Many backyard ornamentals- especially here in Texas where our climate is relatively mild- are poisonous to pets. This ranges from the mildly toxic plants that will cause stomach upset but generally are unlikely to do long-term damage, to those which will almost certainly prove fatal, with or without treatment. Some plants- like apples- have a part of the plant that’s poisonous (the seeds, in the case of apples- and it’d take a great deal to actually harm a dog; the chemicals apple trees are frequently spayed with are significantly more dangerous, especially if your dog likes to chew), but are generally harmless, and this is important information too. It’s also important to know your pet’s habits- is your dog a browser who likes to sample all of the greenery in your yard, or an omnivore who considers a large amount of vegetation an important part of his diet? Does he chew on sticks but otherwise leave plants alone? All of these are things to consider when making decisions about what plants to avoid- or remove, if they’re already present.

Like everything in life, the dangers of poisonous plants are real- but use common sense when evaluating what you need to do with your hard. Some are only toxic if ingested in great qualities or if processed in certain ways (a number of essential oils, which are very concentrated volatile organic compounds extracted from a plant, are very toxic to dogs although the plant itself is generally harmless) Unless your dog is left unattended in the yard frequently or very prone to eating plants whole, many of those listed below can be used with a minimum of risk. However, you should always read up and make the decision for yourself.

The ASPCA maintains a 24 hour poison control hotline that will consult with your vet and handle anything from accidentally ingested prescription medication to plants nibbled on in the backyard. The cost is $60 per incident, and they’ll handle your case as ongoing even if you call before leaving for the vet’s office, as well as helping consult with your vet for ongoing treatment. Their poison control database is considered the most complete and up to date on the web, and worth a look.

For puppies, toys that require mental effort can be a great way to wear your puppy out (remember, a tired puppy is a calm puppy!) without putting wear or tear on his growing joints with excessive exercise.

All of these toys involve food.  For dogs on reduced calorie diets, this can be managed by using their regular kibble, or filling but low calorie treats like carrots, apples, and peas.  For other dogs- especially puppies and active dogs- all meals can be fed from these toys to really give your dog something to do with his brain during the day while you’re at work.

1. Kong Classic
   This toy comes in a couple variations (Different sizes and slightly different materials for dogs with stronger jaws or who prefer a softer toy). In the center of the snow-man shaped rubber toy is a space that’s narrower on one end than the other. Stuff the toy with treats or kibble (seal the narrow end with a tiny bit of peanut butter or cream cheese) and let your dog roll, bounce, and bat it around to dislodge every crumb. Once your dog has mastered the easy version, you can experiment with making it more difficult- my guys like yogurt or cottage cheese frozen into it, which takes about 30 minutes to get out of the toy! It holds much less food than the other items on this list, and is a good ’starter’ toy. No puppy should be without a Kong!

   

2. Everlasting Treat Ball by Triple Crown
   This is another toy which requires dogs to chew on it in order to gain minimal access to a very hard (but apparently very tasty) treat disk that’s slightly recessed on the ball. My dogs LOVE these, but get them only rarely because they tend to go through the treat refills fairly fast. My girls are heavy chewers though, and your mileage may vary. Amazon.com frequently has good deals on these.

   

3. Buster Cube
   This is a hard plastic cube (some versions are marked like dice) which spills out kibble (or small treats) when rolled across the floor. This one is a great favorite with dogs that like to bat toys around. The material isn’t particularly inviting to chew, which has helped this toy survive three puppies in my household, which is also a bonus. It can do some damage to walls if it’s bounced off them hard enough, so use with caution- in an exercise pen, or in an area without really soft sheetrock!
4. Tug A Jug by Premier
   This purple plastic bottle has a rope (plastic in the newer versions) in the mouth of the bottle that almost but not completely fills the opening so that dogs have to roll the bottle in order to get food to spill out. My dogs like to grab it by the rope and fling it in hopes of scattering kibble across the kitchen floor. Of all the toys on the list, this one is the one I like the most and recommend the most rarely- if your dog is a serious chewer, the rope will be the first thing to go! However, for supervised use (or for dogs who do NOT love to chew on rope toys), this is a fantastic toy.

   

5. Kong Wobbler
   It feels a little like cheating to have two products that look so similar on the list, but the brand new Kong Wobbler is a fantastic product! Much like the inflatable punching bags that many folks had as kids (where you punched them and they sat back up), this toy wobbles and spits out treats as dogs hit it and knock it around.

I wrote the bulk of this several weeks ago in response to a spate of messages on a message board I frequent about this topic. Because I’m feeling lazy, I decided to re-post it over here so I can just direct people to it again rather than re-writing it every few days.

