Why Your Dog Is Acting Weird During The Corona Virus Quarantine: Tips To Reduce Your Dog's Stress Level!
Stress levels are high and your dog is acting different. I will give you some tips….
Life has changed as we know it not just for us but for our dogs as well. A lot of people have reached out to me asking me why their dog is acting different during this Corona Virus Quarantine. First off, dogs are like us. They like a routine. All of the sudden everything is thrown off and the family is acting weird. Stress levels are high and the pooch is acting different lately.
WHY?
As your stress level changes so does that of your dog. They pick up on your energy and you can actually add to their stress. I am going to give you an example. Have you been around someone who is panicking? All of the sudden even though you were totally normal your state of mind changes.
Another example I use often is little kids. If you have three children playing they feed off of each other. If one is acting all energetic and bouncing off the walls usually the other two begin to do the same… Right? Yep!
Now, tie that back to your dog. You are acting different. You are home all of the sudden when you are usually at work or driving the kids around. Now there are multiple people home all the time. Little kids running around? Bored or going stir crazy? You may be working from home? All of these things are not normal to your pet.
You may be uncertain about your work or just nervous because none of us have ever experienced this in our existence…. Moral of the story is your dog is like what the beeep is going on. Why are they acting weird? As a result, your pup starts acting different. Then you start to freak out thinking why is he/she acting this way. Now you really begin to act different around your dog and your pooch is really getting confused. It’s a revolving cycle and you can actually add to your dog’s stress level.
Ways to Reduce your Dog’s Stress during the Quarantine:
The best thing I can tell you is do your best to act calm. One of the best pieces of advice I received from a mentor was to not treat any situation different. This has stuck with me since I have heard it and I attribute that mindset to a lot of my success training dogs. Like I mentioned if tensions are high your dog will sense that. Below I will give you a few things that have helped dogs I have trained when stressed.
Do something you know your dog enjoys.
Take your dog for a walk to get some fresh air. Personally, I am being careful with this as I am trying to limit my exposure to people given everything going on. With that said letting a dog run or burn off some energy can be beneficial. I have taken my dog to fenced in areas where no one is and have let him run. He loves it and at the end he is worn out.
Remember dogs like routine and they are very in tune to your behavior so try to keep somewhat of a schedule and do you best to not stress and act normal.
Play fetch in the backyard. I actually have been playing with my lab, Yeti (click here to see his Instagram) in the house to limit exposure to outside germs.
TRAIN YOUR DOG! This is one many people overlook yet has great benefits. Not only does it build mutual respect and obedience but it builds a stronger bond between you and your furry friend! Taking 15-60 minutes throughout the day can yield great results. The best part about this is that with social distancing recommended, you can train your pup in your house! You can work on things such as sit, come, down and stay for starters.
I will leave a link below this to my online dog training courses where I send you videos of me instructing you how to train your own dog incase you want to learn. Courses are currently on SALE due to COVID-19. My goal is to help as many people as I can so I have reduced prices for a short time. If you want to check out my online video based course click on them below :)!
Basic Obedience Online Dog Training Course for Dogs 4.5 months and Older
Puppy Imprinting Training Course for Puppies 8-15 weeks old
Questions For Me?
If you are having trouble with your dog during this time you can contact me and I can answer any questions you may have to the best of my ability. To access my schedule CLICK HERE!
If you want more insights and tips follow click below to follow me on social media where I post videos and tips daily!
How To Exercise Your Dog’s Mind During Quarantine!
During these tough times I give you my advice on how to mentally stimulate your dog during quarantine….
We are all in uncharted waters these days. It is pretty wild to say the least. Personally, I pictured an apocalypse kinda like the hit AMC series, The Walking Dead. Something like Rick walking through the streets surviving. Never in a million years would I think I would be locked in my house. Fortunate for me I can be working remotely on this business. Going on day 15 as I write this and I have left the house twice. Once for groceries and another time to let Yeti run in a field!
Anyway, I am writing this to give you some ideas of things you can do while in #Lockdown to keep your puppy dog sane and quite frankly, yourself too!
Easy Ways To Work your Dog’s Mind While In Quarantine!
Some of you may be able to complete your normal daily walks. However, not everyone can. Depending on where you live and whether you are in the suburbs or the heart of the city play a big role!
A lot of friends and customers have been reaching out to me saying their dog is going crazy since they are unable to go to dog parks and other common areas they normally visit. One thing I have suggested to them is to work on training their dog! You can do this anywhere!
Training your own dog will not only build a stronger bond with your furry friend but it makes them think! It tires them out mentally. You do not need much room to train your dog. Working on heel, sit, down and stay can all be done in the house, basement, the backyard or the garage!
15-30 minutes of training your dog would do wonders and if you can work around 45-60 minutes a day I can guarantee you that your dog will be hitting the snooze button early! More importantly, training your own dog during the quarantine will help mentally exhaust your dog’s mind and keep you from going crazy :)
You can work on the basics: Heel (walk at my side without pulling-incase you don’t know what heel means), Sit, Down (lay down), Stay and Come!
In order to help you out I will include some links below to Youtube videos I have created. The videos are all pretty basic stuff you can begin to work on.
Dog Training Exercises You Can Work On At Home!
Learn to teach your dog to sit and stay: CLICK HERE!
What does heel mean in dog training? CLICK HERE!
How to stop your puppy from jumping when greeting people! CLICK HERE!
How to teach your puppy to get into the car: CLICK HERE!
