Postings by Megatron

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Megatron The Tinydog     Barked: Fri Feb 22, '13 4:05am PST  Mega is about 7 pounds. She used to be pretty overweight and probably came in closer to 10 pounds at her worst. my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

Megatron The Tinydog     Barked: Wed Feb 20, '13 11:08am PST  I went through a period of having to housebreak my Chihuahua. She was from a house where she was potty trained in theory, but whenever it was inconvenient to get outside all the dogs in the house would go pee in the basement or on a rug. I managed to solve it by doing some very heavy duty management of the dog for the first few months. It's a pain in the butt, but the few months of watchfulness has paid off in years of reliability. Basically, you need to find a spot where she won't pee, and keep her confined to there, gradually increasing the size of the area based on her continued success. You need to ensure she's getting out often, and is well exercised since you're going to be restricting her freedom so much. For instance, with Mega, when she first arrived she was either crated at night, in an exercise pen in our kitchen, out on a walk, or sitting on a lap. After a month of that I started leaving her uncrated in my bedroom during the day since she had displayed a desire to never soil the room. We began relaxing our requirement to always be watching her if she was uncrated once she'd shown a solid month of trustworthiness. Along the way, we would give her bathroom breaks every 1-2 hours, and got to know her voiding schedule so we knew when she was empty. Spot cleaning the carpet isn't enough. You'll need to use a enzymatic cleaner to completely remove the smell. Consider going through your house with a black light to find spots you may have missed. I also would not grant her any freedom until she's gone a month showing herself to be trustworthy. Mature dogs can be tricky to housebreak since they've developed a habit and/or preference for voiding indoors, so first you have to break the habit, then you have to instill a preference for going outdoors. my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

Behavior & Training > Constant Barking- Nothing Seems to Help

Megatron The Tinydog     Barked: Wed Feb 6, '13 12:54pm PST  Megatron was a pretty serious barker, though probably not to the same extent your Beagle is. I found that a citronella collar coupled with loads (and I mean loads!) of exercise, food and toy distractions and reinforcement for quieting on cue worked pretty well. I think we used the collar for a month or two alongside intensive training and the problem was markedly better after then. Also, you need to limit his access to things that make him want to bark, like being able to see how the window. If he can bark unabated while left alone outside, or when you're out of the house, etc, you're not going to have much luck training it out. Consider crate training as well to give him a safe spot to rest, but make sure he's well tuckered out first. my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

Behavior & Training > Don't Stare at Me!

Megatron The Tinydog     Barked: Wed Nov 14, '12 8:12am PST  Mega does this too, though due to her size it's less intimidating to other people. I basically just manage her behaviour so that she never has to go head to head with a stranger. If someone looks interested in meeting her I just call her away for some tasty treats. The parks I go to are relatively large and I'm always walking while there so it reduces the opportunities people have to interact with my dogs. Just walking away without acknowledging the stranger isn't particularly polite, but I'm not at a dog park to chat so I have little problem simply strolling on. Sometimes I'll toss out a positive interrupter (normally Mega's name spoken sharply) but it's more for my sake than the dog's - it has little to no beneficial effect on future behaviour. You could do the classical conditioning thing, and while I'm sure you'd see good results, I would opt to focus more on management. Rigby needs to get out of the habit of barking, and should be able to expect that strangers aren't going to approach her if she doesn't wish it. my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

Puppy Place > just adopted a small chihuahua

Megatron The Tinydog     Barked: Wed Oct 24, '12 9:43am PST  You can try to upload images to imgur.com, as long as the file size isn't huge. It might be helpful in ascertaining how old this pup is. my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

Megatron The Tinydog     Barked: Sat Oct 13, '12 8:26am PST  Mega has a luxating patella, and I don't plan to do surgery on it unless it becomes a chronic problem. Right now, it only presents an occasional problem while walking up and down stairs. We keep her weight low, and keep her active. The vet said she was still fine to jump and do agility. The less weight the dog has to carry around on the knee the better, and the more muscle you keep in the leg the better. my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

Puppy Place > Finally took Frankie to the dog park the other day..shockingly he did not seem to like it...???

