We’d go crazy without our Kong’s, especially during a heatwave when our dogs can’t play outside as much during the day; These frozen treats keep our pups cool and occupied when they have to stay inside!
We like make new recipes multiple times a week to keep them fun and exciting, while adding different health benefits with our ingredients! The fact that these have all healthy ingredients, mean that they can have them multiple times a day if we wanted, and they wouldn’t cause issues.
Keep in mind that our dogs are very used to new treats, for dogs that aren’t, they should be introduced to new treats slower and use a moderate amount of filling.
Ingredients
1, 13 oz can of wet food (You can use whatever brand your dog is used to or you’d like to try)
3/4 cup of apple sauce
3/4 cup of pure canned pumpkin
1/2 cup of coconut oil, softened
1/2 cup of natural peanut butter
1/4 cup of raw honey
Mix all the ingredients together and fill into Kong’s or any interactive toys you have. We freeze overnight and they’re ready to go for the next morning!
We love Kong’s because they’re the tough, easy to fill and use, and the one pictured above has lasted us years!
Teaching a puppy to lure is simple, and can be done in one or two session in most cases; but this is a skill that you can and will practice daily will your puppy over their lifetime. Start by holding a piece of food by your pups nose and move it slowly to let your puppy follow it. Once they catch up to your hand for a couple steps say “yes”, feed them the food and start over.
At the beginning make sure to feed them after a couple steps, so they don’t give up; if they give up you’re moving too fast, so go back to the beginning and feed after one or two steps. Once they know what they’re doing, you can start feeding them less often to make it more difficult. To progress you can start luring them over objects, under objects and in patterns.
We use luring to teach most, if not all of the tricks that we teach, so this is important for the puppy to fully understand!
For puppies that love eating, simply do this at meal time with their own food, after a couple meals they’ll likely understand luring. For pickier puppies get the good stuff out!
Does your pup get easily distracted? Do you ever wish they would pay more attention to you? Are they reactive?!
Teaching look is quick and easy, but this command is so important. This is how you can very quickly get your dogs attention. The more you practice this command, the better!
This command is perfect for reactive dogs. When you see a trigger for your dog, (this can be a dog, person, bike, etc) you can simply ask your dog to “look” and you should easily get your attention. You can praise and reward them when they look and slowly you’ll get a less and less reactive dog. They’ll learn to look at you rather than the thing they’re trying to react to, and eventually when they’re unsure, they’ll look to you, ready for their next command! Australian Shepherd’s are naturally reactive dogs, it’s in their DNA, so we’ve worked extra hard on making sure they aren’t reactive by teaching them “look” and automatic “looks” among other things!
So start with your dog and a bunch of yummy treats.
Say “look” and put the treat by your eyes. When they look up, say “yes” and reward.
After a few tries you can start saying “look” and wait a few seconds to see if they look at your eyes. If they look at your eyes, immediately say “yes” and feed; If not, bring the food up to your eyes again, then say “yes” and feed.
As soon as they no longer need the help of the food by your eyes, congrats, they know “look”!
We also reward often times when they make their own decision to look at us. If i’m walking with one of my dogs and they look at me for no reason, i’ll tell them how amazing they are and reward. Rewarding them for making their own decision, creates a more attentive dog!
Bonus
Once they know look, you can make it harder by saying look and having a treat somewhere other than your eyes and wait until they make the right decision to look at your eyes instead of the treat. As soon as they look at your eyes for even a second, reward!
You can try this with toys and anything else they like as well.
Once they’re good at that you start adding duration, first start 5 seconds, then 10, etc to see how long they can look at you for without looking away.
If they cannot do these, they need more practice before adding in the distractions again.
If you can say “look” and throw a toy or treat while they remain looking at you, you know they have a super strong understanding of the command.
Nobody likes when their dog is feeling sick, so when tummy troubles arise, I want them to stop as soon as possible!
Petunia had some unexpected tummy troubles yesterday, she was having liquid diarrhea every 10 minutes, she was drooling and puking. I was concerned about my girl, but she was acting completely normal otherwise. She was running around like the little psychopath she is, wanting me to throw her Frisbee, bringing me her ball. She had been with me all day and I knew with certainty that she didn’t get into anything or eat anything out of the norm for her. If she were lethargic, not drinking and refusing food, I would have rushed her to the vet. It’s always best to consult your vet if you are unsure, and know where the nearest emergency vet is.
Luckily I was fairly sure the heat was just getting to her despite having access to water, she plays hard and doesn’t handle heat well. So a quick hose down, a drink of water and laying in the shade was step 1 for this girl since we weren’t home at the time. I knew what she needed when we got home though, our delicious upset belly blend!
I’m not promising it will work for your dog, or that it will work this quickly. As soon as she ate it she didn’t get sick again for the rest of the night (I thought for sure i’d be up all night with her) and this morning her stool was almost completely normal. I made enough to feed her last night, this morning and this evening, then she should be good to go back to her normal food!
Disclaimer: This is not a balanced diet or something that can replace their food long term. This is a short term solution to fix some belly issues, make them feel better quickly, or to supplement their normal diet for chronic issues.
Ingredients:
Cooked white rice
Boiled unseasoned chicken
Canned pure pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie filling)
Slippery elm tea (It comes in powder form and we mix 1 tsp with 1 cup of water and bring to a boil.)
Take 1 cup of cooked white rice and 1 boiled chicken breast. Shred the chicken and mix it in with the rice. Next add 3-4 tbsp of pumpkin, and 9-10 tbsp of slippery elm tea.
This batch is about 3 meals for Petunia. She’s 40-45 lbs, if you have a larger or smaller dog feed accordingly!
