Play Archives - Page 6 of 7 - Smart Dog University

Teddy’s Goof-Off Day

August 27, 2010

Don't let this silly face fool you. Teddy's a grass-churnin', rip-roarin', goof off fool! The dogs were home alone for a few hours today and were more than a little ready for some R + R in the backyard when I returned home.

I still had a lot of work to do when I got home, but I decided to take advantage of the beautiful day and multi-task. I took my work outside with me and sat in the Adirondack chair under the shade tree.

Lily's idea of goofing off is to lay flat on her back and have her belly rubbed. Continuously.

Tango's idea of goofing off is retrieving the tennis ball. Continuously.

Nemo goofs off in a few different ways: he lopes around the yard blowing off some steam, he then rolls in the grass, kicking his feet to the sky, and then heads for the kiddie pool for a cool-down.

Teddy goofs off in a million ways, but his favorite goofing-off activities involve annoying Nemo.

It's been a long, tough week here at Smart Dog U – we're having a kitchen re-do. The past few days have found me and the four dogs sequestered in my office as the kitchen cabinets were installed. Lots of banging, noise, and dust.

So at the end of a very long week, the dogs had to blow off a little steam. Here's a quick look at that fun. (If you have a hard time seeing the entire width of the video, double click it and you can watch it direct from YouTube.)

The Trouble with Vacations

August 23, 2010

Not a lot of prose today. Just the cold, hard facts. It's really hard to come back after vacation. Especially a vacation with the dogs. A vacation the dogs enjoyed as much as we did.

Vacation for this family is spent lakeside. We love the water, we have dogs who love the water – it's perfect. Here's what I find so refreshing about a vacation, besides the fact that I'm away from the hustle and bustle of every day life:

No make up. No hairdo.

No clothes (we wear bathing suits all day, sweats in the evening).

The dogs come along to enjoy vacation with us.

We spend the entire vacation with the dogs, doing what we all love.

The dogs are TIRED at the end of every day. There's no better sleep than a deep, relaxing sleep. We both (dogs and people) get that at the end of every day on vacation.

We all eat a whole lot less because we're always at the dock, always moving.

We always see a few bald eagles. There's nothing more majestic than watching a soaring eagle from the dock!

Finding new places to explore.

Vacations are nice I guess, because they're, well, vacations! We heartlily enjoyed ours and are dreaming about the next trip to the lake!

Baby Steps

July 14, 2010

There are lots of ways a pup can get his food. He can work for it. He can eat it out of a food stuffed toy. He can find it scattered about the patio. One thing this little guy won't be doing is eating food out of a bowl. That's way too easy.

Teddy needs to keep busy, he needs to problem solve, he needs to take more than 30 seconds to eat his meal.

Food stuffed toys, like the red Kong in the picture, are great food-delivery systems. You stuff your dog's dry food (kibble) into the Kong, drop the Kong on the floor (so some of the kibble drops out and grabs the dog's interest) and let the dog figure out the rest.

To make this task fun and interesting, we make it really easy at first. We put the food into a large Kong – the kibble will fall out easier this way. After a week of feeding Teddy this way, he'll get really good at getting the food out quickly and efficiently.

The next step is to add a little bit of difficulty – enough to challenge his problem solving skills, but not too much that he gives up. Peanut butter or nonfat yogurt is a great "stuffer." Simply line the inside of the toy with the peanut butter (or yogurt), fill with kibble leaving a little room for some more of the goopy stuff. The peanut butter or yogurt is really enticing for the dog, and also slows him down a bit.

The middle portion is relatively easy – it's just kibble, and the hardest part to get out is the part where the food is stuck to the peanut butter way deep into the Kong. If you spent enough time letting the dog learn how to get plain kibble out of the toy, I'll be he'll remain committed to getting the last little bit, especially if there's some gooey goodies in there, too!

After another week of gooping up the contents of the toy, you can make the game even more challenging by gooping the Kong with peanut butter and kibble, described above, and then freeze the whole thing!

