heatherwitt.com blog

WordPress blogging software was corrupt and it took them a long time to finally upgrade to a new edition. Hopefully everything is working now and you’ll see more posts from me.
In the meantime, here is an interesting article Time Magazine just published about how a dog’s “social intelligence”  is learned…

To ease the transition of a puppy into its new home, try these little tricks:
1. Take a shirt or towel out of the laundry hamper and send it to your new baby before you bring her home. This will make your scent familiar to her when she comes home to you.
2. Bring a clean towel, [...]

If you don’t like the excitement level of your dog then STOP. If you open that door, or clip on that leash, put down that dinner dish, or throw that ball, then you have reinforced the behavior you are seeing at the moment of reward.
Some dogs jump around when you prepare for the walk, and [...]

There are a lot of lists on what to do and not to do when getting a dog. I thought this one published by Real Simple was worth posting. It nailed some common mistakes to avoid to keep your four-legged friend happy, healthy and mentally stimulated.

Hi Heather, I have a couple of questions for you…Molly has been getting up at 4am to go out. I take her out and she does in fact pee and poop. The problem is when I put her back in her crate — she barks endlessly. This morning she literally barked from 4-5:10am. I ignored [...]

   We took our family to Harrisburg, PA in September (kids and Dad to Hershey Park and Maple and me to the Pennsylvania Dutch Fall Leo Specialty). With Maple’s third 1st Place finish, she and I have received our CD (Companion Dog Obedience Title). The requirements for this competition are: Heeling (on and off leash, plus Healing Figure 8), Off Leash [...]

Parents Magazine just published this article in their September 2007 issue which has some really useful info about kids and dogs by Kathleen M. Reilly, who is a writer, not a trainer, but who is a member of the Dog Writers Association of America and also writes for Dog Fancy. You can also reference Heather’s Infants and Dogs [...]

Charlotte Schwartz from DogChannel.com got it partly right. Of course, you don’t want to reward your dog for attention-getting barking, but having your dog sit as a way of asking for attention won’t achieve the ideal behavior either.  We don’t need dogs coming over and ’throwing sits’ at us either.  So when should you give attention and praise? When your dog is laying passively [...]

Here is some useful info I found on crate training and also some advice on what type of crate to select from DogChannel.com.