Wasatch Canine Camp Newsletter

Wasatch Canine Camp provides help for Memorial Day

Wasatch Canine Camp knows that with the upcoming Memorial Day weekend, dogs across the country will react with fear and anxiety to all the firework celebrations.

“The noise of fireworks can be extremely stressful for dogs,” said Bethany Tracy, a member of the International Association of Canine Professionals and Owner of Wasatch Canine Camp in. “We recommend these top ten strategies to dog owners, to help them through the Memorial Day weekend.”

1. DO expose your dog to loud, unexpected noises on a regular basis, especially leading up to an event that includes firework celebrations. Drop pot lids, toss a soda can with a few pennies in it, slam a door: anything to get your dog accustomed to being startled, so he can practice recovering quickly.

2. DO NOT bring your dog with you to a fireworks celebration.

3. DO provide your dog with a safe, comfortable place that will help her feel more secure amid the scary sights and sounds. Close the blinds to keep out the flashes of color in the sky, and turn up the television or some music to help muffle the sounds.

4. DO NOT put your dog in a crate; a panicked, frightened dog can easily injure himself in a crate.

5. DO ask your veterinarian if an herbal remedy or prescription sedative may be appropriate for your dog.

6. DO consider giving your dog a highly valued chew toy before the fireworks celebration begins, which may help to keep her mind off the disturbance.

7. DO attach a “house leash” to your dog, to act as an extra long handle, should your dog try to escape or run away.

8. DO NOT comfort or “baby” your dog if he is afraid. Dogs take their cue of how to behave from their owners; if you are acting “strange” by offering soothing words and gestures, your dog may interpret your actions as praise for being frightened, or as confirmation that the fireworks are truly scary.

9. DO act as normal and as “matter of fact” as possible, to help your dog understand that there is nothing to worry about.

10. Most importantly, DO ensure your dog is wearing proper identification in case he manages to escape.

“More dogs escape during holiday celebrations than at any other time,” said Bethany Tracy. “With a little preparation and an understanding of how to help dogs through their fears, dog owners can help prevent their pet from becoming a statistic this Memorial Day weekend.”

Bethany Tracy is a member of the International Association of Canine Professionals, a group of trainers, veterinarians, kennel operators, dog walkers, retailers, and other professionals dedicated to the well being of dogs. With an IACP member, you know you’re in Safe Hands. Visit the IACP website at www.dogpro.org.

For more information:
Bethany Tracy
Wasatch Canine Camp
bbarnes@wasatchcaninecamp.com
801-735-1978

We will be moving our Pack to Basics classes to Sydney’s Bed & Biscuit in American Fork on June 11th! Please save the new location and time of class, so you don’t forget!! We will only be having one class for now (it’s a bigger socialization area) until we need to make a second class. Dogs of all ages and sizes are welcome!!

Until June 11th, we will still be holding Pack to Basics classes at the regular location and times!

Please let us know if you have any questions!

And don’t forget, we hold these classes EVERY week, even in bad weather! Hope to see everyone there!

New Address (starting June 11th): 574 E Main St. American Fork, UT

New Time: 10:00am – 11:00am

Willow practicing the “place” command with two dogs as a distraction.

This is an awesome video of Willow working off leash with medium distractions (basically, me just moving at faster paces). She’s doing so great!

This is Willow, a one year old German Shepherd that is here for my boot camp program. This video is of her first time off leash on the e-collar. She does pretty well, but you can tell that she tries to test her boundaries a lot while I am working with her. She does a lot better at the end of the video, and I know that each day she will continue to get better. Keep checking back for more videos of Willow.

This is Willow. She started out as one of my fosters, got adopted, and now she is going through my Boot Camp program before going to her new home. She is doing great here, and is adjusting well. This video is of her first time on the remote training collar. She reacted typically for a dog’s first time on the e-collar. If you notice, at the end of the video, she is staying closer to my side and giving me more check-ins, which is what we want. The more I work with her, the more she will improve. She will slowly start staying closer to my side, until I can do an off leash heel with her around distractions. Keep checking back for video updates on Willow!

Below are the rest of Peyton’s videos that I took while she was here. She went home on Saturday, the 30th of October. She ended up doing awesome! I loved working with that girl! Sorry it took me so long to post the rest of her videos. Enjoy!

Today was Peyton’s 7th day here with me for the Boot Camp training program.  She is doing great!  The main things I am focusing on right now is gaining her focus with the electric dog training collar, and teaching her to slow down when she is anxious and stressed (she likes to just rush ahead and do what she wants when she is feeling anxious).  She is getting better, but is improving a little slower than I’d like her to.  It might be because of her age (she’s almost 7), but it’s most likely just because of her stressed personality.  She’ll get it, I’m in no rush.  I still have about 3 more weeks with her, which should be plenty of time to help her lower her stress level.  Other than that, she is doing great.  She is sleeping well in her crate (she used to howl a lot), she is eating everyday, and going to the bathroom regularly (she refused to eat or poop the first 3 days I had her).  She’s a smart girl, I just know her stress level is holding her back.  She’ll get it!

