How To Stop Dogs From Digging!

Mental Stimulation
When you begin to provide more mental stimulation, you will probably notice that <<Doodles Name(s)>> is more settled, less restless, less hyperactive, less attention-seeking, and guess what?  They won't need massive amounts of physical exercise just to make them tolerable to be around.

Some of the items below allow you to kill two birds with one stone (mental stimulation and physical exercise together). 

ALL of the items below increase your interaction with your dog, and that's always pawsitive. All of the items below will increase your control and training of your dog.

Walks: Give your dog plenty of exercise to relieve boredom and burn off energy – two significant factors contributing to destructive behavior. Walking with your dogs is a way of bonding and solidifying the pack. The walks should be about 20 minutes minimum. I also highly recommend reading this article if your dog is pulling on his leash while walking - Proper way to walk a dog.



Stimulating Chew Toys: Give your puppy lots of chew toys! Classic Kong Dog Toys are great. You can fill them with treats and watch them try to figure out how to get them out. Pressed Rawhide Bones are great and are less dangerous then regular rawhide bones.
Try a Buster Cube



Stimulating Mind Games: Keep your dogs mind stimulated. You can try mind stimulating toys and games. For example try these games with your dog.



Taking Classes:  If you can manage to take an obedience, agility, flyball, frisbee, stockdog, lure coursing, Rally-O, or any other type of regular training class, do it!  Even if you don't need to "learn" anything, your dog will get MASSIVE amounts of mental stimulation from the activity.

Hide and Seek: Dogs love this.  You leave the dog in one room while you hide in another.  Call the dog when you're well hidden.  Some dogs can be fooled for quite a while and get plenty of exercise racing round hunting for you.  It's a bit noisy but great fun. Kids love this one.



Retrieval games:  If your dog likes to play ball or frisbee, add a "mental component" to it by asking the dog for a different obedience behavior or trick before each throw.  Then, throw the item creatively...sideways, out front, backwards, straight up in the air, long, short...keep the dog guessing.  A good enriched retrieval session of 5-10 minutes can leave the dog mentally satisfied and physically exercised (and plus, you don't even have to walk...I'm lazy, can you tell?)  You can do retrieval games with dogs that do not have a good recall by using a long line/Flexi lead, or by going to a ball diamond or tennis court.  For extra exercise, get a Chuckit and really fling that ball!

Fun Sounds:
Not a game but gets the dogs up from their naps and stimulates their senses... use the internet and type in "royalty free dog sounds." Sound-Effects.com



Busy walks: 
Take your dog to a busy area and hang out for 15 minutes.  The Wal-Mart parking lot, a softball game, a town fair, any outdoor event is super.  If you live in an area where there is a
large pet store that allows dogs to enter, that's great too (but please boycott any pet stores that sell puppies!).  The sights, smells, and interaction with people are all new and interesting items for the dog to take in and will mentally exhaust the dog.  If your dog is anxious in environments such as this, please start remedial socialization and use less challenging environments at first. My dogs love a walk in downtown Portland. LOVE IT!

Clicker Training: 
Training your dog to offer behaviors using clicker training is a superb way to offer mental stimulation without worries.  A 5-minute clicker session is a "brain drain" for a properly prepared dog.  You don't even have to have a goal in your training!  Who cares if you never go anywhere with what the dog is doing?  I do this often with my own dogs.  It is their absolute favorite activity...they will leave a delicious KONG to work for the click.  They will tear down doors if they hear me working with another dog!



Dog Comes Along: 
Take your dog with you when you go places.  Need to return movies?  Take the dog along if the weather permits you to safely leave him in the car for 5 minutes.  Return your moves, then get the dog out for 5 minutes and walk him around the parking lot.  Every outing you can allow your dog to enjoy is mental stimulation, even if it's just for 5 minutes! 
You can add immense amounts of mental stimulation just by allowing the dog to accompany you wherever you go.  Even if you don't take him out of the car, the trip itself is fun and exciting and offers all kinds of new sights, sounds, smells, and experiences.  Plus he gets to be with you.  Simply starting to include the dog in your life on an everyday basis outside of the home environment, will make a HUGE difference.

Conclusion: With a little extra time your dog will be a well behaved and relaxed pet, instead of a furry tyrant. Plus - one of the big advantages of having dogs is the enforced exercise. I can personally say I never took walks with my family before we got our dogs and now we walk together everyday.  This is has been a HUGE improvment for me and my whole family. Thank you Toby, Teddy and Daisy. :)

Santa Pictures

that he loves and so I had a huge chunk of this in my hand and I was trying to get him to turn around and sit NEXT to Santa but he wouldn't get too close. He refused. Finally I put the whole role of treats on the ground in front of Santa and he laid down in front of him for the picture. Santa looks like he's holding poor Toby in place. Haha! It was pretty fun and hilarious to say the least. Toby is SO big but he's still 100% puppy. He's only 8 months old so it's a little tough for him when everyone expects him to behave like an adult. I mean come on he still believes in Santa after all! He's still just a baby. My BIG baby. Doesn't Santa just look THRILLED!