Here is a fun video of me and my dog enjoying ourselves during a training session. We’re gearing up for a holiday video to come towards the end of the year. That takes a lot of planning! Meanwhile, if you and your dog don’t have as much fun as we do training, contact me for an appointment to get started bringing joy into your dog training sessions. By Helen Verte Certified Pet Dog Trainer-Knowledge Assessed, Certified Trick Dog Instructor {Read More}
Shelter From The Cold
January 5, 2014 by
This time of year makes me think of the many pets who live outdoors or are indoor/outdoor pets, and may face some cold, if not frigid weather. Some freeze to death. It’s hard to fathom, but it’s true. Pets need shelter. I ran across this photo on Facebook. It may seem like a small contribution, but to a small animal out in the cold, this shelter can make a difference between surviving or not. Three containers are nestled inside each other, {Read More}
Puppy Training
January 3, 2014 by
Puppies have so much to learn and it’s important to start them off as soon as possible. Socialization, for example, has a small window of opportunity, and that window needs to be exploited. There are many behaviors a puppy needs to learn. Housetraining and impulse control are two big ones to start. And as cute as they are, puppies have razor sharp teeth and they need to learn where to use them. Before your puppy gets to practice habits that {Read More}
Housetraining A Dog
January 2, 2014 by
Do you have a new puppy who needs housetraining? Have you adopted an adult dog whose house training skills are rusty? Or perhaps your dog was never completely housebroken, and you want to start fresh to housetrain your dog right. Even a senior dog can be house trained or re-housetrained. As long as a dog is in good health, s/he can be housetrained. The most efficient path to a housetrained dog is through Love Wags A Tail’s Housetraining 123 board-and-train {Read More}
Dog Training Fun and Social Facilitation from Frasier, RDWRER
December 29, 2013 by
I think my all-time favorite television show has got to be Frasier. The writing, cast, and especially the well-trained JRTs, Eddie and in later episodes, Enzo, made it a fabulous comedy series. I still haven’t watched all the episodes, and came across this one a couple days ago and have watched it four times already. It’s Frasier‘s Happy New Year episode of the millennium, and JRT Eddie had a couple of fabulous moments in the plot that were laugh-out-loud pleasures. {Read More}
The Investment of Training A Dog
December 23, 2013 by
People occasionally call me for help after having had bad experiences with dog trainers who’ve made no difference in the behaviors of their dogs or even made their dogs worse. These people needed help, unwittingly invested in ineffective and/or inappropriate training and lost money while their dog was handled carelessly. In some professions, this would be called negligent. But… Dog training is an unregulated profession, and formal education, experience, nor certification is required for a person to call themselves a professional {Read More}
Behavior Chains in Dog Training
December 21, 2013 by
Here’s a fun, one-minute video of training bits of a behavior chain. What’s a behavior chain? It’s separately trained behaviors that when put together make a finished product. For example, teaching a dog to lie down, grab a blanket, hold the blanket, roll over, and cover himself. That’s a behavior chain: Many smaller behaviors that when connected, make one big, fluid behavior. The dogs and I train daily. They love training as much as I do. Here are those snippets {Read More}
Dogs’ Body Language In Santa Photos
December 17, 2013 by
When taking your dog for Santa photos be careful and observant. The white beard and funny red hat can be scary to many dogs. Unless you or Santa are savvy at reading dog body language, your dog may be put into a position where he feels backed into a corner, and may strike out with his only defense, his teeth. Reading a dog’s stress signals does take some education and practice. Let’s face it, humans and dogs have very different {Read More}
Potty Training For Dogs Fort Lauderdale
December 10, 2013 by
For local help potty training a puppy or dog in Broward county, south Florida, you’ll find guidance through Love Wags A Tail’s housetraining information. When a dog is pulling on the leash, it is quite a tough thing to ignore. Except when the distance of the leash, or in this case the Flexi Lead, is less than the space the dog can run in before actually yanking you off your feet. I remember over 15 years ago, I used to come {Read More}
The Name Game With Dogs
December 6, 2013 by
While doing rescue in Fort Lauderdale, I’ve gotten some dogs in over the years that came with names, but didn’t know them. When I called their names, they never responded. Sometimes, people have a name for a dog, but don’t use it to interact with the dog. That’s a sad state of affairs. But what do you do when you have a new dog or puppy to get him to learn his name? Associations. When teaching a dog his name, {Read More}
Dog Pee On The Christmas Tree
December 5, 2013 by
We give our dogs enough water, so let’s make sure that they have ample opportunity to release their valves when they need to and urinate. Holding urine for too long is detrimental to anyone’s health, our dogs’ included. A Christmas tree might be the perfect spot for our dogs to water from their personal faucets, so a little management to keep housetraining mistakes from happening are in order for this time of year. Remember, a dog may not know the difference {Read More}
Dogs Please Whom?
December 4, 2013 by
What’s in it for me? Don’t you find yourself thinking this thought when you are asked to do something? My mind automatically starts searching for something to motivate me into doing something that I may not normally want to do. I paved about two-thirds of my back yard with twelve-inch by twelve-inch pavers over a six-month period one year. The reason was that my back yard is full of rocks under shallow ground. Not good for the dogs’ paws. That {Read More}
Remember! Dogs Need Water 24/7
December 3, 2013 by
Dogs need drinking water available to them 24/7, for their health and it’s just plain humane, which is what we all want to be. Especially to our fur kids. By Helen Verte Certified Pet Dog Trainer-Knowledge Assessed, Certified Trick Dog Instructor Broward County Dog Obedience Trainer Fort Lauderdale
Novice Trick Dog Title Fort Lauderdale
December 2, 2013 by
This is a video of a dog I’ve worked with for years. She is quite impulsive, and also extraordinarily interested in toys for her breed. She prefers the reward of fetch more than that of treats. When I trained her to do a sit stay years ago, it was in split second increments. That she could keep her hiney on the ground for a one-second stint was a day to celebrate. Bit by bit, I built it up to the {Read More}
When Are Dog Crates Inhumane?
December 1, 2013 by
When are dog crates inhumne? I can think of five times. 1. When a dog isn’t trained to accept his crate at his own pace and have good feelings about his crate. If, instead, the dog is shoved into a crate, the door shut, and he is left inside, this is inhumane. Imagine how it would feel to have the same thing done to you. Panic? Fear? It would be a bad feeling. 2. Warehousing. Leaving a dog in his {Read More}
