Pet Care Info
Behavior Issues
Housetraining
Any dog that is adopted from a shelter will need some housetraining. Adult dogs that have been in a kennel for some time will need some relearning of where it is appropriate to go to the bathroom, and puppies obviously need to learn too.
Housetraining Can Be Easy
Housetraining your new dog can be easy and effective if you dedicate the necessary time and patience. A successful plan includes supervision, confinement, and encouragement. With these elements, most dogs/puppies can be trained in a relatively short period of time.
Feeding, drinking, playing, and waking from naps are all activities that stimulate dogs to eliminate. Learn to be aware of these activities and take your dog outside after any of these activities occur. Begin to condition your dog by using a command such as "out" as you take it outside. With time, your dog will learn to signal if it has to go out.
Teaching Your Dog Where to Eliminate
The next step is to teach your puppy where you want it to eliminate. To accomplish this, you must accompany your dog every time it goes outdoors. Choose a specific location with easy access. The area will soon become a familiar spot as the dog recognizes the odor from previous excursions. Mildly praise any sniffing or other pre-elimination behaviors and consider associating a unique training command such as "potty time" with the act of elimination. When your dog eliminates, praise it heartily, offer a food reward, or start playing. Your dog will soon learn what is expected of it whenever it goes outside and hears the special command. As you begin housetraining, try to take your dog outdoors every one to two hours. As it gets the hang of things, you can wait longer between outings.
Your Dog's Feeding Schedule
Controlling your dog's feeding schedule provides some control over its elimination schedule. Most will eliminate within a predictable time after eating, usually within the first hour. Offer food once or twice (or more for puppies) each day at the same times, and make it available for no longer than 30 min. The last meal should be finished three to five hours before bedtime.
Supervision
The most challenging part of the housetraining process is preventing your dog from eliminating indoors. Until it is housetrained, you will need to provide constant supervision. A leash is a handy tool to keep your dog nearby when you are preoccupied and it might wander away. Puppies are not considered housetrained until it has gone for at least four to eight consecutive weeks without eliminating anywhere in the home.
When you are unable to provide constant supervision because you are busy, sleeping, or away from home, confine your dog to a relatively small, safe area such as a crate. Always take your dog out to eliminate just before confinement. Do not use the crate for longer than your dog can physically control elimination or for more than four hours during the day. If your dog is home alone for longer periods, confine it to a larger area such as a small room or exercise pen. The area should provide enough space for it to eliminate if necessary and to rest several feet away from a mess. It is important to associate good things with the confinement area, rather than making it solely an isolation area. Spend some time in the area playing with your dog or simply reading nearby as it rests there.
Prevention
To help prevent your dog from returning to previously soiled areas, remove urine and fecal odor with an effective commercial product. Saturate areas of soiled carpeting with odor-neutralizing products - merely spraying the surface is not as effective. If your dog begins to eliminate in certain areas of the home, deny access to these areas by closing doors to the rooms, using baby gates, or moving furniture over soiled areas.
Prepare for the Inevitable
No dog has ever been housetrained without making a mistake or two. Be prepared for the inevitable. It does not help to become frustrated and harshly discipline your dog. Punishment is the least effective and most overused approach to housetraining. A correction should involve nothing more than a mild, startling distraction and should be used only if you catch your dog in the act of eliminating indoors. A quick stomp of the foot, loud clap, tug on the leash, or abrupt "No" is all that is necessary. Immediately take your dog to its elimination area outdoors to finish. A correction that occurs more than a few seconds after your dog eliminates is useless because it will not understand why it is being corrected. If the punishment is too harsh, it may learn not to eliminate in front of you, even outdoors, and you run the risk of ruining the bond with your dog. And don't even think about rubbing its nose in a mess. There is absolutely nothing it will learn from this, except to be afraid of you.
With a little patience and a consistent approach, your dog will be as housetrained as the rest of your family!
Digging
Digging is a perfectly normal and natural canine activity. The owner must realize that it is not as much the behavior that is abnormal or wrong, but rather the dog's choice of digging sites that is inappropriate. Many owners rely solely on punishment to correct digging, but you'll find that reinforcing good behavior works better and keeps your dog happier.
Reasons for Digging
Dogs dig for a number of reasons; to cool off, chase rodents, bury and retrieve bones, escape confinement, or just for the fun of it. Digging commonly occurs when pets are left alone with insufficient stimulation. It is unrealistic to expect a dog to idle away the long and lonely hours of confinement without developing at least one or two behavior problems. The dog requires some form of occupational therapy. If the dog is left without supervision, it will no doubt improvise in its search for something to do. It is hardly the dog's fault that its choice of entertainment does not meet with the approval of its owner. If the owner provides the dog with more opportunities for walks, runs, play and training, the incidence of behavior problems, such as digging, will progressively decrease.
Building a Digging Pit
If your dog simply just loves digging, why not provide it with a digging pit? This is much like providing a child with a sand box. The child is going to play in the dirt anyway, so the parents may as well provide a hygienic area where the child can safely play without getting too dirty and without doing any damage.