The first of the two videos below is of her 5th day here with me.  I am working her on the e-collar to help gain her focus on me and am teaching her to slow down.  As you can see, she is following me a lot closer than she did in her first video, and I am even able to start adding in more commands for her to listen to.  The second video of her below, is of her playing with my 11-month-old Bernese Mountain Dog, Lilly.  It’s the first time I’ve seen her play with another dogs while I’ve had her, so I was really happy to see this.

On Saturday I got Peyton, a 6-year-old German Shepherd for the Boot Camp program.  She is here to learn manners, learn to control her anxiety level, master obedience, dog behavior training, and to learn proper socialization using the electric dog training collar.  She is doing well here, but is definitely very anxious about where her owners are.  She is constantly checking the doors and searching for her owners.  She relies way too much on her owners and bring in control over them.  Now that they’re gone, she has no idea what to do.  She doesn’t know how to relax and be told what to do it seems like.  Each day she is getting less and less anxious about where they are, but it is definitely going to be a process for her each day until she relaxes.

Other than her anxiety, she is doing well.  I have started her on the electric dog training collar, and she is progressing typically on the collar like she should be.  The video below is of her first time on the collar, and as you can see, she is constantly running to the end of the leash, and hardly staying by my side.  Typically it takes most dogs 5-7 days before they start focusing on me more, and walking closer to my side.  At that point I will start adding in commands, and doing off leash work.  Until then, I will keep working her on the collar until she realizes what she needs to do and understand what the collar means.  The e-collar is a process, and you have to wait until they understand it on their own, instead of having to rely on you telling them what to do.  Too many dogs in the world today are over talked to, and so they’re just conditioned to commands, instead of behaviors.  They may be sitting, but that doesn’t mean they’re mentally sitting.  Most dogs will go into the sit position, but in their mind they’re thinking “Let’s go!  Let’s go!!”.  So, they’re physically sitting, not mentally sitting.  When you train this way with the e-collar, waiting for them to figure it out on their own, it helps the dog to become naturally calmer and easier to work with.  It’s definitely worth the wait in the long run.

This week I am attending a Pack to Basics ™ work shop that focuses on dealing with difficult dogs, and Peyton gets to tag along with me. She definitely isn’t an extremely difficult dog, and she doesn’t need this workshop, but since I have her for this month, she gets to come with me. The workshop is at K9 Lifeline’s facility in Salt Lake. Peyton is doing great with her dog socialization so far, but I think her true personality towards dogs will come out more once she gets more comfortable here.  This is a really great experience for here, and she is definitely learning a lot.

This is Pashmak, a 7-month-old Golden Retriever, that I have here for board and train. He is currently going through my puppy training program, and I am boarding him while his owners are out of town. His owners wanted me to do a bit of extra training with him while he’s here. This is of him working on obedience with Rosco and Sasha as a distraction.

Here’s a video of Lilly working on her obedience at Petsmart with distance, and lots of distractions. She is wearing a pirate hat because she is auditioning for a magazine, and in the part she has to wear reindeer antlers, this was the next best thing.

This video below is of Ozzie working on sit, stay, and heel with Rosco, my Chocolate Lab, as a distraction.

Today was Ozzie’s 7th day here with me, and he is doing great! He is already working off leash, holds a great long distance stay, and is doing a ton better on the treadmill. Over the next few days I will be working him more around other dogs, besides my own, since he gets pretty intense when he is on leash and sees a dog he doesn’t know. I call this barrier frustration. It’s simply just how a dog reacts when they can’t greet, fight, or flight, when they want, and so most dogs go straight to aggression. The leash also makes them feel a lot more powerful, like you’re holding them back. When he is off leash, he is an extremely social and sweet boy (excluding his rude mounting problem that he has with other dogs), so I know he can learn to be a good boy on leash. The other day I did have a great experience with him while I was working him through my neighborhood, and a loose, very rude and loud, Pug came running over barking at us. He didn’t come all the way over, but he definitely didn’t leave us alone. Ozzie was very alert and curious at first, but after a few corrections with the collar to settle him down, I put him into a sit, stay while we waited for the Pug to leave. He only tried getting out of the stay once before the Pug left, other than that he sat there and ignored him. I was so happy to see this! I know he’s getting everything I’m learning, and will do great over the next few days.

As for Ozzie’s habit with mounting other dogs, he is getting a lot better with it. He has been having lots of chances of meeting different dogs I bring home to work with him, and lots of interaction with my pack. My female German Shepherd is even in heat, which is very difficult for him to ignore, it’s been a great opportunity to work with his mounting habit. He’s definitely getting a lot better. Sasha (my female German Shepherd) is definitely helping too, by growling and snapping at him when he does try to mount her. He definitely needs to know that other dogs can stand up for themselves, and he doesn’t have to rely on always being corrected by me or one of his owners.

