problem: Puzzle Toys.

By putting some or all of your puppy’s kibble into the puzzle toy and giving it to her you’ll not only slow down her rate of eating but you’ll also be providing her significant amounts of cognitive stimulation as she’ll have to figure out (and work at) getting her food out of the toy.

We’ve been using the Twist ‘n Treat, Atomic Treat Ball, and Tricky Treat Ball at home for our goofy black Lab, Porthos, since just about since we brought him home as a pup. Along with being diabetic he’s also a compulsive speed eater and the Atomic Treat Ball and Tricky Treat Ball have worked like charms to keep him busy for long enough to allow his brothers to finish eating so he doesn’t try to surf their bowls as well.

In addition to puzzle toys, a good way to slow down the speed of your puppy’s eating is to set aside a portion of her kibble and use it as training treats. She’ll not only eat as slowly as you’d like by your setting the pace of the training session, but you’ll also get a head start on using solid positive reinforcement training techniques to help her become a great dog.

Boo appetit!

A little D.A.P.’ll do ‘ya.

Using D.A.P. can really help in addressing common, low-level behavior issues in dogs – especially when used with positive reinforcement.

It comes up frequently during my behavioral consultations and I’ve mentioned it before here on the blog, but I can’t say enough good things about D.A.P. (Dog Appeasing Pheromone).

I won’t say that it’s the Holy Grail of resolving commonplace behavior problems but it’s no sippy cup, either.

Natural appeasing pheromones are produced by lactating females shortly after birthing a litter and give the young puppies a feeling of well-being and security when they’re near mom.

D.A.P. works by mimicking those natural pheromones and helps to give adult dogs a similar sense of calm and relaxation to what they would have felt as nursing puppies.

Many clinical trials of D.A.P. both in home and shelter situations have shown that it can help as a relaxing treatment when used in conjunction with positive reinforcement desensitizing and counter-conditioning (DS/CC). My own anecdotal experience in the field has shown the same.

It really can help and – best of all – doesn’t have any of the negative side effects seen in many anti-anxiety pharmaceuticals such as deinhibition and others.

Additionally, D.A.P. can be used in concert with many psycho-pharmaceuticals (but please double-check with your veterinary behaviorist first.)

Keep in mind that D.A.P.’s effects are not dramatic and most folks know it’s working when the collar expires and the anxious behaviors return or the diffuser runs out and they wonder why the dog is pacing again – then they check the diffuser and experience a “D’oh!” moment. It is designed to simply take the edge off gently and inconspicuously. This allows us to better do our DS/CC work with your dog.

We can simply stop without the step-downs necessary with many anti-anxiety medications.

If your dog is a re-homed dog new to your home this can help them settle in faster. If your dog is not fully comfortable with everyone in their home this can help them be a bit more at ease. And, if it doesn’t work for your dog we can simply stop without the step-downs necessary with many anti-anxiety medications.

For our part, at home we plug in the D.A.P. diffuser. Porthos is a pretty anxious dog and when he’s stressed it affects his diabetes so it is just a precaution to keep him on an even keel.

D.A.P.’s not meant to address out-of-control anxiety issues and like psycho-pharmaceuticals it needs to be used in conjunction with behavior modification. So, if you’ve got a dog that exhibits low-level, occasional fears and anxiety related issues you might want to give a D.A.P. diffuser or D.A.P. collar more than just a look while you are contacting a behavioral professional.

Thunder! Thunder! Thundershirts, ho!

Thundershirts are a great tool for managing stress – and they’re now available in the Boo-tique!

Just a quick note to let everyone know that we’ve just added Thundershirts to the shop.

In case you haven’t ever heard of them, Thundershirts are a great drug-free way to address anxiety, fearfulness, reactivity and over-stimulation when dogs are confronted with noise, separation and other stressors. They employ many of the same principles that are seen in TTouch and use gentle, constant pressure to help the dog regain their focus and composure.

Here’s a link to the Thundershirt website where you can find a whole mess of veterinarian and trainer endorsements.

Sometimes drugs are the way to go when dealing with behavioral issues, but having drug-free avenues to explore first can end up being better for you and your dog in the long run.

P.S. Lawrence insisted on the Thundercats reference. Don’t feel bad if you didn’t get it – he had to explain it to me, too.