Xtreme K9s – Dog training school

You can have a spectacular party for your dog with a few tips on how to set things up and on how to get things done. Planning is the key to getting the party running successfully and knowing beforehand what needs to be done, what you need to buy, who to invite and where to have the party will help to give you and your beloved pet the kind of party that is both fun and memorable.

Why you are celebrating is up to you. It could be your pet’s birthday, graduation from dog school or a doggy shower. Whatever the reason, you will need to plan around that occasion and come up with ideas that will make your pet, your guests, and your guests’ pets enjoy the day immensely.

Start Off with a Motif for Your Doggy Party

Some people may think that any motif will do for a doggy party, but hey, if you are celebrating an occasion for your pet, why not do it the right way? The motif for your pet’s party may depend on the occasion itself. If its a birthday, you may want to put the usual birthday type decorations for your dog’s birthday, although you might want to think more in terms of doggy décor, like bones with ribbons, smaller party hats and such.

If the party is for his doggy school graduation, you can have a graduation style motif for your party. Or if it is a puppy shower, you can have a shower motif, like small baby bottles and hanging mobiles to help give out that baby shower effect for you dog’s puppy shower.

Plan the Location, the Invitations and the Food

Location

Before you can send out invites or even create a food menu for both humans and animals in your party, you may need to look for a suitable venue for your doggy bash. While the most convenient place for such an event may be your backyard, you may need to reconsider the hassle of having so many dogs and humans trampling through your house. Try to consider a park for a picnic-like setting. You can also try to find a venue that allows pets, if you are planning on an indoor affair.

Invitations

When you are thinking of who to invite for your dog’s bash, you may want to consider the people who interact with your dog on a regular basis. You should consider inviting those friends of yours who are dog lovers as well and those who may have pets that your dog has interacted with in the past. You can also invite the dogs that your pet has played with on your walks or from some of the doggy establishments you visit. Try to make sure that you do not have too many dogs coming to your pup’s party since this may result in chaos. Just have enough of your pet’s pals around to really make it a pet event.

Once you know who you plan to invite for your dog’s big day, you may then plan the menu and choose which kinds of food you may want to serve your guests and your pet’s guests. You can also choose the invitations you want for the occasion and send them out as soon as you think it is possible to give people time to prepare for the coming event.

The Menu

When you are considering the food for the party, you might want to think in terms of two menus, one for your human guests and another for your pet’s furry four legged friends. This menu should consist of easy to eat foods since the pet owners you invite will also have to tend to their little ones and having food that is complicated or hard to handle may just cramp the movements of your guests. The menu that your four legged guests will have should consist of the kind of food that they can easily nibble on. There are a few doggy bakeries that specialize in packages like this for such occasions and looking through their menus for what you might want for your doggy guests will indeed help you set things up without a hitch.

Of course, you may want to prepare individual place settings and doggy bowls for your dog’s pals. Having an individual place setting for each canine will help each one get his or her own share of the goodies at the party and may also serve to help avoid chaotic scenarios when feeding time comes around.

Activities

What is a party without a few games? Try to organize a few games that involve both the pets and the owners. These activities may include fetch games, funny games or simple dog and owner games, like races where both owners and pets run to and from a set point in the venue. You can even try to come up with a fashion show contest where the owners dress up their dogs in their nicest togs and have the guests who do not have pets at the party judge who is the best costumed pooch in the venue.

Other activities may involve a simple trick contest. The pup that does the most doggy tricks may win a prize or the pup that performs the most unique trick wins a prize. Of course, you may have to prepare a prize that is suited to the winners and you may even include prizes for the owners too, if you want.

Do not forget to take pictures of the event so that you can look back at it and enjoy reliving the day anytime you want. You can place these photos in a special album with your pet’s face on the front and the date of the party as well as the occasion.

All in all, planning a party for your dog need not be a hassle if you plan way ahead of time. Having all the things you need in place and doing what needs to be done before hand will indeed help your pet enjoy his or her party and will help you enjoy it too.

Dogs can be the greatest source of love and happiness in our lives. However, they can also be a source of endless frustration. Usually the difference between a well-behaved dog and a chaotic dog is training. Dog training is an art and a science. Thee are many videos and books written on the subject and a lot of good information can also be found online.

One of the most basic training commands is “Sit.” It is also one of the most useful. When I take my dogs into a dog store, so many pets are misbehaving, barking at each other, or trying to show who is boss while we are in line. My dogs, however, are commanded to sit while I wait in line. Usually, people are awed by this. But it really isn’t very remarkable. Teaching a dog to sit does not have to be challenging.

Below is some advice I found online:

Few things in life are prettier than watching a well-trained dog and one of the basic commands is the sit command. There are several methods of teaching your dog to sit. Two of the most popular are the Click and the Compulsory methods. The Click method is based again on purely positive reinforcement while the Compulsory method uses both positive and negative reinforcements. Let’s begin our discussion with the easier of the two, The Click Method.