The frozen Kong seems to be a favorite of Teddy's. He seems to really enjoy the challenge of getting the frozen peanut butter and kibble out. He's good at using his paws to help hold the Kong so it doesn't move around.

Why do we care about stuff like this? The whole idea of "working for dinner" is a nice one – why waste the opportunity to train by simply putting the bowl of food on the floor for the dog to eat? Use your dog's dinner as treats to reward good behavior! Or, teach your dog how to become a problem solver by letting him figure out how to get the kibble out of the food-stuffed toy. The longer it takes the dog to eat his dinner, the more time you'll have to get stuff done without your dog sticking his nose into whatever it is you're doing! You'll keep your dog mentally challenged. You'll tire your dog out. All these things are GOOD things and can help a manic, overactive dog become calmer.

Spring Fever Hits the Big Dogs (Video)

April 2, 2010

The weather in the Mid-Atlantic is looking very much like Spring! The sun is shining, the grass is green, the birds are singing, and the big dogs are a little silly! Every time I let them out (I should wise-up and just leave the door open), they throw their heads up and take in big gulps of air. Just once I wish I could know what that feels like – they look positively mesmerized by what's floating on the breeze.

Anyway, after those first few minutes of tranquility, it's off to the races! They run here, they run there. They jump. They stalk (ok, only Talos and Nemo stalk – the Labradors are not stalkers, thankyouverymuch). I put together some footage today of the dogs enjoying the day.

Take note of how physical Nemo (black dog) and Talos (cow lookalike) play. They're well-matched play partners: they both like the same kind of play. An Australian Shepherd or a German Shepherd would not find this kind of play at all enjoyable, however. They're more chase and be chased dogs, not wrestle and body-slam.

Notice that Lily's nowhere to be seen. She's a wallflower when it comes to playtime. The two big dogs are too rough for her and playing with them is just not fun for her. She was curled up under my feet, tucked safely out of harms way.

Note: In the second video, you'll hear Talos yelp at the end of the tape. Talos (or Nemo) came down on Talos' leg funny and Talos limped for a few minutes. Talos is completely fine. In fact, the first video was taken after that fall.

Spring Fever courtesy of the Big Dogs:

Snow Hounds (Video)

December 19, 2009

We love the snow! This is Talos the Great Dane's first big snow. And because he's a service dog in training, we'll have to return him to Service Dogs of Virginia before next winter. So every snow's important to us! Enjoy watching the dogs romp…

Wet and Cold Tracking Day (Video)

December 5, 2009

Nemo and I went tracking today despite temperatures in the 30's, a drenching, cold rain, and the threat of snow. Yeah, I think I really am the crazy dog lady…

What IS tracking, you ask? Tracking is a competitive form of search and rescue. We're not really rescuing anything, except a glove, when tracking though. In tracking, the dog uses his nose to follow a scent (or "track") that has been laid by a person. On the track are objects (usually the aforementioned glove). The dog's job is to follow the scent of the person who laid the track, which of course leads to the object (the glove).

Competitive tracks are hundreds of yards long, involve several turns and curves, and might involve several types of surfaces (grass, weeds, woods, pavement, cement, etc.). In tracking, the most important thing to remember is this:

THE DOG IS IN CHARGE. (Unlike every other competitive dog sport, in which the human is in charge.)

Dogs have noses a zillion times more powerful than ours. We can't smell the track. We don't know where the track is. We have to trust our dogs. How cool is that?

So after a couple hours inside a warm, dry building learning about the fundamentals of tracking, we donned our rain gear and went out into the cold rain.We're only beginners, so we started with very short tracks. It was a fun time, albeit cold and wet. Nemo was shivering by the time it was all over – I turned the heat on high and covered him with my down coat so he could warm up.

Here's a quick video of our soggy, but fun tracking morning…

Menu

Play

Subscribe to Email Updates

What People Are Saying