Training

Not to be outdone by the veterinary profession (See Alphabet Soup

If you’re frustrated that your pup “doesn’t listen,” I urge you to consider what your dog is actually hearing each day. Take a minute...

How to safely confine burrowers, bounders, beavers, and bolters. Otis the Bloodhound was an opportunistic escapee. I discovered his talent one day while working at the front desk at the Marin Humane Society, early in my animal protection career. A woman came in asking if we might know where a Bloodhound lived, because he kept visiting her house every day. He was charming, she said, but she worried that he might get hit by a car.

Humans have taken advantage of dogs' incredibly keen sense of smell over the ages for such uses as hunting, tracking lost and fugitive humans, and more recently, the detection of bombs, narcotics, and other contraband. It's well known that a dog's nose is many times sharper than our own – estimates range from 10,000 to 100,000 times superior to ours, with a far greater number and variety of scent receptors in their noses, more neurons linking the nose to the brain, and a greater proportion of their brains devoted to smell.

How to train your dog to reliably work off leash: First get solid responses to your cues on leash, then on a long line. When moving to an unfenced area, introduce distractions gradually.

looking right at them

Taking a dog for a walk or hike off-leash must be done appropriately and legally in order to prevent any number of risks to the dog, other dogs, or humans who may encounter the off-leash dog, as well as livestock or wildlife in the area. Off-leash dogs may run off and get lost, run onto roads and cause serious accidents, cause hikers to fall and bicyclists to crash, and chase or even kill other animals.

and matching leash all get softer with time and laundering. I like the extra large D-ring for snapping the leash onto.

For just a minute, imagine you are a dog, a predator animal, with thousands of years of selective breeding to gaze upon the horizon and chase anything that moves. Let yourself feel the anticipation of that initial sighting and the blast of adrenalin as you take off and tear up the ground between you and your prey. Your front feet and your rear feet meet under your body as you coil tightly before exploding into full stride. As you hit top speed, your stride lengthens, enabling you to run 30-plus miles per hour. There is nothing you would rather be doing. The world outside your chase ceases to exist. You are in your element. This is lure coursing. You don't need to be a sighthound to experience the thrills of a good chase, but if you are, you are built for speed off the start line, resilience to overheating, and a reluctance to give up the chase. If you are a terrier with similar predatory instincts, you'll do fine as well. If you are a bit on the bigger, heavier side, you might enjoy the chase just as much, but you'll be slower and tire more quickly.

Marking is not the same behavior as my bladder is full and I have to pee." Housetraining is just a matter of teaching your dog when and where to relieve himself. In contrast

Having a dog who enjoys time in a crate is a beautiful thing. A crate can give a dog some peace and quiet when...

There is no way to guarantee the safety of your dog off leash. I would like to think that if we trained hard enough, or long enough, or with the right methods, that we could overcome all of the risks, that our dogs really could be completely reliable and safe. But the fact is that when dogs are off leash in an unsecured area, there will always be a chance that their instincts or desires will lead them into the path of danger. In addition, our environment is often unpredictable. When dogs are off leash, there is the chance of a sudden bang, an unexpected animal, or something else that may frighten or harm our dogs.