Dog Friendly Landscaping

I thought this would be a great subject. It's gorgeous outside and it's time to start some spring planting for those with yards! However, when you have a dog (or more than one) it can be frustrating to keep a nice yard and a dog happy at the same time.

I know right now my backyard is a disaster. It's all dirt, poop and then my nice trees. The trees are the nicest part of my yard at this point. While my dogs are only outdoors sporadically throughout the day they are out long enough to demolish any resemblance of a nice landscaped yard. I like nice yards, it's one of my things. But I feel like it's not going to happen at my house. I'm sure I'm not alone.

I have lately become more aware that I need to do something because my daughter doesn't even have a nice yard to play in that is safe (from nasty stuff) and clean. I'm a fan of this great site [on Facebook] I found (I think just through a Google search for pet friendly landscape) called Paw Friendly Landscapes. I was sad to see they are located in Colorado. Then I did some browsing on their site to find that they do custom landscape design plans for your yard--no matter where you are! Whoa! So I'm going to submit some photos and fill out a design form. I'll see what they come up with for my yard and when we get the funds hubby and I will start doing it ourselves!

A few tips for you on dogs and landscaping:

• Think realistically first and foremost. If you want a gorgeous yard with no appearance of a dog, well then you may have to start walking your dog on leash and not allowing much time in the yard!
• Less grass is best. Find designs that utilize more paths, mulch, bark, gravel, etc. This gives your dog more substrate to walk on that isn't ugly or easily destroyed.
• Keep plants that are hardy and/or potted. Low lying flower beds are just asking for a waste of money and time. Most dogs will trample these in a matter of days. If you must raise the beds high, or plant in planters and pots.
• Use hardy ground cover, such Asian jasmine. Asian jasmine is attractive and hardy against just about all things dog--pee, poo and stomping! You can plant this anywhere and it spreads nicely too. You can also use Mondograss (monkeygrass). This is a nice and popular ground cover. It does spread like wildfire so be sure to contain it in beds if you don't want it to mix with your actual grass yard.
• Offer shade so that your dog can cool and doesn't dig or find his own shade.
• Put grass in but not a whole yard full. Put areas of grass and other different substrates for eye appeal and for saving your grass against dog paws, pee and other matter!
  

Fungility!

Fungility classes are now posted to our website! Here is a little snippet of Trevor, my Jack Russell testing out one of the jumps I got for class.

Jake the Wonder Dog!

I've had some folks ask for an update on Jake and thought it would be easier to put some info here instead of writing numerous emails over and over again. . . .

Jake is doing remarkably well. He's gaining weight, he still has about 6 pounds to go, and he is loving his new canned-food-only diet! Today he picked up one of Trevor's (my Jack Russell) balls and tossed it around. He's not a ball dog. Lots of Labs are, he's not. So it was funny to see him playing period but even funnier that he had a ball!

He also felt good enough to dig a hole under the fence to chase after Trevor. Trevor has taken to digging into the neighbor's yard. Thank goodness it's into another yard and not onto the busy, busy street that our back fence backs up to. However, digging is not good no matter where it is! Arrgh, the pain of fixing my yard! Funny thing is that when Trevor digs out Jake goes bonkers. Jake is a quiet dog and if he barks in the yard I know for sure that Trevor has escaped. Then Jake frantically digs after Trevor and even eats the bottom of the fence boards. It really drives him nuts.

I had a refrigerator repair guy out and had shoved the dogs outside while he was there. As I'm talking with the man I hear Jake's desperate bark and I say, "Excuse me one of my dogs just dug out . . ." He looked at me, "Oh. How do you know that?" As we couldn't see the fence from where we were standing. I said, "My Lab tattles on my Jack Russell!" and whisked out the door to find Jake digging after him. Trevor is back and Jake is now resting to settle himself and cool off.

Bottom line: he seems to be back to his old self again!

Dinner with Fido.

I thought of this last night as I ate dinner on my couch. That's the norm at my house. Hubby and I place our plates on our cocktail ottoman (yeah that sounds fancy, doesn't it?!) and watch our favorite show. With four dogs you'd think it may be chaotic or impossible to eat in peace, but with the right tools and training (and a little elbow grease) you can eat with Fido staying away from your food and letting you eat without having to hold your plate up over your head.

Two of my dogs actually seem to not care much [when we eat], the other two are quite interested in our dining experiences. So how does one do it?

