Your lifestyle may necessitate litter box training or paper training – especially if you live in an environment that doesn’t provide a safe or secure outdoor yard. Here’s how to get your dog to use something that’s normally used by cats!

Housebreaking With a Litter Box

1. Buy a litter box that’s about the same width and length as your dog’s crate. The box should provide ample room for the dog to comfortably turn around in.  read more »

Teaching a dog to kiss may sound a bit strange since (1) dog kissing is really licking, and (2) dogs naturally lick anyway. But this article doesn’t suggest ways to teach a dog how to kiss per se. It instead, suggests ways to teach a dog when to kiss! A few kisses are fine for many of us, but some dogs take it beyond a comfortable level and continue to kiss until they’re forced to stop. Here’s how to teach your dog to kiss on command so you’re not inundated with canine loving unless you want to be.  read more »

Have you ever heard of the Canine Good Citizen Certificate? Also known as the CGC, this credential is given to dogs that have passed a temperament and training test. It’s also an AKC sponsored award that’s given to both purebred and mixed breed dogs. The end result is a proud certificate and tag that bears the CGC logo. But the rewards aren’t just for show. A CGC certified canine can get a career in a therapy dog training program! Here’s what’s required:  read more »

It’s very important that your pet respond to the dog come command. Yes, life threatening circumstances may necessitate such obedience, but an additional perk of this obedience is some off-leash time (provided that the dog is in a safe area). Here are two ways to get your dog to respond no matter what the situation.  read more »

Regarding your canine like a member of the family is one thing, but treating it like another human or a human dog is an entirely different thing altogether. Its okay to love your pet, but you must set boundaries and establish yourself as its leader or boss. That’s not cruel, it is instead (believe it or not), what your dog expects from you.  read more »

After bringing your dog home, one of your first tasks is to potty train it. And depending on the breed, house training dogs can be a fairly easy task, or it can be an extremely difficult and long task. Success requires your patience and persistence. Here are some excellent tips on how to achieve such success.  read more »

In a good number of our other articles, we’ve introduced a few techniques you can use to train your dog. This article describes how the positive reinforcement, correction-based, or clicker dog training method works with all of those techniques.  read more »

As mentioned in our article about dog obedience training, a dog trainer works with a dog suffering from a specific behavior problem in the environment that it’s most comfortable in: its own home. This article expands on the topic of dog trainers in more detail.

In addition to training dogs, a dog trainer also teaches owners how to handle a problematic pet. But because these lessons take place at the owner’s home, they’re much more expensive than classroom lessons.  read more »

If you ask any dog owner for the one thing she wishes she could do with her dog, the answer would probably be to understand what it’s trying to say. Just think about it – If there were a way to finally understand what all the dog barking sounds, growls, and whining truly meant! Consider this article your best bet toward interpreting dog sounds. It might not be perfect, but it’s the closest thing you’ll probably find. Enjoy!  read more »

Dogs jump when they’re excited. They’ll jump all over another dominant dog out of respect and they’ll jump all over you out of glee. But while dog jumping on people is generally a clear message of affection, it isn’t always appropriate. A large jumping dog can overwhelm and scare small children for instance, or it can make bringing in the groceries an even harder chore than what it already is. Here’s how to stop your dog from jumping without hurting its feelings.  read more »