Episode #33 Thanksgiving Tips

It's that time of year again when guests arrive, food is out in all its glory and kids may be running around in excitement. This can all be super fun for a new puppy. But how do we help him to behave properly when the excitement and energy levels have gone up in our home? Here are a few tips to help you through the holidays. Enjoy!

Transcript

speaker 0:   0:00
This is The Puppy Training Podcast Episode #33: Thanksgiving Tips. This podcast is for those looking to train their own dog, whether as a family companion, a service, or a therapy dog, and I'm here to help you every step of the way. This is The Puppy Training Podcast, and I'm your host, Amy Jensen.

speaker 0:   0:19
Hello, hello! It's Thanksgiving Week. I can hardly believe it. Time goes by so quickly these days, but we are to Thanksgiving. It's one of my most favorite holidays. I love to take time away from a normally busy schedule and really reflect on all of my blessings. I am so thankful for all of the many things that I have. I'm excited this week to celebrate. We get together with family, it's fun to see people we haven't seen in a while and spend time with them, and I wish you and your family a very happy Thanksgiving. I know we also have listeners who maybe don't celebrate Thanksgiving, as we do here in the States and to you, I hope that you have a wonderful week as well and just challenge you to look around and find things that you are thankful for in your life. Because Thanksgiving is this Thursday, and, here in the States, that becomes a time when we get together, where we see lots of people, we might have guests in our home, we prepare a big meal, there's going to be food in all of sorts of places, and as we have a puppy in our home, this gets a little tricky, so I thought today it would be a perfect time to roll out a podcast on tips for Thanksgiving. How do we incorporate our puppy into our holiday? This could be any holiday that you celebrate in your home where you have guests or you have food that's going to be out and about, and readily available to that puppy. What are some tips that you can use to manage this situation, and to best get through it with a brand new puppy or a dog, really any situation? So today it's Thanksgiving tips on the podcast, but first I want to throw this out there because Christmas is right around the corner as well, a time of year when we often give gifts to people, and I would suggest that if you know someone who is getting a dog or a puppy for Christmas or around that holiday, why not give them the best gift you could of a lifetime membership to our Online Puppy School? This is a program where we walk people through exactly what to do from Day One with their brand new dog. We give you the tips and the tricks, we teach you lessons, we show you videos, we provide live office hours where I can talk to you one on one with a video chat, so if you know somebody getting a dog, that just might be the best gift for them. Head on over to www.BaxterandBella.com if you're interested in that. We will have a little sale going on this week for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and into the holidays.

speaker 0:   2:39
All right, let's get to it. Let's get to our Thanksgiving tips. Number one. If we're preparing for guests, there are a few things that we can do. If people are coming over to your home this week, let's, first of all, provide a safe, rewarding spot that your puppy can go if he's feeling overwhelmed. A lot of times when we have people coming to our house, the noise level escalates, just the general energy level in our home gets higher. If there are kids running around and maybe there's not typically kids running around, that can cause the puppy a little bit of stress, so giving them a space like a quiet room with a crate inside, maybe an exercise pen in there with the crate, the water bowl, and a bed or something that he can retreat to and take his normal daily naps. Think of a toddler who goes through the day and never gets his nap. He just gets more and more cranky, and we want to provide our puppy with his regular downtimes during the day, even though we're having a holiday and the schedules may be a little bit out of the normal, I would prepare a nice, quiet area of your home, or your puppy can go and retreat to so that he can de-escalate, he can relax and get that needed sleep so that he's a happier puppy. Make sure he has a current ID tag on his collar. Sometimes this is the time of year when our doors opening and closing frequently, kids are in and out, people are in and out, and our puppy could dash out that door, we don't want him to get lost, so make sure that he's properly identified with the tag on his collar or microchipped. Tagged sometimes just helps to put his name and then on the back, put microchipped with your phone number so that if he were to be found by somebody they can call you, that could also take him to a vet clinic, and they would know that he's microchipped. Another thing that I like to do is keep leashes handy. I'll often put a leash by each door and I'll just clip a little carabiner to my pant belt buckle, and then that way, if I need to quickly just attach my puppy to me, I can clip the leash on him, clip that to the carabiner on my belt buckle, and then we can just walk around the house together, and I know where he is at all times. Plan on just having him attached to you for part of the day, and that gives him a little break from his crate or his exercise pen, it allows him some freedom to be in and out and interact with your guests, but not necessarily be in their faces, which a lot of your guests will probably appreciate. Having food rewards and jars around your home. I just like to have little containers ready to go with food rewards in them, so that if we want to practice sitting to be greeted, I could have guessed a treat and say, 'Do you mind feeding this to my puppy when he sits?' If there are lots of children, they get super excited, and they love to see the puppy and interact with the puppy, so involve them in the training. Hand them a treat and show them how to get your puppy into a sit without saying a word. Make it a game for them, like, 'what can you get my puppy to do without talking to him?' Sometimes when these guests come over and the kids come over, they get so excited they're shouting commands at our puppies like sit, sit, sit or down, down, down, and our puppy just gets stressed and feels overwhelmed, so a game that I love to play when the kids come over is 'Hey, let's see what we can get the puppy to do without saying a word' and they get really excited about that. It's a challenge for them, and kids love challenges. Another thing would be the greetings. Take this time to practice these things. When the doorbell rings, let's practice getting our puppy to go to his mat and stay there while somebody answers the door. Let's practice walking over to somebody calmly and sitting to be greeted. I did a podcast on this two episodes ago, so if you want to go check that out, visit the episode #31 on greetings, I gave some tips in there on how you can get your puppy to greet people properly. That's kind of our first tip preparing for guests and what to do about them when they come. 

