Beating Boredom and Barking
If you are going to leave your dog unsupervised while you are out of the house for long periods, you want to think about ways to keep them busy.
Bones
Dogs love nothing more than whiling away the day chomping on a big juicy bone. Bake the bone for a few minutes in the oven to stop them trying to bury the bone. The best place to get bones is the local butcher. If the bones are too big for your dog, ask them to saw into pieces for you.
If you don’t have a local butcher, your local supermarket probably has some bones, just ask someone at the meat counter. Soup bones and marrow bones are also good choices.
We also like compressed rawhide treats. We find it last much longer than regular rawhide.
Toys
There are a range of dog toys and puzzles available at most pet stores. The kong is a favorite among our dogs. This ingenious toy has a treat hidden inside and our dogs happily spend hours trying to get the treat out.
You don’t have to buy anything fancy, be creative with what you already have. An old childs squeaky toy may capture your dog’s imagination. An old jar of peanut butter with a few scrapings of peanut butter left in it will keep your dog occupied for hours.
Barking
One downside of leaving your dog outside more often is that they may get into the habit of barking. This can be a hard habit to train your dog out of because the problem usually occurs when you are away from the dog. One good option is an anti bark collar. These devices first warn the dog after they bark then proceed to give them an escalating correction as they continue barking. Dog’s that have been trained on a dog fence will usually learn not to bark quickly with the help of one of these collars.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
We have two Golden Retrievers that love to chew on deer antlers. Our dogs, especially our 125 lb. male Golden, will chew through a rawhide or soup bone in no time. Deer antlers can last for years, plus they are a good source of calcium. I went to the local butcher who also processes deer during deer season and asked him to save antlers for me. The only drawback is that the dogs can chew the antler tines down to some pretty sharp points, so best advice is to pick them up frequently so they don’t get stepped on, or better yet, train the dog to put them away when they’re finished. We have a plastic tool box with lid removed in our living room that the dogs keep their antlers in. We’re working on training them to pick up their chews.
We have a 10 lb, almost 1 year old snoodle. I am considering an electric fence and have a few questions.
I know you have the petsafe system for small dogs but I sure would like something with a rechargeable battery. Can you buy small dog collars separately for any the other rechargable battery systems or is the petsafe system my best bet?
My husband and I have no electrical background. I think we can handle renting the trencher and doing the holes but I am concerned about setting up the box etc. If the box needs to go inside the garage, how do we get the plug through into the house? Does it just plug into an outlet? Does it come with the stuff to secure it to the wall?
Can you leave the collar on all the time except when you take the dog off your property and maybe at night?
Thanks, Kim
ADMIN – Hi Kim,
Afraid, if you have a dog under 10lb you either need to get the dog some steroids or get the PetSafe Little Dog. The PetSafe Little Dog collar does not work with any rechargeable Innotek systems, only other PetSafe. You could give the Innotek a try, you are pretty close to the border line … if it is too big it will be immeadiately obvious and you can just return it.
Most of the systems come with two mounting screws and wall plugs for you to attatch the control box to the wall. You just plug it into a regular wall socket. If you don’t have one nearby, you can either run an extension cord from the nearest outlet to the box, or mount the box near the outlet and run the boundary wire outside from the outlet.
Most people leave the collar on all day and then take it off at night.