Holiday Photos? Make These Adorable Collars!

Now begins the season of taking holiday photos.  Some will take dogs (and cats!) to see Santa for pictures. Some will pose the family animals with the family humans of all ages and capture memories forever more.

Tulle collar.

These adorable collars are not hard to make, and you can be creative in your use of materials and colors to match your dog's personality and the occasion.  

Cut elastic into strips that will easily fit around your dog's neck without stretching.  Without stretching the elastic, the collar should fit close to your dog's neck but not tight.  Add an inch to that length and cut the strip that length.  The extra inch is to allow for you to tie the ends together easily to create a circle.  Cut off any loose ends after you tie it.  

Tulle cut into strips can make a fluffy, tutu-type collar.  How long you cut the strips will determine how fluffy the collar will be.  You can fold the tulle strip in half and hold it on the elastic collar to see how far it will stick out.  Adjust your tulle strips accordingly.

There are a couple ways to attach the tulle.  One is to simply tie the tulle to the elastic with knots.  I prefer to use slip knots.  To make a slip knot, fold each strip in half.  You will then have a folded end and two loose pieces at the other end.  The two loose ends go underneath the elastic collar strip and curl around the elastic, so you now have the elastic in the middle.  Then slip the two loose ends into the hole created by the folded end and pull the loose ends through until it tightens on the elastic.  (See photo below)  Don't pull too hard.  Just hard enough to have it tied around the elastic. Continue in this way until the entire collar has been filled.

Shown with ribbon because it's easier to see.

Ribbon collars are also pretty.  Choose several colors/styles of ribbon that you feel complement each other. Attach them in the same way as attaching the tulle above.  It's nice when you cut the ribbon strips to cut the ends of each strip at an angle.  It looks fancier and prevents a lot of unraveling.

Voila!  Super cute and easy collars!

Ribbon collar.

Making and Using a Solid Leash

A solid leash can be helpful with a smaller blind deaf dog.  It allows you to have a way to give subtle leash cues at your dog's neck level, which are clearer to the dog than if they come from far above her.  It also will save your back from needing to bend over to give those cues or lead your dog around obstacles on a walk. Think of it as an extension of your arm to allow you to reach down lower.  

A solid leash can be useful during walks on busy sidewalks or in areas that you will need to steer your dog around obstacles or people, or when teaching certain training exercises when you want your dog to stay right next to your leg.  A solid leash will not be very useful on walks when you want to let your dog sniff around and explore.  A regular or long leash would work better for that.  

It will take some practice for you to learn how to handle the solid leash fluently.  There is less slack than with a regular leash, so your cues travel directly to your dog's neck.  You will need to use much less leash pressure - sometimes just a small adjustment of your hand or wrist will give a different cue to your dog. 

You can use a very simple and inexpensive version of a solid leash, or you can create a very elaborate one. The solid leash I use is a curtain rod that was the right length for me to hold easily in my hand and also reached down to my dog's neck level.  Getting one that is too long will be cumbersome to hold. Getting one that is too short will require bending over to hold it.

The curtain rod has a finished surface and has comfortable end caps on it.  It has a more finished look and feel than a wooden dowel rod, which would have worked just as well.  I cut up an old leash with a small clip that wouldn't be too heavy or clunky for my dog's neck.  I left a small tab of leash connected to the clip. This allows for a bit of flexibility between my dog and the rod.  I then used heavy tape to attach the tab of leash to the end of the curtain rod.  Voila!  This version works so well for us that we haven't seen a need to change it.

Notice there is a bit of leash between the rod and the clip

This leash is meant as a guide to help cue your dog around obstacles and people.  Please don't use it to pull or push your dog.  Take the time to teach your dog the cues and you will be amazed how easy it is to convey information to your dog through a gentle touch on the solid leash.  

