What’s the Best Time to Train Your Dog?

Many of us who have dogs often face the dilemma of deciding whether to train our dogs or to play with them.  You want to play with your dog because let’s face it, it’s fun and  you know he needs the exercise.  But at the same time, you know that you ought to be training your dog.  Tough choice, isn’t it?  Actually, it doesn’t have to be.

Training and play should go together.  In order for us to effectively train our dogs, we must make it fun for them.  The best way we can do this is to train them through play.

Take Snuggles, for example.  When we first took her to the park, she was extremely excited, as most dogs would be.  She would tighten the leash and want to dash away to run and play.  Running and playing was HIGHLY reinforcing for her, much more so than treats.  This is a perfect training scenario.  The next time we took her to the park, we kept her on leash and asked her to sit.  Immediately after she sat, we praised her and released her for play.  Play was the reward for sitting.  She caught on very fast and eventually, we would ask for longer and longer periods of stay before releasing her.

So does this mean we need to take our dogs to the park every time we want to train and play with them?  Absolutely not.  To answer the question that is posed at the beginning of this blog, the best time to train your dog is at any opportunity you get.  Stated more blatantly:  now.  If you look at it, there are so many different things in the environment that your dog loves.  It could be jumping on the couch, going outside, sniffing around the bush, chasing wild birds, meeting other dogs, amongst many other things.  These are all highly reinforcing things that you could use to reward your dog during training.  No treats required.  The next time you ask your dog to lie down and he does it, pick him up and put him on his favorite couch.  Or, the next time you see another dog, take this as a great way to reinforce your dog’s good behavior.  Ask your dog to calmly sit and stay, then reward him by allowing him to meet the other dog (ask the other owner if it’s okay first).  When you see a wild bird, cue your dog for a behavior and then reward your dog by showing him the bird.  Soon, your dog is going to think that all he has to do is follow your instructions and you can magically make birds appear.

Training must be integrated with play.  By doing this, not only will you make training a fun and positive experience for your dog, but it will become so for you as well.  And since a positive consequence increases the likelihood of the behavior occurring again in the future, your dog will likely enjoy and appreciate the added attention.

Photo Gallery

These are just some of the random photos I took of Buddy today.  Enjoy!

No matter how many times I view these photos, I am always amazed at how nicely camouflaged he is and how well he blends in with the background.

Giving Your Bird A Bath

Yes, birds take baths.  Luckily for us, bathing is something that most birds love to do so they make it very easy for us.  Simply fill up your sink with water and let your bird loose.  Or, you can mist your bird down with a hose that has a misting option.  Both my birds prefer the latter.  Yours might be different.  Just find a method that your bird enjoys and stick with it.  Here are some photos of Buddy enjoying his shower on a nice warm day outside.

My birds get to shower at least once a week; sometimes more.  In the summer, they will usually shower everyday.  Not only is bathing a fun activity for your bird, it is essential for keeping their skin and feathers in top notch.

Just make sure that when you’re showering or bathing your bird, it is their choice.  If your bird doesn’t want to shower that day, don’t force it on them.  This will only make your bird hate water even more.  Remember to make it fun and positive!

After his shower, Buddy enjoys sun bathing.  The sunlight dries him up and it allows him to absorb vitamin D3, something that birds cannot do without sunlight.

Improving Reliability: The Window of Opportunity

So your dog learned a new trick.  The only problem is, he’ll only do the trick when he feels like it.  What are you to do in this situation?  How can we get the dog to do as we ask when we ask them?  Without question, reliability is one of the biggest problems we face when training any animal, from birds to dogs.

This would be a great time for you to reach deep down into your training toolbox to retrieve your shock collars, prong collars, and choke collars.  Now, it is important that you trash those because you won’t be needing them for this training session or any other subsequent sessions.

Improving reliability is an ongoing process.  It is something that we must work on continuously and in order for us to understand how to improve reliability, we must view this through the lens of mother nature.  Imagine there is a hawk perched high up on a lamppost.  When the hawk spots a mouse moving through the brushes below, the hawk does not sit and think “Hmm, should I get this mouse now or later”. The hawk knows that this opportunity might not come until hours, days, or even weeks later.  Until then, the hawk could starve to death.  There is a very short window of opportunity for deciding whether to dive on the mouse or to sit and wait.  Wait too long, and the opportunity is gone.