Megatron The Tinydog     Barked: Thu Sep 6, '12 9:56am PST  Megatron came to me at 6 years old fearful and reactive towards other dogs and people. I have another, larger, much more active dog who I took to the dog park regularly, so Mega got to tag along with me regardless. She didn't particularly enjoy the dog park to start with - she was barky, underconfident and didn't see the allure vs sleeping inside somewhere comfy all day. She had zero interest in meeting other dogs, and had to be managed carefully. Now, about 9 months later, it's like she's a new dog. She's actually started approaching other dogs to sniff them. She passes by them without trying to avoid them. And she'll approach people if she thinks they have a treat. I have people approaching me now after seeing her earlier in the year and commenting on how much her disposition has changed. It's great. Basically, I credit a lot of her increased comfort to getting her out to environments where she'll see other dogs, but not necessarily interact with them if she doesn't want to. Now she's very tolerant, which is exactly what I need from her. You don't necessarily need your pup to play at a park, but, as long as you're careful, it can go a long way to acclimatizing dogs to others' presence. And to plop an undersocialized dog into a dog park and expect him to play the entire time is probably unrealistic. Also, of course, dog parks can be dangerous. Don't mingle with people and take your attention off the dogs. It's better if you can walk laps to keep yourself and your dog moving. It keeps trouble to a minimum. my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

Dog Health > Fat Camp part 2...

Megatron The Tinydog     Barked: Thu Aug 16, '12 10:19am PST  Megatron is an ex-fatty. There's one very unflattering "before" photo in her profile where she's literally propping herself up on her rolls of fat. You can see her progress at the bottom of the page. She's looking pretty good for a 7 year old ex-fatty. She came to me about 9 months ago, and my house is a more active one so she did get more activity than she was used to. But 90% of her weight loss was simply reducing her food intake. I didn't bother weighing her. Heck, I don't even measure how much food she gets in a day - I just eyeball it. I just went by how she looked, and how she felt when I ran my hands over her ribs. Now, if she gets a bit more skinny than I like I feed a tiny bit more, and if she gets more padding over her ribs than I like, I feed less. Simple. For Savvy I would reduce her food portions quite drastically. The added wear and tear on her body from the excess weight is "meaner" than her not getting as much food as she's accustomed to each day. Dogs are pretty easy to make lose weight since we're the gatekeepers of 99% of their food. Some tough love now very well may give your pups a couple more years of life to love you back. my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

Small Dogs > The dog won't shut up

Megatron The Tinydog     Barked: Sat Jul 21, '12 10:39am PST  I empathize. I am not a small dog person at all - I don't relish a tiny dog sitting on my lap, or their constant desire to be close, or their hair-trigger barking. Megatron is with me because she came with my fiancé. For the barking, what really helped was a change of location, a citronella collar, and hardcore counterconditioning to her triggers. Obviously moving house is not an option for the vast majority of people, but getting the dog into a new environment where behaviour patterns hadn't yet been created helped hugely. We used a citronella collar because we simply could not have her barking in the apartment while we were out during the day (we had issues with the landlord, and didn't want to give him any ammunition to use against us). I'm not a fan of the collars, but if used together in conjunction with positive reinforcement and counterconditioning they can be effective. We shoved food into Mega's mouth every time she heard a strange noise, or the kids downstairs laughed, or a dog's collar jingled outside. She began expecting food each time she heard these things, and her barking decreased. She hasn't worn the collar for months now, and her behaviour has improved remarkably. We upped her exercise so that if she wasn't out walking/playing she was sleeping. We fed her all her meals through training/conditioning exercises. We kept her so busy she didn't have much of a chance to bark. Basically to address barking you can't be half-assed about it since it's such an intrinsically rewarding behaviour for so many dogs. Within a month or so Mega fell out of the habit of barking at everything, and life has been MUCH quieter ever since. But if we bring her back to my fiancé's parents' house her barking escalates to near her old levels since the environment plays such a heavy roll in creating and patterning behaviours. For the relationship issues, I would try to find something that you and the dog can do together one on one. I started taking Megatron to training classes and I've recently started her in agility (where she's doing better than I expected). I take her out to trials to observe, and all around the city. I admit, I still don't really "get" tiny dogs, but Mega has come a long way - to a point where she's well behaved and easy to live with. my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

Megatron The Tinydog     Barked: Tue Dec 27, '11 8:24am PST  Megatron came to me fat, and with a bad back. In the month I've had her she's slimmed down to a very healthy level simply through feeding her higher quality food (and a bit less of it, but she doesn't go wanting) and an hour long walk with my high energy dog every day. You can see a recent photo on her page. She's not done yet, as she still needs to lose a bit more fat and gain some muscle. But it's a huge improvement for not a whole heck of work. Losing weight isn't rocket science. It's simply managing them more actively. The simple two step process is: 1. Reduce food intake 2. Increase activity level my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become pals [notify]

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