You can use the same techniques for teaching regular leash walking to teach solid leash walking.  If your dog already knows gentle collar cues, it should be easy to review the steps with the solid leash.  But don't assume that the cues coming from the solid leash will feel the same to the dog as what she already knows.  Take some time to review and keep it a positive experience for both you and your dog.  

If you would like some help with the steps of teaching leash walking to a blind and deaf dog, here is a great article to help you:  Click here to go to the article.   The same steps in the article can be used to introduce the solid leash to your dog.  

The solid leash is not a tool that I use every day, but I have found it very helpful with Treasure, who is a small dog, in certain situations and for teaching certain behaviors.  I hope if you have a smaller dog, that you may find it helpful as well.  

Vinny's Trick Show

Wow!  Look who is joining the ranks of Novice Trick Dog!  Vinny earned his title certificate and ribbon!

Vinny 6 months old

This guy is just SO much fun to play with!  He learns just as fast as I can teach him and is always ready for more.  Enjoy Vinny's new tricks:

How Did You Get That Picture?

I'm often asked how I get such great pictures of my dogs, especially when I am taking a picture of all of them together in a group shot, like this one: 

There are a couple secrets I'll share with you.  

The first is that I teach a solid stay behavior to all of my dogs. I want them to be able to stay in any comfortable position when asked for as long as I need them to stay there.  It becomes my responsibility to be sure that I'm not asking my dogs to stay in a position or situation that is uncomfortable or unsafe for them.  

In the above picture, I know that the dogs that are up on top of the bales are comfortable with being on various surfaces and being up off the ground.  I also know they have great stays and are very unlikely to move.  This means I feel safe leaving them up on top of the bales while I move away to take pictures. 

The dog in the lower left is Vinny.  He is still a puppy and does not have a very solid stay yet.  When I took this picture, we had never worked on a stay in a brand new public place before, and he had never done a stay with me so far away from him or for so long.  Plus he was excited to be out with the other dogs and wanted to bounce around and play.  His leash is attached in case I needed to catch him quickly, but I tucked it behind him so it wouldn't show in the picture.  He did great because I took many breaks and went back to reward him for choosing to stay.  This made the photo shoot take longer, but left me and my dogs happier and helped Vinny be successful.

The dog in the lower right is Vegas.  He can't see very far away from him and he is deaf, so when I backed up to take the photo, he couldn't see me.  That meant he had no idea where I had gone.  I know that Vegas can get spooked and if I am not within his line of sight, he will bolt and run far and fast until I can catch up with him.  Vegas has a leash on and is tethered to the hay bale just in case.  He has a great stay, but I will not take a chance with my dogs' safety.  If you look closely, you can see his leash tethered, but it does not detract from the great picture.  

My second secret is to take a LOT of pictures!  I take way more pictures than I will need so that I'm able to go back and choose the best shots.  For this great picture, there were many others that I deleted with dogs looking this way or that way.  It is hard to get blind and deaf dogs to look at the camera on demand.  By taking lots of pictures from different angles, I then have lots of great pictures to choose from and can usually find one where they are looking in my direction at leash partially.  

I already alluded to the fact that I carry treats - I carry lots of toys and treats during my photo shoots.  I don't want my dogs to look bored in their pictures.  It has to be fun for them for me to get the great shots that I get.  The photos are for my enjoyment, so I do all I can to make the process for my dogs' enjoyment also.  I schedule plenty of time and take lots of breaks.  I know which of my dogs enjoy photo sessions and which ones get tired of them quickly.  I can choose which dog I photograph first and whether to do the group shot first thing or perhaps in the middle before certain dogs get tired.  

These are just a few of my favorites from out last photo session:  

Owen - paws up stay

Brinks - sit stay and wave paw

Treasure - sit stay

Vinny - sit stay with his own variation of sniffing the air for treats

Vegas - sit stay and his famous smile

Announcing!

The White Dog Blog now has its own book!