The Click Method of training a dog to sit is based upon rewarding the animal for the desired behavior. It gets its name from the idea that some audible queue is used to alert the animal of a pending reward with many trainers using a device called a clicker for this purpose. Whenever the audible queue is given, the reward follows immediately. To train a dog to sit by this method requires little effort on the trainers’ part. One begins by lavishing the dog with several treats, one right after the other while giving the audible queue.

Then abruptly stop the shower of treats and wait for the animal to direct its attention to you. Now display a treat and give the audible queue as you give the treat to the pet. Now hold another treat at chest level so that the dog must look up to see the treat. After a few minutes, your pet will likely sit down on its haunches because this position makes it much easier to watch the treat. Immediately, when this happens, give the audible queue and reward the pet. Repeat this lesson several times.

After a while you will notice your pet sitting in anticipation of the click and the reward so it is now time to add your verbal command to the routine. When the dog begins to sit, say “sit”. This will gradually teach the dog that the command precedes the action and they will learn the meaning of the command in this way. After some practice and a bit of patience, your dog should begin to sit without having to see a reward being offered.

Now let’s discuss the more traditional method of training. The Compulsory Method. This is the method grand dad used on his dogs. Tell the puppy to sit while enforcing it. Saying the verbal command “sit” and pushing down on the puppy’s tail section to make it contact the floor accomplish the lesson. With some dogs you might have to hold their chin up during this process or they will go ahead and lie down. The object behind the lesson is to teach the pup when you say “sit” that there is no other choice but to sit and so eventually the animal will respond on its own rather than having to be coaxed into position.

Some owners use a tool called a choke collar for this training method. They will leash the dog with the choke collar in place and upon the sit command push the dog down. At the same time they will hold the choke collar down by way of the leash allowing only enough slack for the dog to sit but not stand up. If the dog tries to stand the choke collar tightens around the animals’ neck producing extreme discomfort.

The author does not recommend this method as it can produce a nervous and fearful animal, which can become quite aggressive when it feels threatened. Such training also makes leash training much more difficult as it teaches the animal to fear the leash because of the pain inflicted by it. This also tends to lessen the bond between master and dog because the dog comes to associate the master with the pain and discomfort as well and may lash out at the owner or others if the treatment continues.

In whichever method you choose for training your pet, one thing remains constant. Always be consistent. Also be sure to pour lavish affection upon your pet for good behaviors and responses as this improves their bond to you and makes them desire to please you more fully. With a moderate amount of time and patience, your dog will be rivaling any animal presented at the local dog competitions for his well-trained style and mannerisms.

Source: i-love-dogs.com

Training a dog to sit is not difficult. It requires an investment of time on the part of the owner, but, in the long-run, it will save a lot of time of trying unsuccessfully to control your dog.

It is also very important to use treats while training your dog. While thee are many inexpensive treats to choose from, I recommend against most of those. Because you will be using lots of treats during the training process, I think it is important to select healthy treats. Your dog will be eating a lot of whatever you choose and the treats that are filled with preservatives and additives are not good choices.

There are great places, especially online, to buy treats that are natural and healthy for your dog training needs. Just like the time investment, it may cost a little more now to feed your dog the high quality treats, but in the long run, it will pay off with fewer vet visits!

“Sit” is a good command to begin training your dog with. It has innumerable uses and is very rewarding. Once you success in training your dog to sit, you can continue with similar methods to other commands.

Dog toys are essential to keep your dog occupied to stop barking problems, boredom issues and through teething times for your dog. Finding a good toy for your dog through these times is essential, leaving your dog with a bad chew toy that they don’t like will leave your dog with no option but to chew something else, there are many chew toys available so the choice is endless.

Dental health for your dog will be greatly improved by chewing toys so it is important to keep your dog interested in the toy choice you give them. Popular toys usually contain something that tastes good, smells good, some light up, and others make noises to keep you dog entertained. If the toy is fun for your dog then you can use it to reward your dog for good behavior or take it from them when they are bad.

Different Dogs enjoy different textures and tastes, you will need to find what your dog likes to chew and try your best to find a similar product but without it being as destructive to your house like their old toy, the table leg, was.

Avoiding tugging toys may be a good idea in some cases, more excited breeds of dog and puppies especially will get the message that tugging is fun for you as well as your dog, thus encouraging him to tug at you trouser legs when they’re in need of attention and curtains when they’re bored. Personally I would avoid theses toys.

When looking for a good toy for your dog, here are some good suggestions:

1. Look for a dog toy with something different like sound, taste, or lights.

2. Pick a dog toy that is tough enough to withstand your dogs chewing and biting

3. Choose dog toys that you think your dog will enjoy, using experience of what he normally chews is a good idea.

Remember that choosing a dog toy all depends on the dog in question, each dog will have different tastes and experiences of what they enjoy, something as cheap and simple as a tennis ball could be enough to keep your dog occupied for hours on end.