Below I’ve attached three videos of the past few days of working with him. The first video is of me working with him off leash for the second day, and he’s doing great with that. The second video is of me giving him a break and playing fetch with him, and the third video is of me working on his herding instincts with some sheep. I took Sasha, and Ozzie out to Young Living Lavender Farm to work with on their sheep herding skills. Since they’re both herding breeds, it’s important to give them a chance to work how they were bred to work, otherwise they can get bored and frustrated. Ozzie did great! I know his owner has taken him to a place near where she lives in California to let him herd sheep there a few times, too. So, he has done this before, and definitely has the instincts for it. He had a blast too! Sheep herding is a good way to tire a dog out, give them a chance to do what they’re bred for, and to give them a job.

Last night I got Ozzie, a 4-year-old Australian Shepherd, in for my boot camp training program.  He is here from California, and is a very smart and mellow boy.  He is here to work on off leash reliability, manners towards other dogs (he likes to mount them), strengthen his obedience, and learn to ignore other dogs when he’s on leash (he has bad barrier frustration) all using the electric dog training collar.  He is doing great here so far, and is a very quick learner.

I’ve posted two videos below of his training progress so far.  The first one is of his first time on the treadmill, and the second one is of his first time on the electric dog training collar.   He reacted pretty commonly to the treadmill, most dogs react the same way as he did.  It’s just so unnatural to them to have the ground be moving underneath their feet, but nothing else is moving.  For that reason, it’s a great way to build self esteem in a dog, plus it’s great for exercise.

He did a lot better on the e-collar than I thought he would, because his owners said he’s a big runner.  I have a feeling he’s the type of dog that knows when he’s on leash, and knows when he’s off leash.  I will have to take it slow with him to really make sure he’s reliable on the e-collar before I start taking the leash off.  I have had worse dogs than him, though, so I know he can do it!

Today I had a puppy training session with a 6-month-old German Shepherd named Forrest.  Today we started working on stay with him around distractions.  He’s never worked around distractions before, and you can definitely see that in the video.  During the first half of the video, he gets up quite a bit and has to be corrected several times.  About halfway through the video he figures out what he needs to do, and stays put in his stay while Alan and Lilly are able to walk around him twice.

Today was Moose’s 18th day here with me for the Boot Camp training program.  He is doing awesome here!  He is here to work on obedience training, off leash reliability, manners, and dog behavior training using the electric dog training collar.  The first video below is of his 10th day here with me, and in that video you will see he is still on leash with the e-collar.  Usually at that point in the training, most dogs are already working off leash.  That is what he really struggled on the most.  Anytime I took him off leash, he would bolt to the nearest shade (even early in the morning, or late evening).  He is just so lazy and wants to be cool at all times.  It was almost like he couldn’t take any heat at all.  I kept working him, and pushing him to get off leash, and just about a couple days ago he figured it out.  It was almost like a light switch clicked on in his head and he finally figured out what he needed to do to work off leash.  Ever since then, he has been doing amazing!  I am really hoping that he can go home this weekend.

The second video below is of today’s training with him.  Today was his first day off leash with another dog as a distractions around.  I think he did great!  Before we started filming he did try to play with Daddy for about 30 seconds, but then he focused on the training and did great.  I’m so proud of this boy!

Today was Moose’s 6th day here for the Boot Camp program.  He is doing pretty well.  He is understanding the treadmill great, he’s getting along well with my dogs, doing great with potty training (not like that was an issue with him, like it was with his sister Zoe), and overall is learning quickly.  He is definitely acting a little shy towards me and my husband.  When I am working with him, he keeps his distance the majority of the time.  If I take him off leash at all, he runs to my car and lays down next to it, because he wants to get in it.  With my husband he just shy’s away from him and avoids him when he calls him.  I know Moose’s father very well, and how Moose is acting is a lot like his father.  Harley (Moose’s dad) is a very mellow and sweet guy, but he can be a little shy (not so much towards people or dogs, mostly towards new situations, noises, etc).  Moose definitely got a lot of Harley’s characteristics.  That doesn’t mean he can’t build confidence and get better, it’s just going to take some time.

Today I took Moose with me to Petsmart, so that I could do a bit of human socialization with him.  He did great!  He was curious about everyone and every dog there, was very polite, and listened very well when I gave him commands.  I liked seeing this confident side of him, that I don’t normally see when we’re at home.  I am hoping he will get better around me and my husband the more we use treats with him.

The video of him below is one my husband took yesterday of me working with him.  As you will see, he follows well, and obeys very well, but he isn’t into the training.  I am going to start working with treat rewards with him to build some interest in working with me, and also to help boost his self esteem.

Moose practicing the "place" command