I started the White Dog Blog 6 years ago as a way to educate the public about a tragedy.  Puppies are being born blind, deaf, or even both, due to a completely preventable genetic combination of merle to merle.  I hope through my efforts to educate, that one day, this type of merle to merle breeding will no longer be supported by the dog community.  In the meantime, this offers a tremendous resource for those who are rescuing, adopting and training these special dogs. 

Through my educating, I have many people contact me looking for specific topics in my blog.  There are many posts, and all posts about one topic are not grouped together, making them sometimes tricky to find.  Through the graces of technology, I have ways of tracking the most popular and commented on posts, and I have grouped them all together for you, by topic, in this great new book!  

All the most popular and influential posts are together in one place making them easy to find and refer back to again and again!

The book is available in paperback and kindle formats.  The link is here.   Take a look!  

Do Dog Trainers Get Frustrated?

Lately, this cute adorable little fuzzy white puppy has been frustrating me!  I know, just look how adorable he is, right?  Yes, this was the adorable-ness that came into my life several months ago.  

And, puppy-hood is a lot of work for us humans!  Housetraining, puppy proofing the house, sleepless nights, constant supervision, not to mention socialization and starting to teach good manners, and on and on ... Truthfully, it can be exhausting - yes, even for us professional dog trainers!  

But when the puppies are so tiny and cute, it is easy to be motivated to keep going.  They also still sleep a lot at this stage, which provides short windows in which we can get things done or nap ourselves.  

At some point, our brilliant little puppies become quite charming and relatively well-behaved and we think we've done an excellent job raising them.  We might even pat ourselves on the back a bit.  Or breathe a sigh of relief.  

Now enter adolescence ... 

Oh, still adorable, right?  Yes he is.  And he still reminds me to laugh quite a bit out of each day.  But I am also shaking my head at times in frustration.  This is a tough stage to get through sometimes - that teenage stage.  Puppies get BUSY!!  Even busier than they were before!  And they hardly ever sleep anymore - what happened to all the naps?  Large breed puppies are getting close to their adult size, but they are still far from adulthood.  They are just huge puppies!  

So many people give up on their puppies at around 6 months of age.  I see this a lot in the shelter and rescue world.  It is a tough time.  It's pretty normal (even for us dog trainers!) to be frustrated.  Puppies are rowdy and seem to come up with behaviors overnight that you thought were either non-existent or were no longer an issue.  

Oh, 6 month old puppies are still endearing and cuddly and playful and smart.  They are learning so very fast that it's hard to keep up with them - and it's either stuff we want them to learn, or stuff that we don't.  

Vinny's challenging behaviors right now?  Well, when I'm out of the room, he pulls up the bathroom rug and shakes it until it's dead, then dragging it to the middle of the bedroom floor to display his kill for all to see.  He is back to mouthing hands and arms with a passion, and is back to being overstimulated by touch, grooming and handling.  He is actively teething right now so his chewing behaviors have increased a lot - but for the most part he limits this to toys and bones. Although he has a strange attraction to chewing on my computer chair!  He is trying to jump up on me and others when he had been sweetly sitting.  He discovered he likes rolls of toilet paper.  And as the weather is getting cooler, he has discovered my jacket that hangs just right so he can grab it in his mouth as we walk along.  

Now, most days, I am able to laugh to myself at his antics - I mean, after all, he is only a teenager once, right?  As a dog trainer, I know that this phase will pass and he will settle into a calmer, more reliable adult.  I know that the most important thing for me to do right now is to manage Vinny's environment and to set him up for success whenever I can.  I know to maintain consistency and gentleness in my relating to him, and to not allow frustration to take hold.  

But it is truly a full-time job to keep him entertained appropriately, to give him things to do to keep his mind and body busy, and to keep my patience and sense of humor.   There are times when I do get frustrated.  So, what do I do when frustration begins to creep in?

