What to Do When Your Dog Constantly Destroys Their Fluffy Bed

Sometimes the best training tips arent training tips at all!

Let’s think about this for just a moment.  Our dog loves to lie in the rocks by the pool or on the marble floor by the back door.  Is there any reason why we need to provide him with a fluffy bed in his crate or in his corner?

If you haven’t come to the same conclusion, the answer is “No”.  In most instances, your dog destroys their bed, in their crate or outside, because of boredom.  If you constantly replace the bed, you are reinforcing the destructive behavior that is growing in your dog.  If you continue this process, your dog will move on to destroying your couch and chair.  This is not a good thing.

Here comes the easy answer that took me several years of case studies to recognize. 

Remove the bed and allow your dog to sleep on the ground.  Don’t worry; he won’t hate you for this.  You have simply severed the association of “chew my bed, chew the furniture”.

If you have any questions about this, we are more than happy to respond.  Please contact us at The Best Dog Trainers in South Florida.

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Potty Training Away a Long Time

Sometimes my work requires long days and I have to leave Wolfie alone in the house for ten or twelve hours.  He is still a puppy and I am still working on Potty Training.  Thats a long time to keep him inside!  What do I do?

We all know that "life happens" and we cant get home to let our little puppy out to go potty.  There is a rule of thumb that the number of hours a puppy can "hold it" is their age in months.  (After 8 months, that is where it stops...)  So what do I do with my four month old puppy when I am working twelve hours that day?

First of all, you dont want to leave him in his crate.  Part of crate training and potty training is enforcing your puppy not to potty in his crate.  As long as we stay within the limits of your puppy physical abilities, this is a pretty easy process.  If we surpass his physical limits to hold it, of course he will go in his crate.  This will undermine this part of the potty training process.

What you must do is to find an area that you can allow your puppy to potty.  It must be enclosed and away from your puppys normal "roam of the house".  The best areas would be a bath room or washer/dryer room.  Pick up any rug and remove anything that your puppy "could get into" (toilet paper, boxes on the ground, etc.).  You might even put down a wee-wee pad just to see if he would use it.  I would also suggest that you get a doggie gate to enclose the area so it wont appear so confining.

When you have to be away from the house for extended periods of time longer than your puppys "ability to hold it", you put him in that area.  If he potties, you have a small area to clean and you havent damaged your crate training process.  

Be sure to clean the area well with an enzyme cleaner like Natures Miracle and then a normal cleaner like Lavender Fabuloso.  Also, as I alluded to earlier, keep the door closed to this area to keep him out.  You only want him in here when you are away for a long time.  For more information, please contact us at The Best Dog Trainers in South Florida.

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Why Fluffy Goes Nuts at People in the Car

My dog, Fluffy, is the greatest dog in the world until she gets in the car.  Bark, Bark, Bark,Bark,Bark!  She barks at everyone as I drive down the street.  What gives?

I have seen this time and time again.  Here is Fluffy in her car seat.  The owner is doing the right thing by constraining her so that she wont go flying around if they had to put on the breaks.  So far so good.  So Fluffy constantly barks and drives you crazy.  That is bad.  What is the problem and how can you fix it?

...The answer is simpler than you think and the explanation is just as simple.

Dogs are always very aware of dominance and their role in the pack.  Who is the dominant one?  Who is in charge?  Look at this picture of Fluffy.  She is in her car seat that is raised off the normal seating which puts her in a raised position.  In the canine world, height is dominance.  Guess what?  We are sitting lower in your drivers seat while Fluffy is sitting high and mighty in her "dominance seat".  On top of that, we have given her a very clear view of everyone around the car.  She is dominant and she sees all these "other animals" (people) moving around the car.  Some of these "other animals" might even be walking towards the car which is a naturally aggressive move.  

We put Fluffy in the dominant role and she sees issues.  Barking, jumping, growling are all natural actions she could take to try and protect the rest of the "pack".  We put Fluffy out in front.  We told her that she was the one who had to protect us.  We did this by giving her height and dominance.  We elected her the "boss of us".

Now, what do we do?  The answer is simple.  Lower her height.  Find a car seat that sits on the seat of your car.  Find a doggie carrier that you can put on the seat or floor of your car.  All you are doing is lowering the height of Fluffy and lowering her requirement to be the "boss".  Also, make sure that you dont put her in the front passenger seat, unless you can turn off the air bag release.

This is a quick fix that seems to work over and over again.  Take away your dogs requirement for dominance in the car and your rides will be a whole lot nicer!  For more information, please contact The Best Dog Trainers in South Florida.

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