The 4th of July is almost here! While it’s a time of celebration for us, it can be a scary and stressful experience for our furry friends. Dogs have much more sensitive hearing than humans, so the loud booms from fireworks can trigger intense fear responses. As a puppy trainer, I often hear the same question: “How can I help my dog deal with fireworks and thunderstorms?” If you notice your furry friend displaying signs of fear like hiding, trembling, panting, pacing, barking, or trying to escape, it’s crucial to take action.
Here are some helpful tips to get your pup through this stressful event:
1. Keep Your Pup Indoors. More dogs go missing on the 4th of July than any other day of the year because they run away trying to escape the noise. Keeping your dog inside can prevent this. 2. Create a Safe Space. Ensure your dog has a safe hiding space, such as a covered crate in a quiet room. 3. Provide Distractions. To keep them occupied, offer distractions like a tasty frozen food toy or their favorite chew toy. 4. Use Background Noise. Leave the TV or radio on to help drown out the sound of fireworks. Ensure the volume isn’t too loud, which can hurt your pup’s ears. 5. Close Blinds or Curtains. Minimizing flashes of light can help keep your dog calm. Close your blinds or curtains to reduce visual stimuli. 6. Consult Your Vet. Talk to your vet about medications or calming supplements, especially if your dog struggles with loud noises. Do this sooner rather than later to be prepared.
Surviving Florida Summer Thunderstorms from a Puppy Trainer in Vero Beach
A Few Tips for a Stress-Free Summer:
Pair Booms with Treats
A simple way to reduce fear is to pair the loud noises with an extra yummy treat. Regular treats will suffice for some dogs, but for others, you might need something special like cheese or chicken. Toss your dog a treat whenever you hear a boom to create a positive association with the noise.
Use Food Toys
Give your dog a food toy stuffed with something tasty, such as canned dog food, peanut butter, or cream cheese, to lick while the noises occur.
Condition Relaxation
If you’ve trained your dog to relax on a mat or bed, this can help settle them during a noise event.
Remember, there’s no reason for you or your dog to suffer. If nothing seems to be working, consult your veterinarian for additional options to reduce their fear.
For expert advice on all aspects of puppy training in Vero Beach
We are located in Sebastian, Florida, and train dogs in the surrounding area. Contact me or arrange a FREE consultation call to discuss how we can work together to give you your dream dog.
Goldstar puppy training programsoffer a revolutionary blend of in-person private puppy training, home-study tutorials, and group puppy classes.
Through years of experience, we’ve discovered that this is the most effective way to train your puppy successfully. Your puppy progresses their new skills easily, with the optimum conditions to promote powerful learning that lasts.
So that you can enjoy life with a confident, well-behaved dog and an upstanding member of doggy society!
Whether you’re seeking spacious parks for obedience drills, tranquil beaches for socialization, or bustling downtown areas for urban exposure, Vero Beach offers a myriad of options to cater to every training need.
Exploring the scenic shores of Vero Beach with your furry companion can be an enriching experience for both you and your four-legged friend. However, to ensure your pup is well-behaved and responsive in various environments, finding the best places to train them becomes paramount. In this guide, we’ll embark on a journey through Vero Beach’s finest locales tailored for dog training. Whether you’re seeking spacious parks for obedience drills, tranquil beaches for socialization, or bustling downtown areas for urban exposure, Vero Beach offers a myriad of options to cater to every training need. Here, we look at one of my favorite resources to find spots perfect to unleash your dog’s full potential and foster a strong bond through effective training methods.
Finding the Best Spots for Dog Training in Vero Beach
When it comes to finding the perfect place to train or exercise your dog, it can be tricky. You ideally want somewhere secure if training off leash recall and somewhere with a few other well-behaved pups if you’re practising socializing. But finding these places isn’t always easy. We have a few favorite places you can check out in our other post, Best Places to Walk your Dog in Vero Beach, but I just love finding somewhere new for our students to practice their new skills. That’s where Sniffspot is super handy.
What is Sniffspot?
Sniffspot is a super easy to use website that showcases the best private spots you can rent for any kind of interaction with your dog, not just training but for you both to enjoy. When you take a look at their about page you’ll see how it’s a passion project of the founders to make the world more dog friendly, one spot at a time.
“The Sniffspot story begins in 2016 when founder, David Adams, adopted his first dog, Soba. Soba is a wonderful, outgoing dog with leash reactivity. The year after David met a wonderful woman named Rebecca and her dog Toshii. Toshii grew up on the streets of Atlanta and is dog selective. Rebecca and Toshii were traveling for work in Baltimore and Rebecca was having a terrible time just taking care of Toshii’s basic needs. There was nowhere she could safely let him off leash. She texted him and said “There has to be a better way, I wish there was an app where I could find places to let Toshii off leash”. And that was the light bulb for Sniffspot.
