Frequently Asked Questions

Dogs are pack ani­mals; as such they enjoy group inter­ac­tion. By expos­ing a dog to oth­ers of his species will help him develop pos­i­tive sound social skills which will in turn usu­ally extend to humans and other species as well.

A socially well adjusted dog will become a solid cit­i­zen and a plea­sur­able expe­ri­ence for his fam­ily pack.

A fur­ther ben­e­fit of Day­care is the fact most dogs (spe­cially the younger ones) can become bored if left home alone for extended peri­ods of time. This can often make them develop unwanted destruc­tive behav­iours which can eas­ily esca­late to the point when an owner may have to con­sider giv­ing up the dog.

That said, not all Day­care envi­ron­ments are alike,owners must be sure to care­fully check out the Day­care selected in order to feel com­fort­able with the pro­fes­sion­al­ism, exper­tise, hygiene and over­alll man­age­ment at the Day­care facil­ity being considered.

Plac­ing a dog in an improper Day­care envi­ron­ment can become poten­tially dan­ger­ous to the well­be­ing of the dog and both emo­tion­ally and finan­cially dam­ag­ing to the owner.

I there­fore strongly rec­om­mend the ben­e­fits of Day­care for most dogs.

Some peo­ple think that ‘Slip Col­lars’ are instru­ments of tor­ture and won­der how any­one can use them.

But despite their com­mon street name ‘Chok­ers’, they are actu­ally very humane, and if put on in the right way, they are a very effec­tive way to give a correction.

“I would rather use a ‘Slip Col­lar’ and get a dog’s atten­tion the first time than to pull on his neck dozens of times and for long peri­ods with him wear­ing a plain buckle or snap-on collar”.

A dog’s neck is very sen­si­tive and yet mus­cu­lar and as such he can be eas­ily con­trolled by the amount of pres­sure he feels when being trained with a proper ‘Slip Col­lar’ and leash.

A con­ven­tional buckle or snap-on col­lar is good for his day-to-day iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and han­dling, but he won’t feel a thing when you want him to know he has mis­be­haved. The rings on the end of a ‘Slip Col­lar’ will allow the walker or trainer to exert the proper amount of pres­sure on the dog’s neck.

For exam­ple if you want to guide him, a gen­tle tug will do. But if you want to cor­rect him from jump­ing up on some­one or from becom­ing unruly, a quick and firm snap/jerk of the leash will tighten the Slip Col­lar to the desired pres­sure in order to con­vey your mes­sage that his behav­iour is unacceptable.

IMPORTANT:

a) PLEASE REMEMBER TO REMOVE THE ‘SLIP COLLAR’ WHEN YOUR DOG IS HOME OR UNATTENDED BECAUSE THE RINGS AT ITS END MAY EASILY HOOK ON TO OBJECTS WHICH PROTRUDE.

b) WHEN USING A SLIP COLLAR, TELL YOUR DOG TO SIT (FACING YOU). PLACE THE COLLAR OVER THE DOG’S HEAD WHILE IN THE SHAPE OF A
“P”, WHEN WALKING YOUR DOG KEEP HIM ON YOUR LEFT.

David Shama
Behav­iour Spe­cial­ist TODH

Dog aggres­sion which is directed at peo­ple and/or dogs is usu­ally due to poor han­dling and train­ing. These prob­lems will usu­ally arise when an owner allows the dog to believe he is the pack leader and also when the owner does not give the dog the men­tal and phys­i­cal daily exer­cise / stim­u­la­tion he needs in order to be stable.

An owner who is nat­u­rally author­i­ta­tive over his dog in a calm but firm, con­fi­dent and con­sis­tent man­ner will usu­ally have a sound and sta­ble dog. A sta­ble, well-adjusted and trained dog will gen­er­ally be a good dog with other pets and chil­dren within the family.

Dogs who have pas­sive own­ers and who’s needs are not being met can become timid, skit­tish and may become prone to fear bit­ing. All dogs should be trained and social­ized from an early age.

Dogs will gen­er­ally chal­lenge author­ity if they sense they are stronger minded than their owner/pack leader, how­ever they will also not respond well to harsh and/or abu­sive discipline.

Own­ers need to have a nat­ural pres­ence of author­ity in their demeanor when deal­ing with a dif­fi­cult dog. It is very impor­tant not treat a dog as if he were human because when deal­ing with a prob­lem­atic dog it will fur­ther empower the dog.

Own­ers must learn to under­stand canine behav­iour and instincts and should treat their dog accordingly.

All dogs need to have a con­sis­tent and fair pack leader to give them guid­ance, because, dogs need to chan­nel their men­tal and phys­i­cal energy in a pos­i­tive manner.

THE ORIGINAL DOG HOUSE INC.

