Problems with Pet Barriers

We're having a baby. Because Pepper is high energy we don't want her to roam free in the car with the baby. The first thing that came to my mind were those barriers I've seen countless people with. They have various forms, but the end result is the same, a metal fence-like wall that prevents your pet from leaving the rear compartment.

So I did some online research which means reading Amazon reviews, doing various Google searches, etc. We then went to a pet store which carried them. Throughout we learned that almost all pet barriers are tension mounted, which means that what keeps them in place is the tension between the roof and floor of the rear compartment. Because I'm lazy and I don't like to have to redo things I looked into how often you have to reset the tension. I did read some people have energetic dogs which bang into the barrier alot, causing them to have to reset the tension quite often.

There didn't seem to be very many alternatives to a barrier. There was a net (which is also tension mounted) and having a crate in the back. I didn't like the net because of the same tension problems. I didn't really like the crate because it would be a pain to have to set it up and fold it back down depending on if we were taking the dog with us. So we decided to go with the metal barrier.

That is until something popped in my mind. What happens during an accident. The barrier is tension mounted. It certainly would hold if the dog came crashing into it. That means I would have a large piece of metal falling/flying through the car. The whole point of getting this is safety. Safety for the baby, safety for us, and safety for Pepper. It doesn't seem very safe to me to have a chunk of metal ready to fall over the back seat(where the baby would be).

We ended up getting a crate. We're also working on tie-downs for it so that we don't have the problem of the crate flying through the air in a crash either.

PAWSwalk Done

We did PAWS walk this past weekend. Our banner was "Pepper the Difficult Dog" which caused many people to come up to us and ask about Pepper. Pepper was decked out in full gear, muzzle, backpack, and pinch collar.

It was kind of ironic when talking to some of the people that would came up. We would explain the reason she is wearing a muzzle and then the person would say "Oh. My dog does that". BUT, of course there dog would not be muzzled.

There were many difficult dogs there, and owners who I wasn't sure understood that there dogs were a problem. It's interesting after having worked with Pepper so much we are better able to watch dogs and their handlers with a critical eye.

• That dog is out in front dragging around it's handler, it looks pretty dominant.
• That dog keeps charging other dogs when they walk by.
• That dog's chest is out and tail is up, it's very dominant.
• That dog is shaking, it's obviously afraid.
• That dog's tail is curled up under it's body, it's afraid.
  

Of course Pepper took the opportunity to make liers of us by meeting many dogs without incident. Many of which were head on meetings. We had 2 incidents, neither of which escalated because Pepper was limited by the muzzle and we were watchful.

The first incident was caused by a woman walking a German Shepard. While she was walking by us the German Shepard decided to switch sides and took his handler out by tangling her legs with his leash. She fell hard and hurt her knee. I'm not sure why but this caused Pepper to growl at the German. An obvious warning, and possibly caused by the handlers fall.

The second incident was in a hangar where they PAWS had organized the various vendors that were there for the event. She had her muzzle on and a treat fell from a counter in front her. She immediately put her head down to get it, but was unable to because of the muzzle. Another dog by her also put his head down a manage to get the treat out from under her head. This caused her to snarl and charge the dog. I was her handler and I grabbed her back legs and pulled her back (I try never to pull with the pinch collar). I then popped her pinch collar (correction) and put her in a sit.

I'd like to thanks the lady at the Animal Hospital booth. She like Pepper so much she grabbed to fistfuls of treats and put it in our bags for her. We said hello to some old friends from when we used to take Pepper to dog parks. They were manning the COLA booth. Another great organization that people should donate money to. We waved to one of Pepper's past trainer, she was busy given Canine Good Citizen tests.

The walk itself was a bit longer than we anticipated. It is a 5K walk, but we thought it was going to be shorter. As a result we had Pepper wearing her backpack with 20lbs. of weight. It worked fine initially. The backpack gave her more focus on walking, and less focus on other dogs. However we went over lots of loose gravel, and rough trails. I ended up carrying the backpack for the later part of the walk. I'm glad I took her backup from her because I found out the sharp rocks and her weights made her right front paw sore. We took her home, did very short walks later on. The next day her paw was fine.

PAWSwalk

We are doing the PAWSwalk this year. You can help out shelter animals by donating to PAWS.

Dominate!

Pepper is a dominant dog. Very self assured, and if challenged by another dog likely to attack. We work hard at making her submissive to us. We tried any different techniques like positive reinforcement, trying to ignore her when she was exhibiting bad behavior, yelling loudly when she mouthed us, leash corrections, and dominance exercises. The most effective for Pepper were positive reinforcement with treats, leash corrections, and dominance exercises.

Positive reinforcement is where you reward your dog with a treat, affection, or the use of a play object which they love. We found that treating Pepper worked exceptionally well for training her. She is highly food motivated and learns quickly. Occasionally she will get too treat focused to the exclusion of learning the behavior. Positive reinforcement did not help stop bad behaviors or make her more submissive.

Leash corrections are when you sharply jerk your dogs collar. The position of the collar should be at the base of the head/top of the neck of your dog. The goal is not to hurt your dog, or to make the experience painful. The goal is to disorient your dog, and snap them out of whatever behavior the are currently exhibiting. I have migrated to using a pinch collar with leash corrections.

