Stubborn Dog, Novice Owner

Four Ideas for When the Pup is Home Alone

September 5, 2022August 29, 2022Diane J.

Four Ideas for When Your Pup is Home Alone — I so bored. Wonder what I chew up for comfort?

School is in, work is back to full schedules and possibly back in office or on location and your pup is home alone.

We all know a pup home alone is a scary thing. Will the room she is in be fine when you get home? Or will something be destroyed? If the dog is put in his crate, we worry that he’ll bark all day or injure himself trying to break free.

So, what are we to do?

#1 – Doggie Daycare

I’m not too familiar with this option. But I have a few friends who utilized doggie daycares to keep their pups entertained throughout the day. Particularly, through the first four years. Just enough to get through the wild, youthful years.

I’ve watched some videos on TikTok of dogs arriving to daycare. The majority of the dogs seem incredibly excited.

#2 – When the Pup is Home Alone, Have a Trusted Neighbor Check on Her.

If you the pup is going to be home alone for more than six hours, it would be a good idea to have someone go check on her and let her out to go potty. If you don’t live close enough to run home during lunch maybe a good neighbor would be willing to pop in during the day. Or a college kid that doesn’t have to leave for classes until or who might arrive home a few hours before you do.

Or search your local neighborhood Facebook page for homeschooled kids. Homeschooling Parents use a lot of real-world activities in their teaching plans, and this could be a great learning opportunity for the kids.

#3 – Split Dog Sitting Duties with a Friend

I usually work from home, but one of my friends has his own business. His wife works outside the home and the kids attend school. Since their dog is just a few months younger than Pandora, I asked if he could drop the pup off one or two days a week.

This arrangement has been fabulous. His dog is not left home alone all day and Pandora has a friend to burn some energy off with. The bonus of this arrangement is that I can get more done because the pups play together which frees up a bit of Pandora’s exercise time. That is extra time I can put into writing.

This is also a great way to socialize your dog.

#4 – When the Pup Is Home Alone – And Will Be All Day – Then Exercise Before You Leave

Sometimes we just can’t find a place we can afford to leave our dog. And we either don’t have someone to peek in on our pets that we trust or can share pet watching duties with.

If that is the case, then the best thing you can do for your dog is to get up early enough that you can get in a hearty round of exercise before the pup is left home alone.

I get it, it may not be ideal, the weather may be rainy and cold, but your dog needs the exercise. When I have to go out for work and everyone else is away, I make sure I get up early enough to get Pandora out to her favorite trails. It’s not always fun, but I care enough to do that for her. Plus, honestly, I need the exercise, too. It helps me get through my day with plenty of energy and benefits my health.

When we get home from the trails, I get ready for work. Right before I leave, I play frisbee with her for at least ten minutes.

What this does for Pandora, and will do for your pup as well, is give her the chance to chill out and rest. That exercise buys you a happier and calmer, pup.

Clearly, I make no guarantees on things getting randomly chewed up, but it lessens the chance of it happening.

Do you have any tips for when you need to leave a pup home alone for four or more hours? Please share, we all want to learn.

Keep Training: It Gets Better

June 20, 2022June 20, 2022Diane J.

The biggest struggle with training an Australian Cattle Dog, or any dog, is consistency. To be consistent, means working on the issue every day. Make no mistake, it’s hard to be consistent and not get discouraged, especially when the dog regresses.

Training: The Downside

If you’ve read this blog for a while, you know. But for those who are new, let me give you a quick rundown on the two biggest struggles we have with Pandora, our 2.4-year-old Australian Cattle Dog.

Barking: We made some headway with this issue, but it is not where we’d like it yet.
Walking on a leash (or even off) near cars: She will not do this. It’s a no-go thing in her life. It’s rough, it’s a one inch forward, seven yards back type of an ordeal.

For both of those issues, we’ve trained, we’ve made progress, and we’ve hit setbacks.

Also, for both of those issues, we’ve made progress. Itsy bitsy, steps that give us hope in the training process.

We still keep training her to tame the barking, and we’ve made a few steps towards where we had gotten in the past. That would be, she will calm down upon command. She is not consistently doing it, but I’d guess she’s listening about 3 our of every 5 times. Not bad, not great. We’ll continue to work the bark.

Training: The Upside

I share with you every time we make the smallest bit of progress.

Some people will see the small progress and assume it’s not worth celebrating. Others understand that all progress will eventually add up to great progress. I’m clearly in the second group. Why? Because I need the hope. I need to know we are slowly making progress, it helps me get through setbacks.

This weekend, we had the tiniest bit of progress.

Pandora hates vehicles. As far as the noise of them. She doesn’t mind riding with me in one.

We were heading out to some trails, and we had to cross a highway. She hates crossing the highway. Whenever she has her head out the window and hears or sees cars coming up near us, she pulls her head in and sits up straight, while staring directly ahead.

Well, Saturday, June 18th, 2022 – she kept her nose out the window. Didn’t tuck back in and hide.

Side note: She can’t get anything more than her head out the window. I know some will be okay with that and some won’t.