T – 416−425−4454 / F – 416−425−4494

www.theoriginaldoghouse.com

David Shama – Sr Behav­iour Specialist

Luke Gau­vreau, Yael Garcia-Alonso & Sarah Whelan

Co– Behav­iour Specialists

YES, YES, YES, and so do you! Whether you are inten­tion­ally teach­ing him or not, your canine friend is always learning—and this is true not just for pup­pies but also for adult dogs. If you do not teach your pet your rules, he will cre­ate his own. Train­ing allows care­givers to safely and humanely con­trol their dog’s behavior.Too many dogs are given up after their nor­mal, eas­ily mod­i­fi­able behav­iors are allowed to become seri­ous issues that trans­late into major prob­lems. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

To pre­vent your dog from becom­ing a nui­sance or unfor­tu­nate sta­tis­tic, please con­sider tak­ing your dog — as well as your fam­ily mem­bers — to The Orig­i­nal Dog House for Obe­di­ence or Behav­ior Mod­i­fi­ca­tion training.

A cus­tomized train­ing pro­gram can be fun as well as a pos­i­tive social activ­ity for the entire fam­ily that will also help your dog become a well-behaved, safe, and val­ued fam­ily member.

A mind­ful dog owner will take pride in their dog’s appear­ance and pay atten­tion to proper groom­ing. Good groom­ing isn’t just an esthetic mat­ter, it plays a major role in the health and well being of your dog. Imag­ine what your life would be if you never brushed your hair or teeth, took a bath, cut your nails or cleaned out your ears! Now imag­ine one day you go to a place that pulls, pokes and prods your dead­locked hair, fuzzy teeth and crack­ing nails! Wouldn’t it be a more enjoy­able expe­ri­ence if you’d done some basic main­te­nance work (like every­day!) so when you go to the “salon and spa” you enjoy the expe­ri­ence and relax while some­one pam­pers you and makes you beautiful!

Every dog needs bathing as some point. One cri­te­ria is that the dog should be “hug­gable.” If the dog is too dirty or smelly to hug, it’s time for a bath. A good start­ing for­mula is to bathe a dog once a month; less often if brush­ing reg­u­larly, and more often if the dog is fre­quently out­side and the dog lays or plays in dirt. If the dog has a coat that requires brush­ing; brush BEFORE the bath!! Mats and tan­gles get tighter after they’ve been wet (like a wool sweater that’s been in the dryer). Fol­low your veterinarian’s and/or groomer’s rec­om­men­da­tion for a sham­poo, or at least look for a high qual­ity dog sham­poo that con­tains a coat con­di­tioner. It’s also impor­tant not to use human sham­poo since the PH lev­els in human sham­poo ver­sus canine sham­poo are very dif­fer­ent and can dam­age your dog’s coat and skin condition.

Brush­ing and comb­ing removes dead/loose hair, and spreads the nat­ural oil, sebum, over the coat result­ing in a glossy coat. Skin dis­ease often affects sebum pro­duc­tion result­ing in either under­pro­duc­tion (a dry scaly coat), or over­pro­duc­tion (an oily, greasy coat). Both these symp­toms merit a visit to your vet­eri­nar­ian. Pos­si­ble causes could include skin par­a­sites, nutri­tional prob­lems or aller­gies among other prob­lems. Gen­tle stroking with a comb or brush can also be a bond­ing expe­ri­ence with a dog. Take the time to untan­gle mats. Please don’t try to cut them out as it is very easy to inad­ver­tently cut the dog’s skin, Leave the “de-matting” to a pro­fes­sional! Brush daily in order to reduce mat­ting, but the min­i­mum is once a week espe­cially if you have a long or dou­ble coated breed. Ask your groomer to rec­om­mend the appro­pri­ate brush type to main­tain your dog’s coat for in between vis­its, and ask them to demon­strate the proper man­ner to brush your dog — there’s more tech­nique to proper brush­ing than you may think!

Breeds that have very demand­ing groom­ing require­ments (i.e. poo­dles, mal­tese and york­shire ter­ri­ers) should see a groomer every 4–6 weeks. Breeds with slightly less demand­ing coats (i.e. shel­ties, golden retriev­ers and bor­der col­lies) should go every 6–8 weeks. “Easy Care” coat types ( i.e. labrador retriev­ers, box­ers and dober­mans) also need groom­ing! Nails, ears, anal gland vacat­ing, brush­ing and bathing, should be done on a reg­u­lar basis.

Some breeds even have spe­cific groom­ing needs. For instance a pug or bull­dog that has folds of skin will need the “in between” skin cleaned out, dis­in­fected, and dried so as to avoid bac­te­r­ial infec­tions from form­ing in the warm moist crevices of the skin. Talk to your vet­eri­nar­ian, groomer or breeder about the groom­ing require­ments of your dog.

Peo­ple who are con­cerned about the health and good groom­ing of their pets often sched­ule baths and/or brush outs every 2 weeks just to keep the coats in good con­di­tion so that groom­ing isn’t an unpleas­ant or stress­ful affair.

Your groomer plays a big role in the life of your dog. They can detect poten­tial prob­lems, draw your atten­tion to things you may want to con­sult your vet­eri­nar­ian for, and they help your pet lead a more com­fort­able, happy and healthy long life!