It’s a pretty common scenario- and one that I’ve responded to several times now, from face-to-face clients and, more commonly, on internet message boards. (Which is why I have decided to type this up!) Someone has gotten a new dog planning to use the crate method to housebreak him or her, and the dog eliminates in the crate, resulting in an unhappy owner, a stressed out (and dirty) dog, and tears all around. This isn’t uncommon with puppy mill dogs or dogs who came from really filthy conditions, but it can happen to any dog at all.

In my experience, there are three main reasons this happens. Firstly, is that the dog is being asked to ‘hold it’ too long. A rule of thumb for puppies is one hour per month of age, but there’s a great deal of individual variation. A stressed out puppy will need to go MUCH sooner than one who is used to being crated and settles down to sleep right away. A 2 month old Great Dane is 20 pounds, but a two month old Toy Fox Terrier is perhaps 2 or 3 pounds! Some puppies are just more mature than others. Secondly, the dog may have a physical problem- immaturity (and some dogs can be REALLY slow to mature!), a UTI, spay incontinance- or some form of separation anxiety (this last is the rarest). So if you have a dog who has been clean for weeks or months but has started soiling a crate regularly, a vet visit is probably in order. Thirdly, the dog comes from, as mentioned above, an environment where he or she never had the chance to eliminate away from the nesting area as a baby and has never learned to prefer NOT to sleep in her own mess.

Just like with any dog being housebroken, supervision and scheduled feedings are really important.  Scheduled feedings allow the owner to figure out the puppy’s schedule of elimination and urination- approximately how long after eating and drinking the puppy will feel the need to poop and pee. If the dog is not being supervised so that you can prevent any accidents and rush the puppy outside, they need to be confined. But for dogs who soil in the crate, this can be a nightmare. So what do you do?

First, find an alternate means of confinement. One good indoor option is an exercise pen lined with newspaper or potty pads outside of the crate so that she has access to them at all times. Exercise pens are a welded wire pen that weighs about 30 pounds which can be purchased at most large pet supply stores. They come in a variety of heights and are made up of a series of 2′ wide panels so they can be configured in a variety of shapes. (The most common ones are 16′ long, allowing you to make a 4×4′ square.)Put a plastic shower curtain or heavy-duty plastic sheet under the pen to protect the floor, too.

Babygating the dog into a dog-proofed area is also an option- a laundry room or hallway can work, too, especially with larger breed puppies and adult dogs. Except with fairly small dogs, it will be hard to fit a crate into an exercise pen and still have enough room for the dog to get outside of it- this is easy to solve by using a wire crate, and clipping the exercise pen to the sides so that it opens into the fenced-in area.  By lining the floor of the pen, you are establishing that newspaper is an acceptable surface to eliminate on, and you are also preventing messes. Now you can paper train your puppy.

Paper training isn’t a great first option as a rule, because you’ll have to gradually transition the dog into going on a single targeted sheet of paper or pee pad, and then gradually move that outdoors (while making it clear that eliminating off the pad is not done. ) But one problem at a time- by doing this, the puppy is set up NOT to potty in her crate. This reduces everyone’s stress right away- no more daily scrubdowns for puppy or crate. Put a bed or something (and use something easy to wash- I use fleece remnants from the fabric store) in the crate and pin (carefully!) or twist it so that puppy can’t pull it out of the crate to lay on it outside- you want the crate to be the most comfy place to nap. If you don’t plan to ever use a crate, you can even just attach the bedding to one side of the exercise pen so it can’t be dragged around.

I don’t put toys or chewies in the exercise pen. This isn’t a playpen, and it really should be used just like you’d use a crate. (I would give the dog chewies when they were tethered to me, instead of giving them as rewards for being in the crate, at least for a few days.) The dog shouldn’t be playing in the pen- if they are, they’re spending too much time in there. I give this a week and see if the puppy will choose to potty as far away from her ‘bed’ as possible. (She may decide not to sleep in the crate or on the bedding – at this point, that’s fine, just as long as she’s eliminating far away from that area.) One potential problem with this setup is if you don’t pick where the pen goes carefully, she can end up eliminating and then walking through it to get to the side you typically walk on or pick her up from. So pick a spot carefully, and don’t be afraid to move it.

If, after a week, she’s consistantly NOT eliminating in the crate, I start reducing the paper in the pen- first, leave the area under the crate and a tiny bit in front of it uncovered. Give that a week, 10 days, and reduce the paper again by a tiny amount- maybe 10-20%. If this schedule works? Continue it- and you can speed up to making changes every 3 days, as long as she’s consistantly using the pads and not the floor. It will take between 2-3 weeks to get down to just 1-2 potty pads in the pen with puppy and her crate. During this period, make sure that you reward VERY heavily any time you see her eliminating on the potty pads or paper- and if you see her beginning to go while she’s on the bare floor, tell her no and interrupt her, moving her to the potty pads.