Nature provides many animals with a very short window of opportunity. Should this crowned eagle hesitate to act on its prey, the opportunity may not reveal itself until days or weeks later.

So, how does the example of the hawk help us to improve the reliability of our canine and avian companions?  In a typical training scenario, most owners would ask the dog to sit.  The dog understands the command but this time, refuses to do it.  So, most owners will continue to repeat “Rover, sit, sit sit!!!”  Unfortunately, repeating the command does not seem to work.  So what do owners do next?  They start yelling the command at the dog, as if though the dog was deaf and didn’t hear the command the first 20 times.  The problem is that in the dog’s mind, he doesn’t have to sit the first time because he knows the owner will give him a second chance at doing the behavior.  In fact, the owner will continue to give the dog many more opportunities to sit.  Why do it when the owner wants?  In this situation, the dog figures that he can sit whenever he wants because the owner will continue to give more chances for sitting by repeating the “sit” request and the reward for sitting will stay the same, regardless of when the dog sits.  The window of opportunity is very broad in this situation; what we created is trained slowness.

Many of Snuggles' training sessions are integrated with her play sessions at the park, making training very rewarding and fun. In fact, it's all just play to her!

To improve reliability, we must simply shorten the window of opportunity.  The window of opportunity is the time frame for when the dog can still perform the behavior and earn a reward.  So in the above scenario, the way we would shorten the window of opportunity and improve reliability is we simply would just ask our dog to sit:  “Rover, sit”.  Then, we pause and wait for the dog.  We do not need to repeat “sit” 10 or 20 times.  We simply pause and wait a few seconds.  If the dog sits within 5 seconds, praise and reward the dog.  If the dog fails to sit, give the dog one more chance by repeating the command only once.  If the dog does sit this time, praise and reward the dog.  However, if the dog still does not sit the second time around, leave.  Do not play with the dog, do not reward him with a treat, just leave him alone.  The window of opportunity is up.  The dog failed to capture his “mouse” because he was too slow to respond.  Now, just wait until the next training session and try again.  When used correctly, this method not only makes you appear less insane, it is highly effective for improving reliability in our companion animals because they learn that if they don’t comply with our request the first time, they lose that opportunity to earn a reward and that opportunity might not come back until hours, days, or weeks later.

To improve reliability, we need to continuously work on shortening the window of opportunity. Buddy is rewarded here for his prompt response.

Interestingly, the idea of a window of opportunity is not limited to just birds and dogs alone.  Humans are also affected by it.  Prime examples include a wife calling her husband repeatedly, only to have the him respond on the 10th or 20th call or a child coming down for dinner 10 minutes after mom called.  These habits can quickly become very irritating and frustrating to the other person.  To the wife, it may seem as if the husband is lazy or that he’s irresponsive.  In actuality, he very well does hear her, but it has been subconsciously ingrained in him that the point is to come on the 10th or 20th call.  If we want prompt response, we should opt to shorten the window of opportunity.  Simply give the command and wait a few seconds.  Then, decide if the response fell within your accepted time frame.  If it did, reward; if it didn’t, ignore.

*For completeness, I think that it’s important to mention that shortening the window of opportunity does not mean we are starving our animals to train.  In fact, it is extremely dangerous and downright cruel to starve any animal to train them.  When we shorten the animal’s window of opportunity, we’re simply shortening the time frame for when they can still earn the reward; but they are still freely fed their main/sole diet.

Parrot Biting

Most of the literature that has been written on parrot behavior suggests that biting and aggression are easily solved by techniques that serve to show the companion parrot “who’s in charge”.  This simplistic view strikes the novice owner as a great revelation because it is so intrinsically based on human behavior that we can make sense of it and accept it.  However, this view is limited in that it is drawn directly from human behavior with a disregard for the perspective of the companion parrot.

Buddy cleaning his feet.