A Bonus Bit of Progress

Pandora not only showed no fear during the ride, but she also made some leash progress.

On one section of the trail we get into a wooded trail of a housing development. That trail is usually busy. So I put Pandora on leash. She usually tries to yank me as quickly as possible to the section where I remove her leash.

Saturday, she did not do that. Her leash skills left a lot to be desired, BUT, she walked on leash, didn’t yank or tug or drop anchor. We even walked by another dog that didn’t want to socialize. The dog wasn’t mean, the owner was clearly training the dog not to lunge and bark at other dogs and people. I gave a little snap on the collar and Pandora walked right by without a care.

Usually, she pulls to see the people or the dog or both. She wants to make sure everyone loves her.

To Sum UP

Yes, these were very small bits of progress. But they are progress none-the-less. If we can get to this point, we can get further. So can you.

We will get to our ultimate goals. We may have to adjust the ultimate goal, I may never be able to walk Pandora around the lake during rush hour, but maybe we’ll get to walk the lake during the lazy, slow hours.

Through consistent training and sheer force of repetition we’ll get there.

Every bit of progress is to be celebrated.

Don’t give up.

The Barking is Back

May 23, 2022May 23, 2022Diane J.

We’ve lost control, Pandora is back to barking. Or maybe it’s her version of narrating the play-by-play of the household. Every dog in a five-mile radius knows what is going on at our house.

We Hear Barking…

Pandora believes it’s just letting us know, or more specifically, letting ME know what everyone else is doing. And everything that is happening around us. She feels no need to let anyone know what is going on when I’m not home. Other than, “Oh uh, someone is on the property.”

When I’m home it’s a completely different story.

“MOM! One of the kids walked out of his room.”

“MOM! He went into the bathroom.”

“MOM! Dad turned on the outside water faucet! OH MY… Water! MOMMMMM, WATERRRRR!”

“MOM! A car drove by.”

“MOM! A leaf fell 3 miles away.”

“MOM! Dad sneezed.”

And heaven help anyone who wants to talk to me while I’m in my office. Pandora has taken it upon herself to be the guardian of my productivity. Or just insanely jealous of anyone who wants my attention. There is the possibility that she understands my desire to be a hermit and is trying to provide that for me. Whatever, her perception is, she is very vocal to anyone who starts to talk to me.

When anyone leaves the house, she gets very upset. I’m not sure, but I wonder if she feels like she failed on the corralling of her herd. “They’re getting away.”

Whatever the Case May Be…

I’m going bonzo. What happened? We had the barking under control for a bit, but then she snapped.

The worst part is that she is the absolute worst with my husband. Whenever he’s in the yard working, she is trying to heel him and barking at every move he makes so long as I’m home. If I’m not home, she sulks, she doesn’t care what others do. Understand, this is hearsay, as I have never seen this side of her. But apparently, my husband and boys can vacuum, mow, hammer, go in and out of the garage, leave, do whatever they want without Little Miss giving a play-by-play.

When I’m home, I have to go rein in Pandora when she’s barking at my husband. He just ignores her and keeps doing what he’s doing. Which is not helping her learn. With spring and summer, he’s outside a lot, which means I can’t get invested in my tasks and work because I have to go deal with the barking. I don’t want to be that dog owner, the one that allows the dog to bark and bark and bark. And I can get her to back off. Until I leave.

Possible Reasons for the Increase

Obviously, the first reason is that my husband isn’t training her. Let’s be clear, when the whole family is consistent with the training, the dog will respond for each person. My husband likes to get out and do what he needs to do. He doesn’t want to stop moving and get the dog under control, he wants to do his thing.

Last year, my husband did do some training with Pandora. And even though she didn’t change to perfection, she responded fairly well. As with all training, we need to be consistent, and we need to revisit it often. The sooner you get on top of it, the better. The first few days will be the worst, but then it will get easier and easier.

Another reason for the increase, we have our twin boys home for the summer. There’s been an adjustment in the family. Whenever, there is a new adjustment, Pandora (and even I) have to adjust. We have to adjust to the comings and goings which are more frequent. We have to adjust to more noise and activity.

Sometimes barking is a sign that the dog isn’t getting enough activity. And since we’re dealing with an Australian Cattle Dog, that is something I’m very mindful about, making sure Little Miss is stimulated mentally and that she gets lots of run and activity time.

The New Plan to Reduce the Bark

This time around, I’m going to be implementing the same thing as before. Rewarding for “quiet”. I want her to bark when people come by the house, but I want to stop when I acknowledge what she’s telling me.

And once we get that back under control, we can use it for all the other stuff she feels she needs to let me know about.

The biggest caveat is that she doesn’t do it for treats. She did that once before. Expecting the treat and throwing out some unnecessary barks just to get a treat. I’m thinking it might be wise to delay the treats as she learns. We’ll start with instant treat on a pause. We’ll move to instant treat when she responds to the command. Then we’ll start stretching it, waiting one second after she follows the command, then two seconds and so on.

I also love Pet Web MD’s idea of getting the pooch in a spot when anyone comes home or to the door.