Inspired by the idea of making things better for dogs, David put up a simple website and started crowdsourcing yards. Sniffspot has grown from there. Now Sniffspot operates in all 50 states and all around the world. The world is still not dog friendly enough, but Sniffspot is making it a more dog friendly place one spot at a time.”
How to Use Sniffspot to Find The Best Places for Dog Training
The website is super easy to navigate and I can guarantee that you’ll find your perfect place in minutes.
1. From the home page you can either click the button at the top to use your location and find spots near you or explore the different types of places on offer.
2. Once on the page to find your spot, you can change your location and get results for exactly where you’d like to go.
3. Simply put in the date and time of day, e.g. before noon, you’d like to visit the spot.
4. Read through the results shown. On each listing, you’ll see the type of spot, the price, an image and the location.
5. Click a listing you like the look of and you’ll see further information. Here you’ll see:
The host of the spot
Ratings and Reviews
The size of the spot
Fencing type and height etc
Any distractions there may be
Amenities
Further pricing info
Rules
Contact information and a button to ask the host any questions.
There’s also a Book Now button if you like what you see.
Best Puppy Training Vero Beach.
If you need some professional puppy training before heading out alone to practice great new skills, get in touch. We’re leading Puppy Trainers in the Vero Beach area of Florida and can help you and your puppy with all kinds of training. We offer day school or Board and Train to suit you. Contact us for your Free consult to find out exactly what training you need and how we can help. You can book a time best for you here.
Teaching your puppy to be comfortable with body handling will not only benefit you when you need to put on their harness or brush them, it will also help them be more tolerant of handling at the vet clinic. If you teach your dog to enjoy being handled and groomed by pairing those activities with high value treats, it makes the experience less stressful for everybody involved and your pup might even begin to look forward to it!
How to Start Practicing for the First Vet Visit
1) Practice at a time when your puppy is tired and calm. Maybe after a walk around the neighborhood or a playtime session.
2) Be sure to have your pup’s favorite treats on hand
3) Gently hold your puppy’s paw/ear/lip, mark with the word “yes,” deliver a treat, and release them.
4) Repeat this process 3-5 times and end the session. If you practice too much too fast, it can create an adverse effect and cause your puppy to become overwhelmed.
Training Puppies for Vet Visits
Once your puppy is comfortable having you handle them, you can begin increasing the time intervals you are holding their paws/ears for. For example, instead of just picking up their paw for a second, marking with “yes,” rewarding and letting go, try Holding their paw for 3 seconds. Once they are comfortable with that, try holding their paw for 5 seconds. Be sure to slowly adjust to longer time intervals. You can also try having other household members or friends practice with your puppy so they get used to multiple different people handling them.
Treat Alternatives
If you are finding it difficult to deliver treats one by one, you can also utilize food toys and smearable foods! Lickimats and Kongs with peanut butter or canned food are a great option for being able to leave the food down while you focus on the body handling
Additional Body Handling Skills
Practice using a stethoscope (a pretend one is fine)
Practice getting onto platforms that mimic a scale
Practice gently “tenting” the skin as if they were receiving a shot
Practice lightly palpating their body
Puppy Trainer Sebastian, Vero Beach.
If you need help or advice on any aspect of puppy training, get in touch. We’re leading puppy trainers in the Treasure Coast area of Florida and can help you and your puppy with all kinds of training. We offer day school or Board and Train to suit you. Contact us for your Free consult to find out exactly what training you need and how we can help. You can book a time best for you here.
How to Safely Socialize a Puppy Before Vaccinations
We often get asked how to safely socialize a puppy before they are fully vaccinated.
It’s really important to get your puppy out experiencing new sights, smells and environments as soon as possible after they’ve settled in at home BEFORE they receive their last set of vaccinations. A puppy’s critical socialization window closes around 14-16 weeks of age. This is the time of your pup’s life when they are forming their opinions about the world and most open to new experiences. Puppies typically receive their final round of vaccines around 16 weeks of age.
This means that if you wait to take them anywhere until their vaccines are completed, you’re totally missing out on this huge window of opportunity with your puppy! The veterinarians at the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior say that the risk that your puppy contracts an infection is much less than the risk of negative behavioral fallout from keeping your puppy stuck at home for their first few months of life. You can read their full position statement here:
Now, this DOESN’T mean you should take your puppy to areas with a ton of unknown dogs like a dog park. That’s way too unsafe. But you can take your puppy to plenty of other places without having them interact with dogs (or even people) at all. If your puppy is timid, you want to be extra careful to make sure they aren’t overwhelmed on your socialization field trips.