During one of my early encounters with parrots, I witnessed a customer enter a bird store to complain that her cockatiel bites too much.  The response of the store employee and one that is often cited in most avian textbooks is that, “All birds bite”.  At the time, I didn’t think much about what had happened.  However, over the years that followed, my experience with training and keeping parrots has caused me to re-think this assumption.  Today, when looking back at this with my own birds, I think the assumption that “All birds bite” is wholly inaccurate when used to describe companion parrots.  I believe that a much more accurate assumption would be to say that all birds are capable of biting.

Parrots communicate greatly through their body language. Here, Buddy is shown enjoying a head scratch.

Parrots bite for numerous reasons but not all parrots will bite.  Some parrots bite because they are territorial, hormonal, defensive, agitated, and some may nip their owners because biting is one way parrots communicate.  In order to solve a biting problem, owners must first identify the underlying cause of the bird biting.  Is it territorial, hormonal, or defensive biting?  Each underlying cause is solved differently.  It is impossible to solve all problem biting by using just one strategy because the causes are different.  Yet, this is what most textbooks do when they suggest using “step up drills” or similar methods to try to solve all parrot biting problems.  The purpose of this post is not to provide owners a manual for diagnosing and solving all parrot biting problems.  Parrot behavior is so complex that no troubleshooting manual would ever be sufficient to accommodate for every single problem.  Rather, the purpose of this post is to:  (1) dispel the myths associated with parrot biting (2) examine the ineffectiveness of currently accepted methods of redirecting parrot aggression and (3) offer suggestions for redirecting parrot aggression by considering the perspective of the companion parrot.

Smokey, an African Grey Parrot

One of the biggest misconceptions when it comes to parrots is this idea that parrots have a flock leader and that owners should emulate this flock leader mentality with their own birds to show them who’s boss.  This is often used as a rationale in many books for enforcing horrible techniques to stop parrots from biting.  Without going further, I would like to state it clearly that parrots do not have a flock leader.  Biologists and ornithologists have never observed nor have they ever documented any evidence for the existence of a flock leader in a wild flock of parrots.  Considering the fact that wild flocks of budgies, cockatoos, and amazon parrots can number up to hundreds and sometimes thousands of birds, it becomes hard to imagine that there can be one bird who can oversee, much less have authority over the other hundreds and thousands of birds in the flock.  Parrots live in large social flocks; they do not have a flock leader.

Parrots are social animals that require daily interaction with their flock members. Buddy is shown here with his human flock.

The problem that arises when owners try to extrapolate the idea of a flock leader to companion parrot behavior is that they unintentionally create much more damage than was there in the first place.  Parrots are prey animals.  When they encounter a human being, their initial interaction with that person will tell them whether the person is someone to be trusted or if that person is a predator to be feared.  Now, imagine a novice owner reaching his hand into a parrot’s cage to take him out and the parrot bites.  What does every single bird book say to do?  Undoubtedly, all the bird books and most behaviorists will tell you to accept that bite, show no reaction and continue to press forward to force the bird out.  This is the currently accepted strategy for dealing with a parrot biting in this situation.  The thought behind it is that if you show no reaction to the bird’s bite, he will learn that biting is ineffective from getting you to back off.  Further, people believe that if we continue to press forward and force the bird out, then he will learn that we are the boss; we make the choices, he doesn’t.  Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong!   This is a great way to get bitten, it’s a great way to create a bird that fears hands, and this is a great way to create a bird that feels helpless in his environment – all of which are worthless qualities in a companion parrot.  If we wish to create a much more trusting, mutual, and ultimately friendlier relationship with our avian companions, we must adopt a different strategy when dealing with a biting parrot.

Empowerment is giving our birds choices and allowing them to make their own decisions. Smokey is shown here, sparkling with curiosity.

So what should we do when a parrot bites?  Show reaction, lots of it.  Although biting is natural for parrots, it is not natural for parrots to bite their flock members to the point of drawing blood.  So, what are we missing?  In the wild, a baby parrot growing up would experiment different things with his beak.  When he plays with his clutch mates and flock members, they will let him know when his beak delivers too much pressure.  If we observe our parrots playing with one another, they will often screech very loudly and very distinguishably to communicate pain.  This screech tells the other bird that he’s delivered too much pressure with his beak.  If the wild parrots do not learn how to inhibit the force of their bite, they will soon find themselves without a flock.  It is, therefore, essential to their survival to learn bite inhibition.  So, whenever my birds bite, I scream “ouch”, pull my hand away, and ignore the bird.  This short time-out lets the bird know that if he continues to bite, playtime will be over and his companion will disappear.  Eventually, my bird will learn to inhibit his bite so that it becomes less and less damaging.  However, even then, if my bird puts on even a tad bit of pressure, I would exaggerate and yell “ouch” even if it didn’t really hurt.  This tells the bird that human skin is super sensitive and they must be extra gentle.

