Quote: Tresa Hendrix

Sweet. How does Mondo feel about home cooked liver treats. Just liver that's dried in the oven. You can even make it with chicken breast instead...if its too much work, you can buy the dried chicken treats. Logan loves those cheap chicken hotdogs cut up small and I use them to, I can afford them.

He likes those ones that come in like a bucket, pure dried liver, but maybe home-made would be better. I never did that, but it doesn't sound hard, and can't really mess it up.

He does like chicken; it's a little hard to make into good uniform treats, but maybe it would be a good change to inspire him.

He gained about 10 pounds in 4 months, lol. For a while I was using branswager/dry catfood balls.

 Quote: Anne Jones

Check the SOURCE of any of the chicken ( the meat itself)treats...like the fillet or jerk stuff. Some of the meat originated in China has cause very sick dogs.

Oh yea; I only feed like them premium food, treats, and human-grade food. There is a local organic farm that sells scrap-things like chicken and turkey carcasses, that still have a lot of meat (it makes really good soup); I can get liver and stuff there too.

I've only fed my pet "good" (not road-kill/slaughterhouse by-products/euthanized pet mixture, like regular dog food) for a long time. By cooking for them too, it makes it not as expensive. I add pumpkin/sweet potatoes/carrots/greens to the chicken and rice soup. I should probably only eat that too, lol.

I did try the raw-food diet for two days with Mondo. I didnt' know til I got on here that raw bones are OK, only cooked bad. I gave him a chicken leg; he thought I was nuts, but he ate it. The next day, another one--no way, he dropped that thing, wouldn't eat it, wanted to bring it and play with it. Probably takes getting used to. Sometime later maybe.

"He gained about 10 pounds in 4 months, lol. For a while I was using branswager/dry catfood balls."


So he is overweight?

This kind of weight gain (overfeeding?) would explain why he's not hungry or enthusiastic over food rewards.

 Quote: Tresa Hendrix

^^^Absolutely thanks for posting that! Eek forgot about that!

And avoid the irradiated junk too. There's also some lamb lung treats many dogs go nuts over, I think they're freeze dried and break easy.

Yummy. (The yukkier, the better, I think.)

 Quote:

Oh one more thing (this may be on the dvd) play with your dog with the treats as if they are toys....makes it more interesting. Throw the treat on the ground, dog chases the food to get it, then call back mark reward, repeat. Fun game. I think its called backchaining...the same thing is used for toys later on.

Yes, it is; Michael Ellis, that was a whole new thing for me. Watching that, I really wanted to be able to do it like that.

 Quote: Rovena Kessinger

 Quote: Anne Jones

Check the SOURCE of any of the chicken ( the meat itself)treats...like the fillet or jerk stuff. Some of the meat originated in China has cause very sick dogs.

Oh yea; I only feed like them premium food, treats, and human-grade food. There is a local organic farm that sells scrap-things like chicken and turkey carcasses, that still have a lot of meat (it makes really good soup); I can get liver and stuff there too.

I've only fed my pet "good" (not road-kill/slaughterhouse by-products/euthanized pet mixture, like regular dog food) for a long time. By cooking for them too, it makes it not as expensive. I add pumpkin/sweet potatoes/carrots/greens to the chicken and rice soup. I should probably only eat that too, lol.

I did try the raw-food diet for two days with Mondo. I didnt' know til I got on here that raw bones are OK, only cooked bad. I gave him a chicken leg; he thought I was nuts, but he ate it. The next day, another one--no way, he dropped that thing, wouldn't eat it, wanted to bring it and play with it. Probably takes getting used to. Sometime later maybe.

I REALLY hope you are not feeding the dogs a boneless home-cooked diet (like soup). Fully consumable raw bones are not "OK" in a raw diet; they are crucial. But not for this thread.... that's a whole different thread.

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

"He gained about 10 pounds in 4 months, lol. For a while I was using branswager/dry catfood balls."


So he is overweight?

This kind of weight gain (overfeeding?) would explain why he's not hungry or enthusiastic over food rewards.

He got a little bit chunky. I don't think he needs to gain anymore, that's for sure. That's partly why he doesn't get much other food but training-treats. I have a high-protein food (Evo) that helped my cats (the same brand but the cat food) lose A LOT of weight. They went from being fairly obese to really healthy weight, and if you know cats, you know how hard it is to help them lose weight, because you can't restrict food like dogs.

So, he's stabilized, I think. It's very hard to keep a dog hungry when it gets like a whole bait-bag full of high-calorie treats/day. (See, I have been training him! I do every day, several times/day. He has learned a lot; I guess even with bad marker training, it's kind of like old non-marker training, which used to work.

Why are they high calorie? Why not diced white-meat chicken?

Back to the thread:

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

" I need to know what to do once the dog knows the command and you expect it to stay; for example, "stay" command. "


I don't use "stay" (because a command lasts until it's over), although some do, but I'm not sure why we're talking about duration yet anyway.



What command is now 100% reliable in the house with no distraction?

The reason I've asked this three or four times is in order to introduce proofing for venue, and then distraction, all indoors, before gradual proofing just barely outdoors (garage, porch), etc., etc.

Remember that you have no ob outdoors under distraction. So a goal is to learn how to proof gradually for venue and distraction.

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

" I need to know what to do once the dog knows the command and you expect it to stay; for example, "stay" command. "


I don't use "stay" (because a command lasts until it's over), although some do, but I'm not sure why we're talking about duration yet anyway.

Well, I've been doing it for quite a while. I feel like all I do is tell him to sit, down, stay, over and over. And he always downed after the sit, so it was automatic/confused, but now he knows the difference (working on it being good.) So I thought the next step would be to stay, like for in his "place". (Which he will, if it's next to me, he can distract me, etc. like I was saying.)

 Quote:

What command is now 100% reliable in the house with no distraction?

Down. Sit sometimes goes to down, so I won't say that one. He can do that with distractions in the house; such as cat audience, cat eating, etc. I don't think there are much more distractions in the house; nothing much else happens in here, lol.

 Quote:

The reason I've asked this three or four times is in order to introduce proofing for venue, and then distraction, all indoors, before gradual proofing just barely outdoors (garage, porch), etc., etc.

Remember that you have no ob outdoors under distraction. So a goal is to learn how to proof gradually for venue and distraction.

Oh yes, he'll do it in the garage too; that's where their crates/beds are. Haven't much tried it anywhere else.

What I was asking before, about NILIF--in the Leerburg DVD (I think the pack structure one), Ed starts out with like no interaction with dog beyond basic physiologic needs, for a few weeks or something. So that's why I asked like at what stage of the process should I be. It sounds like definitely including obedience, so a little further along than pretending like I just got him, which is difficult anyway, and nobody has said to go all the way to the beginning, I don't think.

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

Why are they high calorie? Why not diced white-meat chicken?

Well, I guess the uniformity/ease of feeding thing. Cheese is so easy to cut in cubes; cat food is just about right, etc. I'll get some chicken breast this weekend and see how I can make it work.

(He got sick of hot dogs in about two days, and was like spitting them out. He does like those round beef-stick slim-jim things, but they go pretty quick, and probably not very healthy in quantity.)