How to Socialize a Timid Puppy
This 5 month old goldendoodle puppy, King, came to us for Sleepaway Camp. He didn’t have a lot of experiences outside of the home before. We could tell he was a little nervous in new situations and unsure about new people. We made a plan to start socializing him in a way that kept him feeling safe so he didn’t feel the need to bark.
We started by simply parking in a store parking lot and letting King observe the parking lot from the back of our vehicle. Whenever he’d stare at a person or other distraction, we’d say “yes” and give him a treat.
King observing people from van:
Then we tried having him chill out on a bench outside of a grocery store:
Then when he was feeling more comfortable, we took our practice on the move and walked down the sidewalk at a busy plaza and rewarded him for checking in with us and walking nicely.
King walking through the plaza:
How to Socialize a Puppy
Remember, socialization can be passive. Your puppy does NOT have to physically interact with any people or animals in order to benefit. Other safe ways to socialize your puppy before they’re vaccinated include:
-Park at a pet supply store and let your puppy watch people and dogs walk by in the parking lot.
-Stand outside a grocery store and let your puppy watch people walk by. Remember, if your puppy is nervous, do not allow people to pet them.
-Take your puppy on a quick cart ride through a pet friendly store.
*Pro tip: Put a mat or blanket in the bottom of the cart for comfort and make sure they don’t jump out!
-Take your puppy to the tennis courts and let them observe the action.
-Walk your puppy past a playground so they can hear and see kids. We recommend that you keep moving and keep the visit short to avoid kids running up to your puppy. Puppies nip and have sharp teeth so we don’t let them interact with unknown children. You can always let your puppy watch from the car if it seems too hard to avoid interaction.
-Take your puppy on a happy visit to the veterinarian just to get some treats and then leave.
For more information on how to properly socialize your puppy and avoid accidentally creating issues during the process, check out our other blog here: Problems with Puppy Socialization
Puppy Trainer Sebastian, Vero Beach
If you need help with Socializing your puppy or any other dog training, reach out and speak to us. We offer a free consult so that you can be sure you’re getting the right training for you and your dog! Contact us here or Book your free consult now.
Training a dog that is picky about food can be a bit challenging. All dogs are motivated by food at some level since they need it to live but some dogs may not accept food reliably as training rewards. However, there are alternative methods and techniques you can use to train your dog without using treats as the primary motivator.
Take Jewel the Husky, she was here for board & train and one of her struggles was focusing enough to take treats in new environments. Watch how we use alternative methods to keep her engaged with training when even chicken and
cheese treats weren’t always enough!
In Jewel’s case, she enjoys exploring her environment far more than receiving treats or praise. We have to find out what she responds to most. You’ll see in the video that when she responds to her recall cue “touch”, as a reward she was allowed to go for a quick zoom to the grass for a good sniff. When we want her back in the training space, we make it equally as fun by using the same quick movement. When asked for “touch” again, Jewel responds nicely so we reward with a tossed treat so she can chase it. She finds this much more engaging and fun. Using a combination of movement, treats and sniffing was the key to training success.
Alternative Dog Training Methods
Some other great dog training methods to consider are:Some other great dog training rewards to consider are:
Use Toys as Rewards
Some dogs are more motivated by play than food. Find a toy that your dog loves, and use it as a reward during training sessions. Just make sure your dog knows how to drop it on cue!
Environmental Rewards
Allow your dog access to things they enjoy as a reward. For example, a short playtime in the yard or access to a favorite mailbox to sniff can serve as motivation.
Interactive Playtime
Leverage your dog’s natural instincts. For example, if your dog enjoys fetching, use a short game of fetch as a reward.
Verbal Praise and Affection
Many dogs respond well to verbal praise and physical affection. Use a cheerful and encouraging tone when praising your dog for good behavior. Just remember this may not be as valuable of a reward in high distraction or challenging
settings.
Remember to Keep Training Sessions Short and Fun
eep training sessions short and enjoyable to prevent boredom. This will help maintain your dog’s interest and engagement.
Be Patient and Consistent:
Consistency is key in dog training. Be patient and consistent in your approach, and your dog will start to understand what is expected and give you more of what you want.
How to Train a Dog That’s Not Food Motivated
If you’re not sure how to identify which training method could work for your pup, we can help. We train humans as well as puppies. Our Treasure Coast Puppy Trainers can help you feel more confident in training your dog using a variety of methods. For a free consultation, simply book here.