Smokey, the gentle giant.

Of course, the limitation with this approach is that it works very well with birds that are already bonded to their human counterparts and see humans as being their flock members.  For these birds, biting means that owners leave, which is a bad thing since these birds adore human company.  For birds that are unaccustomed to humans and human hands, however, this approach may not work so well because it will reinforce the bird for biting.  Using this approach on a completely wild parrot, for example, will inadvertently teach the bird that biting is effective in getting humans to leave.  So, for these birds, we are dealing with defensive biting.  In this case, we must first earn the bird’s trust.  We do that using target training.

Parrots are capable of forming very strong bonds with their human companions.

Finding the Best Toys Your Dog Will Love

Sometimes, the best dog toys are those that you find unexpectedly.  While we were at the park a couple days ago, we wanted to play fetch with Snuggles but without a ball, this simple task became pretty difficult.  So Dina decided to look through her purse for anything that we might be able to use.  We found a portable hair brush that when folded in,  looks like a plastic disk.  So, we decided to give it a shot.  The cool thing about this was that since it was in the shape of a disk, we could easily roll this across the field and it would continue to move on and on.  Snuggles was immediately hooked because she loves to chase things that move.  Round after round, she tirelessly fetched her new toy with pure joy and excitement.  This quickly topped her list of favorite toys; it sure topped ours as well because we love to see her having a good time.

Of course, this is not to suggest that you start giving your dogs random things to play with.  That would be downright dangerous.  However, with a little imagination and some common sense, we could find different ways to enrich our dogs’ lives while saving a few bucks on our pets’ yearly expenses.  Needless to say, there will probably be a time when you’re somewhere with your dog and a fetch toy might not be in obvious reach.  In these times -just like how our dogs explore their environments- we should explore ours for potential ways to make our dogs’ lives more interesting.  Who knows, along the way we might discover that our dogs’ favorite toys might be something that’s been lying around for quite some time untouched.  Nowadays, we rarely leave for the park without bringing her hairbrush toy.  This thing keeps her going!

Enjoying a nice day at the park.

Snuggles chasing after her new toy.

Got it!

I'm coming back!

Almost there!

Where's my toy?

Going for it again!

Okay, maybe not so "tirelessly".

Puppy Biting

Puppies come with razor sharp teeth and their bites can be very painful.  If these puppies are not taught to inhibit the force of their bite during puppyhood, these bites can be lethal when the puppy grows older and stronger.  In fact, it can quickly become the ticket that gets the puppy sent to the pound or worse, put down.  When we teach puppies to inhibit their bite, we do not teach them out of frustration.  We do not want to teach the puppy to stop biting all at once!  Teaching a puppy that it cannot bite human hands without teaching them bite inhibition is downright dangerous.  Instead, we teach this in a two step process:  (1) We teach the puppy to inhibit the force of their bite and (2) we teach the puppy to stop biting or to reduce the frequency of their bite.

Teaching bite inhibition means we are teaching our puppy that their bites have the potential to cause pain.  All dogs must learn this just like a human child would.  We do not hit our children when they bite too hard, so let’s not do that to our dogs.  They must learn that they have to reduce the force of their bite so that it becomes gentle mouthing.  In order to teach this, we begin by playing with our dogs.  Whenever your dog puts pressure on your skin, immediately scream “OUCH!” and leave the room.  This teaches the puppy that his bite causes pain and therefore, playtime ends whenever he inflicts pain on his human companion.  Return 2 minutes later and resume playing with your puppy.  It is important that you do not wait too long to return because an important part of the teaching process is giving your puppy chances to learn from his mistakes.  So, resume playing with your puppy and whenever he puts pressure on your skin, immediately scream “OUCH!” and exit the room again.  You want to repeat this procedure until your dog learns that he must limit or inhibit the force of his bite.  Eventually, his bites will get less and less painful, indicating that the dog is learning proper bite inhibition.