And, I’m going to give my husband three links on training to read through and let him decide how he wants to approach training her. I like to give options so people can find what works best for them. When I train Pandora, I give a hand signal as well as a verbal signal. This way, I have two ways of communicating with her. So I figure if my husband wants to try something different, he can use the same hand signal and we’ll get the same effect. That’s my theory.

Side Note: Hand signals are awesome. They have come in handy many times, when I’m talking with a neighbor or someone on a trail, but I don’t want to interrupt the conversation to get Pandora to sit or come.

And, as always, I will update in a month, how the training is going.

If you have any suggestions that have worked for you and your dog, please share, I’d love to hear them.

If you’re curious about the links I’m sending to my husband:

Pet Web MD

Pet Doors

Everyday Health

Curb the Barking

March 7, 2022March 6, 2022Diane J.

Ears Ringing from Barking?

Pandora only had one event where her incessant barking put us on our neighbors’ “most hated” list. That was when Pandora decided no more night crate. And she was done. Period.

I’m fairly stubborn myself, and figured it was just a phase. I kept telling my husband if we give in, she’s never going back in the crate again. We have to ride out the phase. For two weeks, I’d put her in the crate and the barking would start and it wouldn’t stop until I opened the crate in the morning. She’d take a few twenty second breathers here and there, but she never stopped. All night long. Fourteen nights. I’m no stranger to sleepless nights, I raised twins. However, I will admit that once the twins slept through the night, I thoroughly enjoyed the sleep. So much so, that it’s really hard to go back to sleepless nights, or maybe it’s age.

I’m a firm believer that you need to pick your training method and see it through. I learned this through parenting a horde of boys. You can’t read a tip and try it for two days, then give up and try another. Your child needs to know the consequences will be the same and you will stick to it. When I implemented a punishment for my kids, I gave it a solid two weeks. Usually, it only took a week so long as I was consistent.

So that ideology stuck with me during this phase with Pandora. And Pandora usually reacts like the kids. At first there is an increase in rebellion. Then there’s a little give, then reluctant acceptance followed quickly by another round of resistance, and finally full acceptance.

However, this time, there was no give. No change in the barking, no weakening in intensity. She gave me nothing. After two solid weeks, I had to admit, she’s not a crate dog. She’s not having it. I didn’t change anything, and she didn’t give one darn micromillimeter.

So, she no longer sleeps in the crate. We don’t even use the crate anymore.

Bad Barking Habits

Even though we solved the worst barking, if you consider ceding a solution, Pandora still has a few barking issues we need to work on.

Anytime I’m in my office and anyone wants to talk to me, she barks. She sees people walking up the road and she barks. A delivery driver comes down the driveway, she barks. My husband moves, she barks. People come to visit, and she barks for their attention.

Clearly, some of these, I want her to bark at. Others, not so much.

I want her to bark and let me know if someone is near the house. However, I want her to stop barking when I give a command. For a while, I would look out the window, take note of what she was barking at, and say “Okay, thank you.” It still works, but we seem to be in a regression period.

As for the other barking, I don’t want it at all. I don’t want my family shushed by my dog. My husband needs to do things and we don’t want to deal with my dog trying to give me a play-by-play of my husband’s actions.

Which has led us to…

Operation: Curb the Barking

Pandora doesn’t go on barking tirades when we’re not home. So far, the only things that have suffered during our absences have been toilet paper and tissue boxes. Which kind of sucked back in 2020 when people were hoarding toilet paper.

We decided to continue with our plan to acknowledge + “thank you” when people are near the house. I’m pretty sure it’s just a phase…(rereads paragraph two and prays).

I searched around the internet and came across two sites that share the same basic training idea:

WebMDs’ – Understanding why dogs bark and,

AKC’s – How to stop nuisance dog barking

Then I told my husband the plan, we will tell her “Quiet” and as soon as she pauses, we say, “Yes” and give her a treat. We also put our finger up to our mouth to show her a nonverbal command.

We’ve been doing this consistently for the past four days. And it’s working. It’s not perfect yet, but we are making a lot of progress. Last night, Pandora started to bark when my husband called to me from downstairs. I put my finger to my mouth, and she stopped. I didn’t even say “Quiet”.

Consistency and having us all on the same training method has made this process go well so far. Everyone in the house needs to be on board or Pandora will only listen to me, and then I get grumbly because I have to stop what I’m doing to go deal with the barking.

I’ll keep you posted, but for now, it’s working.

Always Account for Setbacks

There will always be a setback, a small rebellion. Whether it comes a few days after or a few months, the dog (kids do this too) will test you to make sure you are still enforcing the behavior. That’s okay. Don’t get discouraged. Usually, a couple days of constant training is the reassurance the dog needs to get back on the behavior track.

Unless it’s getting Pandora to walk on any path where vehicles can be seen and heard, then it can be discouraging. But that’s another blog post. We are making strides, but they are incredibly slow, and we have constant setbacks. So, yeah, that’s for another blog post.

For honest information on dog training check out: Behind the Game on Dog Training