Once you have her down to 1/4 of the pen covered with a potty pad (if the pen is set up as a 4′ square, that’s 1 pad) and she is using it consistantly (and NOT soiling in her crate), I start re-introducing the crate as a method of confinement- but I’d treat her like a dog who hadn’t been crate trained, because she effectively *hasn’t*.  Continue to reward very heavily for choosing the correct surface (the potty pad) for peeing and pooping on, and interrupting any instance of using something else. (If you’re having to interrupt often, you’re moving too fast with getting rid of the paper.)

I then reintroduce the crate very slowly, and in stages. Someone- and I can’t remember who originated this, but it might have been from Pigs Fly- giving your dog something REALLY REALLY TASTY- a Kong, a marrow bone- giving them 2 minutes in the crate (door closed) with it- and then PULLING THEM OUT AND DOING SOMETHING BORING- I like grooming for this ) Most dogs will be quite eager to go back to their crate after 3-4 minutes of this- so let them! Feed in the crate, crate for very short periods of time- while you take a shower, while you unload the dishwasher- and see how she does. When you have to leave the puppy alone for longer periods, continue to use the exercise pen or baby gated area in order to prevent her from regressing.

In the mean time, while you’re reintroducing the crate, get a feeling for how often she’s peeing and pooping (and what times) on the papers. If you’re very confident about the schedule and that she won’t use the floor? Pull out that pee pad and put it in another part of the house and start taking her to it when you know she needs to go. If you can get her to do that? You’re 80% of the way done- she’s learned the self control to wait and now you jsut have to transition from pads to outdoors. More on that in another post.

This isn’t impossible to overcome. The biggest thing is patience. Toy breeds (most of the posters who have this problem have toy or small breeds or, oddly enough, dachshunds) can be REALLY tough to housebreak. This issue- it is, I believe, the #1 reason toys end up in rescue (housebreaking, not crate soiling). Like any dog behavior problem, the key is changing the way you manage the dog in order to make everyone’s life lower stressful while you retrain the dog’s behavior.

1. If your dog isn’t having fun, why are you there?
   It’s not complicated. If your dog is the shy sort, doesn’t play well with strangers, or otherwise needs socialization, the dog park is not the place for him. Resolve those issues, and THEN give it a try.
2. The dog park is not a singles bar.
   You are there to have fun with your dog, not to socialize. If you can’t see your dog and carry on a conversation, quit talking.
3. Know where your dog is and what he’s doing at all times.
   Even nice dogs can be obnoxious from time to time. Keep an eye on your dog and call him back if you see him annoying another dog, even if it’s normal doggy behavior.
4. Just because your dog is neutered (or spayed) doesn’t mean that he or she is automatically blameless when tangling with an intact dog. (And a dog that has aggression issues with intact dogs doesn’t belong at the dog park, regardless of whether or not his balls are attached.) Be honest about your dog’s behavior.  (Conversely, if your dog is not neutered or spayed? You have an extra duty to be vigilant, because you’re an ambassador for all responsible pet owners with intact dogs.)
5. Scuffles happen- be prepared. The closest vets to the dog park are East Lake Animal Hospital (on Northwest Highway, during business hours), Hillside Veterinary Hospital (on Mockingbird, west of the park, also during business hours) or, outside of regular business hours, the emergency clinic at Forest and Greenville. If your dog was involved, get everyone’s info (including witnesses) and be aware that Dallas Animal Control won’t get involved unless a person was injured. If dogs were the only ones damaged, it’ll be a real battle proving liability, so get photos, license plates, names and license numbers.
6. Situational awareness is your friend.
   If there’s a scuffle, keep an eye on the general mood of the park. When dogs are on edge, especially when it’s crowded, fights are more likely to happen.  This holds true for people, too.
7. The dog park is a confined space, and there’s a finite number of dogs who can be in there without feeling crowded. Avoiding peak times (weekend afternoons) is common sense. If the weather is so nice you HAVE to be outside, why not go play in the field (on a long-line, thank you!) up at Flagpole Hill, or the wildflower meadow, or at Stone Tables? All these are 10 minutes or less (by car) from the dog park, and typically MUCH less crowded. Keeping a long-line in your trunk is a great safety precaution, anyway.
8. The dog park is great for blowing off steam, but be sensible. If your dog is a dervish who can’t listen to a recall for the first 10 minutes off leash? Take him for an on-leash walk first and jog some of the zoomies out.

Specializing in puppy manners & socialization, pet obedience, and CGC & Therapy Dog preparation.

214-289-9297
cait@dogstaracademy.com