Snuggles relieving her urge to chew on a bone.

In this exercise, your goal is to get your dog to think that “Gee, these humans are super sensitive!  I have to be very careful with them”  So when you’re playing with your dog, saying “OUCH!” the first few times and exiting the room will cause your dog to gradually inhibit his bite so that it becomes less and less painful.  What you want to do is continue saying “OUCH!” even if the bite doesn’t hurt you.  Fake that even a little pressure the dog puts on your skin causes excessive and massive pain.  Yell “OUCH” and exit the room.  This will teach your dog that human skin is extremely sensitive and that he must inhibit his bite to just gentle mouthing. Gentle mouthing, is okay as long as you initiate it.  However, the dog must learn to stop at your request.  The way to do this is to tell the dog “off” while offering a treat in the other hand.  Since mouthing and eating the treat are mutually exclusive or incompatible behaviors (your dog cannot mouth you and eat the treat at the same time), your dog will quickly learn to let go to look for a treat.  You can eventually fade out the treat by offering just praise and affection.  Never allow your dog to bite your hair, clothes, or shoes, since these things cannot give feedback to how hard the bite is.  If your dog is allowed to bite your hair, for example, he may one day miss and hit your face.  Since your dog never learned to inhibit his bite on hair (since there was no feedback from the hair), the bite will likely be severe.

It is extremely important that in addition to you teaching your dog bite inhibition, that he receive the same training from other puppies.  If you have friends that have puppies, set up a puppy play date.  While puppies are playing, they learn a great deal about bite inhibition.  Whenever one dog gets too rough and bites too hard, you will hear the other dog yelp in pain.  This dog will stop playing for a short period of time to attend to his superficial injuries.  During this short time out, the other dog will learn that if he does not inhibit the force of his bite, he will lose his playmate.  So, what the puppies are teaching each other is exactly what we try to emulate in our own training with them.

Snuggles and rexter playing. These play sessions are important in teaching good bite inhibition.

Some people may question why it is necessary to teach bite inhibition.  Why not teach the dog that he cannot bite in the first place?  Well, imagine a clumsy 5 year old child tripping over your dog and falling on your dog, stepping on his tail.  This dog might react by quickly turning over and biting the girl in the face.  Without good bite inhibition, both the girl and the dog are doomed.  However, a dog with good bite inhibition, although he may still react by turning and biting, his bite will be inhibited so that it causes little if any injury.  There will always be a time when accidents will happen, especially in a house with children.  In these cases, it is apparent that bite inhibition is extremely important and well worth the time and effort to teach.

Teaching Dogs to Come When Called

Working with flighted birds, I have learned the importance of good recall.  Without good recall, I’d probably be without my birds.  When it comes to dogs, this is no different.  A dog that will not reliably come when called faces many dangers.  When this dog is off leash at the park, he could run into traffic, get attacked by another dog, attack another dog, injure small children, or run off to never be seen again.  These scenarios are very tragic and they’re a dog owner’s worst nightmare, but they are indeed very real.  This makes recall (coming on command) one of the most important lessons in dog training, second only to bite inhibition.

Good recall makes life with our pets much easier. Shown here, Snuggles waits for some cuddles.

If you have to chase after your dog to retrieve him, your dog obviously does not have reliable recall.  Similarly, if you always have to show your dog his treats in order to get him to come, he does not have reliable recall.  If your dog comes when called while he’s at home but gets distracted when he’s outside or at the park, your dog does not have a reliable recall.  All the commands that we teach our dogs -let it be sit, down, stay, or come- are useless unless our dogs could perform these behaviors while distracted in a public setting.  As dog guardians, we must prepare our dogs for these real life situations, when they matter most.