How to teach your puppy (8-15 weeks old) to come: CLICK HERE!
If you want my TOP 5 FREE DOG TRAINING TIPS emailed to you as well as a video teaching you how to get your dog to Heel ==> CLICK HERE!!
If you want more insights and tips follow click below to follow me on social media where I post videos and tips daily!
The Importance of Dog Training: Why You Should Train Your Own Puppy Dog Or Have It Trained!
Training your dog has a lot of benefits and in this post I talk about the importance….
I have been training dogs my entire life and I learn new things daily. One of the most important things I have learned is the importance of training your dog. Whether you train your own dog on your own with help of my ONLINE DOG TRAINING COURSE or you have your pup trained by a professional, it needs to be done and there are tremendous benefits to a trained dog.
Why? You may ask.
I relate dog training to school for kids. Can you imagine a world where kids did not go to school? Did not learn structure? Rules? Etc?
Just imagine that for a minute… It would be chaos. The children’s behavior would be out of control since they were never taught how to properly behave. Now take that same framework and apply it to dog training. In my opinion, there is no difference.
However, so many people never train their dog and they wonder why their pup acts like a monster- jumping on people, nipping people, not listening, etc. The consequences of that can be bad depending on the situation and the dog’s temperament. Yes, there are obviously exceptions. Some people get lucky and never really need to train their dog. I will say though even if you fall into that category, imagine how much better your dog would be with some training. Now getting back to what I was saying. Just yesterday at my brick and mortar dog training business, Carriage Hill Kennels I was reminded of why training is so important.
A customer had two dogs. One was an older dog who had no problems, that I could see at least. The other was a 1.5 year old german shepherd who clearly has had no training and it showed as he wanted to kill the puppy that I was training in my office. He was on a collar that was way too big and had he slipped out of the collar (which he almost did) it would have been bad. Now, nothing happened as I was watching that dog’s every move but that was a dangerous dog. The scary thing is many people are unaware that their dog may be dangerous.
This was simply a result of that dog not having training and he has been getting away with these “bad habits” for 1.5 years. There is a time frame in which you have to fix bad behaviors before they get really bad. This is one of many reasons I stress the importance of getting your dog trained. Now, remember training your dog a little bit is better then never doing it at all.
If you know me you know I say stress this often, “A Well Trained Dog Starts With A Well Trained Owner!”
Below you can see some of the benefits of getting your dog trained.
Benefits of Training your Dog:
Your dog learns what is and what is not allowed.
It strengthens the bond between you and your puppy/dog.
It gives your dog something to look forward to— kind of like me looking forward to working out.
It can help build your dog’s confidence
These are just a few benefits. Many people look at training their dog as a burden. To be honest, if you treat it like that then yeah it just may be. If you look at it a little differently and take the above benefits into effect you can see the positives that come from a trained puppy. A lot of dog’s even become more relaxed and confident in themselves. One thing that I stress is YOU are the leader. If you are a good leader then your dog will be good. If you train your dog and you are confident in his/her ability you will become a lot calmer thus resulting in a calmer more confident dog.
I can not stress how important training your dog or puppy is. I personally start training my puppy as soon as I get it and if you need help you can check out my Online Puppy Training Course where I teach you everything you need to know about welcoming a new puppy to the family. This short video course is designed for puppies 9-15 weeks old and is very concise making everything easy for you to comprehend. If you want to ditch your puppies bad habits and develop good ones you can learn more about it by CLICKING HERE
If your puppy dog is older than 15 weeks I also have a Basic Obedience Dog Training Course that I run at my family business and the results have been tremendous. So much so that I created an online version so you can train your own dog. If you want to learn to train your own dog then this course is for you. You will see me on camera explaining and showing you step-by-step how to train your own dog. If that interests you, you can learn more by CLICKING HERE!
If you want more insights and tips follow click below to follow me on social media where I post videos and tips daily!
How To Teach Your Puppy To Come Back To You!
In this post I break dog step by step how to train your puppy to come….
Many of my customers have a hard time teaching their puppy to come back to them. How often do you let your dog out in the backyard only to play catch me if you can before finally getting your puppy back inside? Or you call your dog and he just decides to do his own thing!
This is for good reason, Recall as it is called in the dog training world (aka calling your dog) is one of the harder things to teach your puppy! However, if you follow how I train my puppies to come back to me you should be off to a good start! It is very important to start training your puppy to come back to you at a young age. I am going to walk you through step by step how I train puppies that are 8-15 weeks to come back to me.
If your dog is older than 15 weeks you can still do this, however, I do it a little differently with older dogs. You can check out my online course where I show you how to train your dog to come back on the leash by CLICKING HERE.
When training young puppies I like to use a little treat or a piece of dog food. Once your dog is 4 months and older I no longer use food, at that point I just use praise however, for these youngsters I use some treats.
How To Train Your Own Puppy To Come:
Step 1: Say your dog’s name, followed by come or here whichever command you prefer.
Step 2: As your puppy comes to you verbally praise your dog by saying, “Good boy/good girl” and encouraging your puppy the entire time until it gets to you.
Step 3: Once your puppy comes to you say, “Yes” and then give the puppy the treat. If you do not have treats or if your dog is not food motivated just praise your puppy and make it a big deal.
Step 4: Practice training your puppy daily for 5 minutes by repeating steps 1-3 and your puppy should start to come back to you a lot better.
That is how I train puppies to come. In the video below you can see me training a customer’s puppy and I explain everything while teaching the puppy to come.
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