Leave a comment below to let us know how this recipe works for your pup!
Do you want your dog to be able to have freedom to exercise and play off leash?! We’ll tell you how!
This is the single most important command that you will ever teach your dog.
This is a life saving command, and you need it to be reliable! For pet dogs, one recall command is absolutely fine, Petunia and Myrtle being future sport dogs have many recall commands.
Before we get started I’ll explain all of their recalls and why we use more than one.
Come- We use “come” only during training, this means “immediately come here and sit directly in front of me, nice and straight and look up”. We use this for Rally obedience, and if we decide someday to put our dogs in obedience, it’ll be used for that as well.
Here- We use “here” often, this means “come here and touch my hand with your nose”, this is perfect as a check in, they don’t need to stay long, they don’t need to sit, just quick contact with us and they can go play again.
Let’s go- We use “let’s go” during off leash walks, this just means come in my general direction but no need to come all the way.
Come!
Here!
Let’s go!
We have also taught them to come check in naturally when off leash, they are expected to check in with us often, we fed them for their automatic check ins every single time until they were about 8 months old, and now being 10 months (Myrtle) and 13 months (Petunia) we still feed them about 50% of the time for checking in, the other 50% we praise them for checking in but don’t feed. Once they are older it’s important to continue rewarding them for their automatic check ins, but not nearly as often! This is how you create a perfect off leash dog!
There are many techniques to teach a recall, and we recommend using more than one! We’ve used so many techniques to teach a solid recall, it keeps it fun and exciting for the dog. We’ll explain 2 of our favourite ways down below. Teaching the recall should be the most fun your dog ever has, you want to know that your dog is going to come every single time you call. You need to learn to be more exciting than anything else to your dog, this will keep your dog interested.
Method #1
It will take so much practice to get your dog reliable off leash, but it is worth it! Start by having your dog on a leash, say “come” and back up a few steps as you lure them with a treat, as they catch up to you lift the treat up to your belly and they should naturally sit; Then say “yes” and feed. Repeat this about 1000 times, and they’ll come running and sit in front of you when you say “come”. They’ll get it after a few tries, but this is something that you can never practice enough! Eventually you can have them on a long line and wait for them to get distracted and say “come” and they should come running and sit in front of you. If they won’t get distracted (this is awesome if your dog is this attentive ) simply throw some treats away to get them to leave, then call them back to you after they are finished eating the treats!
Method #2
Another great method works best with toys, but if your dog is not toy motivated, it can also be done with treats. You’ll need 2 people for this one, a long line, and a toy on a string.
So get your helper to hold the dog on a long line but by the collar so they can’t get far, you’ll take the toy and tease the dog with it a little bit, make them really want that toy! Then you’ll leave and stop about half the length of the long line, turn to look at your dog and say “come” or whatever word you’d like to use and get your helper to release the dog, once they start coming drop the toy (while holding onto the string) and run away while dragging the toy and get the dog to catch the toy.
If you’re using treats simply tease them with the treat, then go then call them, run away then reward with the treat when they catch you.
IMPORTANT
The most important thing about teaching a good recall is, never let your dog off leash fully until they are reliably coming back every single time. Keep your dog on a long line so you can grab them if needed. Taking them off the long line too early can cause them to make the wrong decision and not come when called. If they learn to do that, it’ll set you back in your training and they can start playing “catch me if you can”. The goal is to never let it get to that point, but if that’s where you and your dog already are, then the above methods with the long line can help fix your recall as well!
Step 1: With your dog in a lay down place your hand near your dog’s chin and lure your dog’s chin into your head. Once your dog is touching your hand with their chin say “yes” and feed. Repeat until your dog seems to understand.
Step 2: Once your dog sees your hand and anticipates putting their head in it, you can add the word. You can use any word or phrase you’d like, but I just say “head down”. Now say “head down” and show your hand, once the put their head down, reward.
Step 3: Once they get it with your hand, start trying it with something else like a stuffy or pillow. Place them in a down with the stuffy or pillow between their front legs and say “head down” and point to the ground. As soon as they place their head down, reward!
Step 4: Remove both the stuffy or pillow and your hand now and just say “head down” and point to the ground. They should now put their head down between their front paws on the ground. As soon as their head touching the ground, reward!
Step 5: Now you’ll start fading the pointing to the ground. Say “head down”, wait a few seconds and if needed point to the ground. Once they put their head down with verbal only, and don’t need to help, they know “head down”!
You can now start practicing in different locations and putting their head on different objects. Once they will do it anywhere, we consider it a finished trick!
Comment and let us know what tricks you’d like tutorials for!
Does your dog get easily distracted on outings? Do you want your dog to be EXTRA motivated during training? Do you want to make your dog an extra special yummy treat?! If you answered yes to any or all of these questions, you need to check out this super simple, healthy, yummy recipe!
Ingredients:
2 cans (6 ounces) of tuna (do not drain)
1 1/2 cups of flour (we used plain white this time, but you can also use whole wheat, coconut flour, almond flour etc)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 cup of parmesan cheese
Coconut oil for greasing the pan
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Add all your ingredients to a large bowl and mix together until smooth. The consistency should be slightly softer than cookie dough.
Once mixed grease a large pan with coconut oil and add your mixture to the greased pan.
Smooth it out and place in the oven for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Cut into cubes or use a cookie cutter to cut shapes, and break the extra pieces into training treats.
We doubled the recipe as we have 7 dogs, and do a lot of training, but a single batch is probably fine for single pup homes. Keep in the refrigerator for up to a week or if you make too many put the extras in the freezer! Like anything, feed in moderation, especially if your pup isn’t used to new food or treats.