The pinch collar is a little misunderstood by many dog owners. The pinch collar does not "pinch". What is does is simulate the bites another dog would give a member of it's pack to "train" it. You should not pull a dog with a pinch collar. It's only usage is for the leash correction. If your dog does not follow or stay by you consistently the pinch collar alone is not an potion for you. You may have to go to a combination of a regular collar or harness and a pinch collar. You can damage your dog, and cause pain by dragging a dog around by a pinch collar.

Dominance exercises are a mixture of discipline and attitude. Your dog wants to belong to a pack. It wants the pack to have a strong leader. If your dog doesn't perceive you a strong leader, it will attempt to become the leader and control the pack, and as a result you. I do not know all the exercises, but I do know some that have worked extremely well for me. There are also prerequisites such as exercise. Your dog should be in as calm a state of mind as possible. This means you need to have exercised your dog before hand.

The Walk: It's not "a walk" it's "The Walk". When you take your dog out or "The Walk". You should be the one determining the direction, the speed, and when you stop. The Walk is all about being dominant and keeping your dog from being dominant.

• Good leaders lead from the front, so you should be in front of or to the side of your dog. Your dog should not be in front of you.
• Marking is a dominant behavior, don't let your dog do it. Sometimes it's hard to tell between marking and urinating. If you have your dog urinate before the walk, you can assume any urination on the walk itself is probably marking (unless your dog has bladder problems). I do leash corrections for those since my dog will attempt marking while walking.
• Make you keep a dominant posture, head up, shoulders back, chest out. You are the leader of the pack, be proud.
• You make the decisions, not the dog. You decide how fast, when to stop, and where to go.
• Your dogs posture should be relaxed and looking forward for most of the walk.
• Lead by example, stay calm, focused and relaxed, and your dog should follow.

Furniture: Your dog should never feel free to jump on any furniture. It should always ask with questioning looks, or sitting by the furniture it wants to be allowed onto. Your dog's sleeping area should be different than your sleeping area. I have a dog pillow at the foot of my bed which is where Pepper sleeps.

Food: Make your dog work for it's meals. Have it run through tricks it knows. Leaders eat first, feed your dog after you have fed yourself. Do NOT allow begging. Train your dog to go to it's crate during your meal time, or to leave the area.

Other People: The leader greets first. New people and animals should always be greeted by the leader first. Like furniture, people should also not be jumped on. Your dog should politely sit in front of a person if it wants attention. Rubbing or brushing up against a person is rude and should be corrected. Jumping up, charging, or running around is also usually not acceptable behavior.

First out, First In: The leader is always the first out of the house and the first in the house. In general your dog should usually be behind or to the side of you just like during "The Walk". It should almost never be in front of you when walking, even if it's going downstairs.

Discipline: Leaders deal out the punishment. I start with a strong negative sound like "NO!". If that doesn't work I progress to putting my dog in a down, or with a leash correction if there is a leash on her.


The most effective techniques we use have come largely from watching Cesar Millan on the Dog Whisperer. We have also gone to many different trainers and taken what has worked for us, and kept using it as well.

All dogs are different. Some will respond better to positive reinforcement, some need a strong word, others need a sharp leash correction. You'll have to find out what works best for your dog. Do not assume you need to jump directly to physical corrections based on the dog breed or the dogs size. Their are plenty of pitbulls and mastiffs that respond great to voice corrections. Conversely I've met many small dogs that require leash corrections and even alpha rolls.

Poisonous Food

The ASPCA has a collection of pages dedicated to animal poison control. It has lists of common people food which are toxic, plants which are toxic, the 10 most common toxic household plants, common seasonal items which are toxic, etc.

It's important to educate yourself on what is poisonous to your pets. I find it's good to visit the site every so often to refresh my memory. There are certain foods I like to eat which I don't give my dog. These items are either highly toxic, or have an unknown toxicity (I'd rather not take chances).

• grapes (apparently relatively small amount of grapes have been known to cause renal failure in some dogs)
• chocolate (the closer it is to pure chocolate the more toxic it is)
• garlic and onion (while not highly toxic, are so common that I make an effort not to give my dog any)
• avocado (I don't know how toxic this is)
  
• large amounts of fat (surprisingly can cause vomiting and pancreatitis)

If your dog eats something which is toxic don't panic you have some options. The first thing you should do is try and contact your regular vet. They will (hopefully) be familiar with your dog and give you the most pertinent advice on how to deal with the situation. In most cities there are also emergency veterinary clinics which are open 24 hours a day. Call or go immediately if possible. In most cases you will want your dog to vomit the toxic substance. DO NOT induce vomiting if the substance your dog ate was caustic, if your dog is having seizures, shock or lethargy. I have induce my dog to vomit once so far in the 2 years that I've had her. I did so with 2 teaspoons of hydrogen peroxide that I splashed in the back of her mouth. She vomited all the food she had eaten out of the trash within 5 minutes. DO NOT induce vomiting regularly. Hydrogen peroxide is an irritant to dogs.

Remember that it's not a good idea to feed your dog your people food unless you are familiar with the effects the ingredients will have an your pet.

Pepper My Dog

This is the first post about my dog Pepper. She is a Blue Heeler, Pitbull mix and my first dog. Pepper is currently between 2 and 3 years old and is what's known as a difficult dog. She is not aggressive with people, but she has been aggressive with other dogs. She also has a high prey drive and is very dominant and intelligent. As a result I've learned alot about dog health, dog behavior and dog training.

We got Pepper from Paws which is a great shelter. If you live in the Greater Seattle area, I recommend checking out Paws if your interested in getting a shelter animal.