Take a break!  Too much togetherness can increase frustration.  It becomes a never-ending cycle of overstimulated puppy and frustrated person.  Put puppy in a puppy-safe area with every toy and bone you can find, including food puzzle toys that are safe to leave with him unsupervised.  Frozen stuffed Kongs and hollow bones are great for teething puppies and can keep them busy for quite a while.   After a break, you will both be in a better frame of mind and will be ready to play and have some fun!    

Calm Behavior During Grooming

If you've been following along in our blog, you know that Vinny has always gotten overstimulated by petting and grooming activities.  Trying to groom him, and often just pet him sweetly, results in him turning to mouth my hand and grooming tools.  If I continue, the mouthing gets more intense and he begins to also move his body around more.  If I continue still, he also becomes vocal and then ... well, it's all over.  

He had gotten so much better until about 3 weeks ago.  He's 5 months old now and his behaviors appear to be reverting backwards in a few areas, but they are now more intense than when he was smaller because he is now a much bigger boy!  

Vinny is now well aware of his marker (clicker) signal, and that it is followed by a reinforcer for certain behaviors.  He knows that his behaviors can drive that marker.  

I have been working with him by reinforcing calm behaviors when I touch, pet and groom him.  I started with just touching him - this was a review for him, but I wanted to start in an area that he could be successful.  I touched him calmly and then followed by giving him a treat.  I allowed him to feel the touch first, before the food appeared, and I fed him the food straight ahead of his nose with his nose facing forward and not at my touching hand.  By reinforcing him with his head away from the hand that was touching him, he did not have the opportunity to begin mouthing me, and he will learn to keep his face away from the hand petting or grooming him (eventually).  

After reviewing this a few times, I moved on to stroking or scratching him lightly just for a moment before feeding.  I was still not using a marker signal at this point because I needed both hands - one to touch and one to have that treat ready super quick by his nose.  When I saw that he was making the choice to turn his head forward for the treat when he felt me petting him, I moved on.  

Adding a second stroke or longer scratching with one hand while I continued to feed treats was the next step.  Only for a short period of time at first and then gradually building up to longer periods of time.  At first I fed treats one right after the other quickly.  But it didn't take long to be able to space out those treats more and more and build up the duration of the stroking.  As I can spread the treats out a bit, I can then begin using the marker signal to pinpoint calm behaviors.  

Now I have progressed to stroking with grooming tools.  I can do several strokes at a time with Vinny remaining in place and calm (no mouthing or vocalizing, and sitting or standing still) between marking appropriate behaviors.  If he gets up and walks away, that is ok.  It is his choice.  He will come back if he wants to do more.  If he moves away, that is ok too.  I just stop and wait.  He will come back closer when he's ready.  

I do allow him to turn and investigate a touch with my hand or the grooming tool, and I allow him to sniff the grooming tools before touching him with them so he knows what I'm going to be doing.  After only a few sessions, I am so pleased and already seeing a big change in his behaviors.

This is good because his big-boy Collie coat is starting to come in and will require a lot of grooming in the future.  I am so pleased that I can create choices for Vinny so he can be a willing participant in his grooming and care.  

This video was taken today - I tried to groom him before our training session so maybe I could get a video of his previous behavior for you - but he sat still like a champ waiting for his reinforcers.  And, so, what you see is not the flailing, mouthing and yelling that was his normal grooming behavior.  This is our 3rd session and you can see he is attentively waiting for his marker and reward.  When he moves as if he is uncomfortable, I don't force him.  I wait or move to groom a different spot for a moment.  When I groom his body, which we've worked on more, I can groom longer before reinforcing.  When I work with his ear and his tail or rear of his body, which we have not worked on specifically, I sometimes only swipe a couple times before rewarding.  

This is a session in its entirety.  The only part cut in the middle was when I had to go check on something in the middle.  It is a bit long (8 minutes appx.) but you can see in real time, how often I am reinforcing still and how he is responding.  When you see him startle and move his head around, he is responding to his marker signal and is waiting for the food!