speaker 0:   6:10
The second tip would be to feed your dog his meal, not yours. Remember that human food can be richer than their food, and we don't wanna have our puppy with an upset digestive system over this holiday. That would be terrible, right? We don't wanna have any potty issues, so let's keep his meal his meal and our meal our meal. No cooked bones. Absolutely no leftover turkey bones go to your dog. They can splinter, they can cause some really big issues in their digestive tract, so we don't want to see them any cooked bones. Sometimes it's tempting, but don't do it. Turkey skins or another one that's too rich for them. Just keep to their food is their food and our food is our food. Remember, some foods can be toxic to your dog. Chocolate is the big one. Sometimes it seems like they're okay, they digest a bunch of chocolate, and then after that, they could get some kind of secondary infection. Even if your dog eats something and then you think he's fine, and then the next day something crops up, that would be a concern and maybe a reason to go see a vet. Just to simplify your entire holiday again, that tip is to feed your dog his meal, not yours. You can give him some yummy food that is his. There are things like jerky and things for dogs that he's probably used to that he could chew on and really enjoy his day. Fill a Kong. There are lots of recipes on the Kong website, so go fill his Kong was something that his little tummy can handle. Then you don't have to have any of those digestive issues, and you can enjoy your holiday.  

speaker 0:   7:39
The last tip is on kids and puppies. Oh, the excitement! Kids enter our home, and as we mentioned, the excitement level goes up. It spikes, the energy level goes up and, as such are puppy mirrors those emotions, and our puppy's energy level is going to go up, and his excitement level is gonna go up, so few things that I like to teach kids that first when I already talked about was giving them a challenge. What can you get my dog to do without saying a word? That's great for that initial greeting. As the kids were in your home, I teach them to play the statue game. If they don't want the dog to be all over them, then I teach them to stand very still, like a statue, and the more straight-up you are, the better. That means you stand tall, your arms are crossed, they're in, your arms are not out waving around, they're in, crossed across your chest, and your is tall and straight and boring as you can be. The more still you are as a child, the less interested the puppy will be in you. So if you have those kids who are a little nervous around puppies, not every child loves dogs. Some of them are very nervous about dogs, so if you have some of those coming to your home this week, be sensitive to that and teach them the statue game. If you stand very still, be very boring, my puppy will have less interest in you. Also, for kids who do on interact with your puppy or again for these kids who are maybe a little shyer, some structured play where there are very set rules and boundaries and the puppy is not going to be chasing the child or mouthing the child might be something that children will really get interested in and have a really wonderful time and a good experience with your puppy. Hide and seek is my favorite go-to for kids. How I play this game is I have a child go and hide around a sofa or around the corner or in another room, and I give them a squeaky toy and a treat. Then I hold my puppy on a leash or I just hold him by his collar, it depends on the stage of your puppy, if you've a brand new puppy, you're gonna have to kind of help him. But Boots, he's at our house right now, he's a six-month-old Labradoodle, and he loves this game. At six months old, he knows this game. I can say 'Find Emma', and then he just loves to tear through the house, sniffing and searching her out. When he gets to her than Emma helps him into a sit. You can either have that child hold that treat above his nose and as soon as he goes into a sit, then the child can give him the treat. The squeaky toy helps the dog to find the child. If you have a brand new puppy who's playing this game and is not so great at it yet, then the child can just squeak the toy, the puppy can run to the sound, as soon as he finds the sound, he can get that treat. That's a wonderful game to play because you can play this with multiple children, you can play this multiple times. As soon as the puppy finds a child, you hold out to the collar again, the child takes off and goes and hides. There's no chasing involved. There's no mouthing involved. There's no inappropriate play at all. It's very structured, and it's fun for both your puppy and the kids. The kids get to think that they're playing with the puppy, which they are, but in an appropriate way. Your puppy is interacting with your guests, and at the end of this, your puppy might be ready for a nice little quiet time, so it's a win-win. My last tip for having kids in the home over the holidays is to challenge them to do a talent show. Again you could challenge them, and it depends on the ages of the kids you have over, if you have some teenagers over, they would be better suited to using words and being able to cue your puppy into things, but if you have younger kids in your home, go back to that challenge of 'Let's see what you can get my dog to do with some food but not saying a word'. That way the puppy's stress levels will stay lower. But again, challenge them, say, 'Hey, let's see if you know what kind of things could you get my puppy to do? And then you guys could put on a little talent show for everyone in an hour'. We could see high five, shake, roll, down, stay, jump on, they could jump through a hula hoop if you had a hula hoop, you could have a child lay on the floor and have the puppy lay over the child or jump over the child, there are so many things and options that you can get this puppy to do that would be fun, and the kids would enjoy it and the puppy would enjoy it, and again it exercises both of them, both mentally and physically, which is a win for everyone.  

speaker 0:   11:43
All right, you guys, I hope that helps for the upcoming holidays. Remember to prepare before your guests come, feed your dog his meal, not yours, and then with kids and puppies, make it a fun, enriching experience where it's very structured so that everyone enjoys the interactions, both the kids and the puppies, and you as well. I hope you have a  wonderful upcoming week. I'm thankful for all of you and for the things that you allow me to do in my profession and helping you. I really find great fulfillment in helping you guys train your puppies. Have a wonderful week, happy training, and I'll talk to you next week. If you have a question about anything you've heard on this podcast or any other puppy training question, visit my site BaxterandBella.com to contact me.