To teach reliable recall, all we have to do is make it a very exciting and rewarding experience for our dogs whenever they come to us.  First, start in a non-distracting area such as your living room and call your dog to come using any command that you wish.  Pick one command and stick with it.  If your dog is distracted and won’t come, you have to make yourself more interesting to your dog than whatever he’s doing.  Start encouraging your dog by calling his name as enthusiastically as you possibly can.  If people aren’t looking at you weird, you’re not enthusiastic enough.  Clap your hands, bend over to your dog’s level, call him again.  Sound happy.  Show him a treat if you have to.  Second, when your dog finally runs over to you, say in a very enthusiastic voice “Good dog!”  Third, reward him with his favorite treat and offer lots of praise, petting (if your dog enjoys it), belly rubs, favorite toys, and any other things that he finds rewarding.  Fourth, send your dog back to playing and during his play, call him over randomly and repeat steps 1-4.  By sending your dog back to playing after he’s come to you, you are teaching your dog that coming to you does not mean that the fun is over but that he can resume whatever he was doing after he comes to you.

With good recall, your dog will enjoy much more freedom and you could afford a peace of mind when your dog is off leash.

After your dog has learned that coming to you is very rewarding and starts rushing over to you every time you call, have a friend come over to help you train your dog.  You can train this in your living room, backyard, or front yard, as long as it’s not too distracting for your dog.  Have your friend stand or sit as far away from you as the space allows.  First, have your friend call your dog to come and reward him as you did in your previous training sessions.  Then, after your friend has rewarded your dog for coming, call your dog to come to you and reward him when he gets there.  Continue to pass your dog back and forth, remembering to always reward your dog with lots of treats, love, and attention when he gets to you.  Continue this game for no more than 15 minutes as you want to end on a good note.  Keep the training session short so that your dog will always want more and so that the training stays positive for both of you.

So now that your dog has learned to rush over to you whenever he’s called, its time to build up the distractions.  If you’ve practiced in the living room, its time to move out to the backyard or somewhere that the dog can be safely let off leash.  After you’ve practiced in the backyard, move on to the park.  Be careful!  Do not take your dog off leash at the park.  Bring along with you a very long lead to attach to your dog’s collar or harness.  This is only to prevent escape!  They are not meant for control; control is established through good training.  At the park, with your dog secured properly to prevent escape, practice calling your dog to come over every few minutes.  When your dog does, lavishly praise and reward your dog then send him back to playing.  Eventually, your dog will notice a jogger, another dog, a bird, or become distracted by other scents in the environment.  This is your opportunity to train your dog to come with distractions.  When your dog is distracted, call him to come over.  You might have to start clapping your hands again this time and start speaking very enthusiastically.  When your dog comes, reward him with a jackpot of several of his very best treat that you haven’t been using during the training session.  Practice working with distractions by training in different locations.  Train at a friend’s house, another park, a dog park, the dog beach, etc.

Snuggles playing on our yard.

So, at this time you might be wondering, do I always need to reward my dog with a treat whenever he comes?  No.  When you first train him to come, you must always reward him for coming.  However, once your dog understands the command, you should only be rewarding the fastest and best recalls with treats.  Slower recalls will still receive your praise and acknowledgement, but they will not be rewarded with treats or higher end rewards.  If you continue training your dog using this strategy, you will soon have a dog that races to you every time you call.

Training should always be fun for both the trainer and the dog. Snuggles is shown here resting on Dina, watching the world go by.

Lastly, I want you to notice something; something very important.  Notice that throughout our training, we have never once shouted at the dog and we have never physically reprimanded the dog.  It is critical that you understand this.  When we train recall, we are in essence teaching our dogs to want to be around us.  It is, therefore, very important that we make ourselves very pleasant to be around.  We have to make it so that our dogs will love being around us.  If your dog doesn’t come when called and you decide to yell at your dog when he finally gets there, know that your dog will not understand why he’s being yelled at.  To the owner, it may seem like you’re teaching your dog that it is unacceptable to ignore your request to come.  However, the dog will not associate the punishment with not coming when called seconds earlier.  Instead, all the dog knows is that he came to you and he got yelled at.  This is not a very pleasant experience for the dog and you are a not a very pleasant person to be around.  So, always reward your dog for coming and reward faster responses with better rewards.  In the end, your dog should always see coming to you as being exciting and rewarding.  Happy training!