First, if you ever feed your dog while you are eating or sitting down in the location where you normally eat your meals, then this may take extra care and dedication. I don't recommend you feed your dog "from the table". Feed your dogs when you feed them their meals and when you are training, that's it. It's more of a respect thing than anything else. You also can't realistically expect your dog to stay away from your meal if you've been feeding him some pieces every now and again.

If your dog only eats when you feed him/her then this will be much easier for you. I suggest teaching your dog to "Leave it", and enforce that they know this means "leave it alone permanently!". If you find yourself saying "Leave it" over and over again then they may need a little brushing up on this command!

Give a "Leave it" and then ask your dog to go lie down away from you at least 3 feet or more. If your dog can lie at your feet and not beg, and you don't mind this, then you can do that too.

It's best to teach your dog that "sit" and "down" mean that they each have an implied "stay" along with that. So, if you say "Fluffy, sit" then she should do that until you tell her otherwise. Remember to use a release command and always release your dog from every command once you are finished. For example, when you ask your dog to sit at any point, e.g, before you toss a ball for her to catch, then say "okay!" to release her from the sit and she can be allowed to go get the ball. Always release your dog. They will soon learn that they cannot do anything until they hear the "okay" [release command].

Another great thing to add in is a specific spot or location for the dog to go to while you are eating, or for any other time. At my house I use this to keep the dogs out from under the highchair since my 16-month-old feeds the dogs from there and they are easier to train that she is!

You can use a rug, mat or bed or even just an area. My area is the carpet in the bedroom that divides the kitchen and the bedroom. This way they are out of the kitchen and away from the highchair altogether. Teach your dog a command for this, e.g., "get on your bed", and have him go there while you eat and stay until you tell him he is released.

Here is a video of a puppy I was babysitting at my house and I taught her to do this with a bath mat. The video doesn't show me teaching her but the results. So, how did I do it? Watch the video and then see the how-to below.

Find the location where you want the dog to go on command. Let's use the mat to explain this as I did with Strudel in the video.

1) Get a bunch of yummy treats.
2) Lure the dog to the mat with a treat. You can do this by having them literally follow you to the mat because they follow the hand with the treat or by tossing the treat onto the mat.
3) The critical point is this: the very second a paw touches the mat you praise and treat --"Good girl!" [give treat].
4) Repeat.
5) Start to phase out luring to the mat and only stand next to the mat and wait for the dog to go to it. Praise with good timing.
6) When the dog begins to go to the mat in anticipation of a reward then add in your phrase command. Here it was "Get on your mat."
7) Slowly get further and further from the mat.

The key is timing. You have to reward just right and right on time. Don't add the phrase in too soon and don't stop luring or get to far from the mat too soon. It may take longer for each dog.

Need more help or a personal coaching session? Let me know!

Jake is home.

Just got Jake home and he acts like he's happy to be here. I think it helped that he was in the hospital a few extra days. He looks awful. He's so skinny, his face is sunken in. He doesn't look like the Jakey I'm used to. All we do now is hope he recovers and has no more adhesions form in his abdomen. He'll have to eat wet/canned food from now on, but that's ok with me. He's resting now and his doggie "brothers" were all happy to greet him.

I want to give another round of applause to Dr. Joanne Franks, at the Dallas Surgical Center in Grapevine (seems more like Southlake but address is Grapevine). She is amazing --kind, sincere, helpful and talented with her skills -- thank you Dr. Franks we ♥ you!

Jake: Post Surgery News.

Jake went into surgery this morning around 9am. Dr. Franks called me around 11am. She says whatever is going with him is rare and she can't really explain it. His intestines have scar tissue and adhesions built up in them. It caused them to be gnarled and doing weird things. She removed the scar tissue but doesn't know if it will happen again. She also worked out his intestines to the best of her ability so that food can pass thru better. With all the scar tissue the intestines just couldn't push food thru properly, this is why he was vomiting and losing weight.. He will have to be on an all canned food diet from here on out, watered down to be sure it passes. We can only wait & hope this doesn't happen again, if it does the outcome won't be but one option only . . .

Prayers are needed. He'll be in the hospital for 2 days.

The picture on this post is a professional photo taken by my brother in law, who was at the time, a professional photographer. It looks like a postcard. It's him exactly -- happy, goofy, sweet Jakey.

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