A 3x6 foot area is sufficient for any dog. Dig the area to a depth of two feet and mix in a little sand (this helps it to drain in the rainy season). To encourage the dog to dig in its pit, the pit should be stocked with buried treasures - tennis balls, chew toys, food treats, etc. Initially, leave some poking through the surface, and as soon as your dog shows interest in the toys, instruct it to "Dig in your pit" and praise it as it does so. Once the dog gets the idea, the objects may be buried deeper. In addition to the owner's praise, the dog's activity is self- rewarding. The dog receives immediate gratification each time it finds a buried item. Treats may be eaten right away and unearthed toys signal the prospect of a play session with its owner.
The Clawing Cat
by Terry Jester
For many felines, couches, divans and overstuffed chairs are simply products designed for the cat's own pleasure. An antique velvet love seat may merely be an expensive scratching post as far as the cat is concerned. A lot of owners go to the trouble and expense to buy elaborate posts designed especially for cats to scratch. Some owners purchase chemical cat repellents that claim to keep the cat away from furniture by offending its sensitive sense of smell.
A few owners, after unsuccessful attempts to keep the cat away from the couch, simply keep the cat outside or find another home for it (the cat, not the couch). Others finally give up and decide that since the couch doesn't sit on your lap and purr and the overstuffed chair is a rotten mouser, they'll keep the cat and learn to live with shredded furniture.
All this is unfortunate, because, if you own a cat that claws furniture, it doesn't have to be the end of the world for either the cat or the couch.
Cats claw furniture for different reasons. Let's examine some of them.
The playful cat is usually a young energetic type that seems to have come with extra batteries. This cat views furniture as take-off landing zones. Walls are things to run across and bounce off of and floors are things only humans walk on. It may appear that the cat is in commando training by the way it climbs the drapes and his owners have given up walking barefoot through the house for fear of guerilla warfare inflicted on tender toes. Clawing furniture is only one bad habit this cat possesses, but it can be the most expensive.
Many cats have trained their owners exceptionally well. If the cat wants breakfast and the owner is asleep, he claws the bed. After a few unsuccessful attempts at swatting the cat, the owner finally gets up and breakfast is served.
If the cat wants attention, he claws the chair. This gets a lot of attention and may even bring a treat if the owner tries bribing the cat away from the chair with a tidbit.
Generally speaking, most will trained owners have no idea what the cat is up to when the cat displays his clawing behavior. This is, of course, exactly how the cat wants it.
All cats need to claw something from time to time. They are not sharpening their claws as many people believe, but they do need to claw periodically in order to shed the old claw sheaths, thus making room for the new ones.
Cats will also use furniture for a good stretch. The cat will sink his claws into an upholstered item and then pull down, thus stretching the muscles and perhaps getting in a good yawn as well - sort of kitty calisthenics.
Carpeted cat scratching posts are almost totally useless; recommended instead are logs with bark intact. This is a cat's natural scratching post. If given a choice, the vast majority of cats will sink their claws in a good hunk of wood and leave the couch alone. After all, how many outside cats have you known to pine away for lack of a piece of carpet? Give the cat a nice, large log, free of paint, wood stain or other chemicals and anchor it so it won't fall over when being used. Your cat may never bother the couch again.
If your cat persists in clawing, invest in a few squirt guns and rattle cans. Properly used, they can make a cat view scratching the furniture as an unpleasant experience that should be avoided.
The squirt gun (or guns) should be filled with plain water and placed in an easily accessible area. The rattle can can be any tin can filled with enough pebbles, then sealed, so that when thrown it makes a lot of noise. Put this in an accessible area, too.
When the cat is seen scratching the furniture, simply toss the can in the direction of the cat (not at the cat) or squirt the cat with the water gun. It is important that the cat not view the water or the rattle can as an attack, but something that will happen when he scratches the furniture. In order to do this, the owner must not stop what he or she is doing at the time or yell at the cat.
Most good squirt guns will go at least 10 feet, so there is no reason to chase the cat around the house in order to hit the target. If the owner is watching TV and the cat starts in on the couch, simply grab the can or squirt gun and throw or fire away. Say nothing to the cat and continue to watch TV. Be just as matter-of -fact as possible. In most cases, the cat will stop clawing immediately and look around as if to say, "What the heck's going on here?" Then the cat will look at the owner to see if the owner had anything to do with what just happened. It's better if the cat won't associate the action with the owner and won't be inclined to sneak in a few scratches when the owner isn't looking. However, even if the cat does know where the water and the rattle can are coming from, they are still the most effective ways of modifying his behavior.
There is no reason why cats and furniture can't exist peacefully together. The right equipment and the right attitude are all you need. So, get your kitty a scratching log; invest in a few, good quality, long range water guns, make yourself a nice, loud rattle can and sit back, relax and wait for kitty.