Potty Training for Dog Owners

Potty training begins on the first day you bring your dog home.  Should you decide to wait for a day or two before you begin potty training, your dog has probably already soiled somewhere in the house.  You have already allowed him to develop a bad habit that has now made potty training much more difficult.  So, it is imperative that you start now and not wait any longer.  A dog that isn’t potty trained is destined to spend his life tied out in the backyard or will end up playing lotto with his life in a cage at the shelter.  In either case, the untrained dog will probably be unsuitable as a household pet.

Potty training is very simple but it requires consistency.  When you first bring your dog home, have a long term confinement area set up for him.  This is an area that your dog will spend his time in when you’re away and can’t look after him.  The long term confinement area should be relatively small.  It should fit your dog’s bed on one end, a bowl of water, a few chewtoys, and a pee pad on the other end opposite to your dog’s bed.  Snuggle’s playpen is pictured below and this is an adequate long term confinement area, although her pee pad should have been placed on the other end opposite to her bed.  The purpose of the long term confinement area is to prevent mistakes.  Dogs tend to keep their living areas clean and will not soil their beds.  By placing a pee pad on the opposite side farthest from your dog’s bed, he will have a place to eliminate that is appropriate when you’re gone.  Without this long term confinement area, an unpotty-trained dog that is allowed to roam the house or backyard will learn very quickly that they can eliminate anywhere, even on your favorite floor mat.

Keep your dog in a long term confinement area while you're away from home. This is Snuggles in her playpen.

When you are home and you’re playing with your dog, play with him in a small room.  You should have your dog in sight the whole time he’s with you.  If your dog ever gets out of sight when you’re with him, there is a possibility that he might eliminate while you’re not looking.  Prevent this!  If you’re home and you cannot keep an eye on your dog the whole time, keep your dog in a dog crate with some chewtoys.  Again, your dog will not soil his bed.  If he does, he’s been in there for way too long.  The next step is crucial, read carefully.  Every one hour, attach a leash to your dog and rush him outside to where you want him to potty.  Entice your dog to hurry and run after you until you reach the area where you want your dog to eliminate.  Do not walk there, rush him there on leash.  The point is, your dog has been confined for quite a long time; so chances are, when you take him out he needs to go!  If you walk there or allow your dog any lag time, he will most definitely eliminate right on your carpet or somewhere else in your house.  So, rush your dog on leash to where you want him to go.  Give him whatever command you want him to associate with going potty, and allow him three minutes to relieve himself.  Immediately after your dog has relieved himself, enthusiastically praise him by telling him “Good boy” and reward him with three pieces of his favorite treats.  Walk your dog back inside and allow your dog to play with you for thirty minutes before you lock your dog back in his crate.  If your dog does not eliminate himself within three minutes, walk him back inside and lock him back in his crate.  Take the dog back out in another hour and try again.  The dog will soon learn that he could “cash in” his urine and feces for treats and playtime.  Soon, you will have a dog that happily eliminates on command.

When your dog is with you, make sure he is in plain sight so that he cannot eliminate out of your sight.

The point of the long term confinement is to allow your dog to eliminate on a pee pad, something that you deem is appropriate while you’re gone.  Without the long term confinement area, your dog will simply eliminate all over the house.  The confinement area makes your dog want to eliminate on the pee pad because that’s the only thing that’s farthest away from his bed.  The short term confinement area (the crate) is for you to predict when your dog needs to go pee so that you can show him where you want him to go.  Since the dog has been locked up for an hour in the crate, you can predict that he probably needs to go the minute you let him out.  So, you can rush him to where you want him to pee, repeat the command, and praise and reward your dog when he eliminates.  After several repetitions, you will have a housetrained dog that eliminates on command.  Snuggles took less than two weeks to potty train, yours may be a little bit more or a little bit less.

After you’ve gone this far, some people are okay with having their dogs eliminate on the pee pad while indoors.  Others prefer their dogs eliminate outside completely.  If this is the case, all you need to do is to take your dog outside every few hours that he’s been in the playpen and give your dog the command to go potty.  Lavishly praise and reward your dog three pieces of his favorite treats when he does.  Then, allow him to play in the house.  Once your dog is rock solid on eliminating outside and you’ve made the determination that he is 100% potty trained, meaning that he never made a mistake indoors and he eliminates on command most of the time, you can simply reward your dog with just praise and affection.  You only need to reward your dog with treats in the beginning, but once he’s potty trained, this good habit of eliminating outside will be just as hard to break as a bad habit.  Eliminating outside becomes a self-reinforcing behavior.

Snuggles on a pee pad.

This method of potty training is highly effective and is errorless if done correctly.  Your dog will learn that he can “cash in” his urine and feces for treats and playtime.  This creates a much bigger incentive for eliminating outside versus on the couch.  Just make sure that your dog is not confined in his crate for more than an hour.  The worst thing you can teach your dog is to eliminate in his crate.  If you catch your dog in the act, rush him outside.  Pick him up and bring him outside if you have to.  This will prevent future mistakes.  If your dog has already soiled in the house, clean it thoroughly so that the scent is gone.  I suggest using Nature’s Miracle.

If you catch your dog making a mistake and soiling in the house, never push his nose against his own urine or feces.  Would you do this to a baby?  Probably not.  Punishing your dog will only teach him to eliminate out of your sight.  Your dog will quickly learn to eliminate behind your sofa or even worse, they might try to get rid of the evidence by eating it.  Instead, work on preventing these mistakes since you are not doing a very good job at predicting when your dog is going to eliminate.

Provde your dog with lots of chewtoys to occupy his/her time while you're away.

By confining your dog both long term and short term, you teach your dog how to occupy himself by playing with chewtoys while you’re not present.  The long and short term confinement also prevents your dog from eliminating in places that you don’t want.  This confinement will only be temporary, lasting as long as it takes to potty train your dog.  Once your dog is potty trained, he could enjoy full run of the house and will be entitled the freedom to travel with you on many adventures.  On the other hand, if your dog is entitled  full run of the house before he is potty trained, he will more than likely not be potty trained at all.  While this dog enjoyed early freedom, he will most likely spend the rest of his life in the confinement of the backyard, never allowed on expeditions, and in some cases, will be condemned to a cage at the pound.

Once potty trained, your dog enjoys much more freedom.

Training Parrots to Talk on Cue

Whenever I have visitors over, the question that I’m most often asked about my birds is “Do they talk?”  After confirming that my birds do talk, I always found it kind of funny to watch people talking at my birds by repeating a word over and over in monotony while my birds sit in silence.  Watching this, I cannot help but to think that my birds must feel insulted that their intelligence has gone unappreciated.  Imagine having a complete stranger coming up to you and rudely talking at you as if though the only words you knew how to say were “Hello” and “Polly want a cracker?”  I watch with humor as my birds purposely shut up as if though they didn’t know how to say a word.

Parrots are extremely intelligent animals. This is Smokey enjoying an apple.

I never understood why some people are so fascinated by a bird that mimics after them.  But if anyone was sincerely intrigued by a bird that mimics and are determined to get one, I always try to help by directing them to Target or Walmart.  At these stores, people could get a bird that only needs to be fed batteries very so often and best of all, it’s guaranteed to mimic anything after you.  All kidding aside, the ability to mimic human words is one of the pluses of keeping pet parrots because it can be entertaining.  Sadly, this has also contributed to the abuse and abandonment of numerous birds all over the world simply because the birds did not live up to their owner’s expectations or because their owner failed to take the time to learn about the needs of the birds.  Talking ability, therefore, is no reason for anyone to just go out and get a parrot.  Parrots can do much more, they’re much more intelligent than that.

Parrots make excellent companions for a number of reasons, talking being only one of the very small reasons.

Rather than merely mimicking, I have trained both Buddy and Smokey to do something much more interesting.  I trained them to talk on cue (command).  Talking on cue basically means that instead of repeating a word after me, the birds learn to respond to verbal prompts or commands.  Both my birds can, therefore, answer various questions that I ask.  To me, this is much more impressive than merely mimicking and it’s always a jaw dropper for visitors as they watch in disbelief.

But aside from being much more impressive, teaching your bird to talk on cue challenges and stimulates your bird’s mind since it requires them to  exercise their brain.  So, while I was working on Smokey’s recall the other day, she would chirp at me instead.  I took this as a great opportunity to capture her chirping on cue.  I even got a video of it and I hope that this will prove to be useful for anyone who wants to train this behavior.