Dog Modeling for a Photo Shoot

Mr. N's shoot for City Dog Magazine

Portland Horse Project and Mr. N

If you look closely, you'll spot metal rings on the sidewalks of Portland. They date back to the early 1900's when people would tie up their horses and carts to the rings. Portland continues the tradition by adding rings when new sidewalks are built. Scott Wayne Indiana came up with the idea of adding toy horses to the rings as a public art project (Portland Horse Project) and it became popular with Portlanders. 

Mr. N says he is not a horse and he finds being tied to the ring  very insulting. 

Warm Winter (and Fall) Soup for Dogs

The rainy season in Portland means that Mr. N is a soggy shivering little dog no matter how many layers of water-proof clothing he wears. After he gets his paws (and sometimes belly) washed, he gets a quick towel dry and then a warm snack.

This post was sponsored by Chewy. They are not responsible for the contents of this article. All opinions expressed are our own. 

I don't believe in warming up raw food so he usually gets warmed up canned food. Right now, he's eating Weruva Steak Frites with Beef, Pumpkin & Sweet Potatos in Gravy from Chewy.com for his cold winter snack.

Weruva with added water

He laps it right up and leaves a clean bowl. He stops shivering. The extra calories are good for him too. He expends a lot of calories keeping warm during the rainy months.

Do you give your dogs special warm food during the cold season? 

Canine STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics)

How to Train Your Leash Reactive Dog with the LAT method

Mr. N walks nicely on a leash, 99.9 percent of the time. Children can walk him and they have under supervision and in quiet areas. That 0.1 percent is what gets him in trouble. Mr. N is what is known as a "frustrated greeter." He gets super excited to see other dogs and he will pull and bark and lunge on leash.

He is a lot better than he used to be. The very sight of a dog would send him into a barking, lunging frenzy. Now, he can walk and ignore other dogs across the street. We're still working on passing dogs on the same sidewalk. He can sometimes walk past very calm dogs who are lying down and not looking at him.

Mr. N ignoring the dog behind the fence who is barking at him. He says it's very hard.

We've been making this progress mostly with the LAT (Look at That) method from Leslie McDevitt's book, Control Unleashed. The premise is pretty simple. When your dog looks at a trigger (dogs, scary strangers, bikes, squirrels, skateboards etc), you reward them for looking at the trigger. It sounds counter-intuitive but it works! They learn to neutralize the trigger and focus back on you. Eventually, the dog will look at the trigger then automatically look back at you. This works both for dogs who are over-excited like Mr. N and dogs who are anxious or fearful.

You should start by practicing the cue with neutral objects that your dog won't react to then gradually add in lower-level distractions then work your way up to higher-level ones. For the neutral object, you could use a bottle or other household item and point at it and when your dog looks at the bottle, use a marker word like "yes" or click with a clicker and reward.

Mr. N knows he did a good job by looking at the other dog and not reacting. He thinks he deserves his treat now.

For the reward, you must use something the dog finds immensely rewarding. Reactivity work is very difficult for the dog and the reward must match. No kibble or dry treats! Unless your dog is willing to jump off a cliff for those. Mr. N is picky about his rewards so I can pretty much only use meaty treats and cheese. Right now, we're using Look Who's Happy treats that we were sent to review because Mr. N deems them worthy, they take a second or two to chew (less time to think about barking), and they're healthy and made with good ingredients so if he sometimes gets a ton of treats for not barking, so be it.

Look Who's Happy provided us with three bags of treats. Tenacious Little Terrier was not compensated for this review post. All opinions expressed are our own.

It's important to make sure your dog is not past threshold (calm and not over-aroused) when you do this. It has to be at a distance your dog can handle. So if you have to start at a football field's distance, that's what you do. Other things will affect your dog's threshold. With Mr. N and dogs, the following can impact his threshold: motion, speed, multiple dogs at once, dogs paired with a skateboard/bike, dogs giving him a hard stare, off-leash dogs, the other dog barking.

Mr. N practicing LAT by the dog park

Trigger stacking is also important to keep in mind. Multiple triggers will affect your dog's ability to keep it together. I always think of it as akin to dieting. If you're presented with multiple temptations throughout the day, (doughnuts at breakfast, co-worker's birthday cake at work, lunch invitation and offers of pizza for dinner) it's a lot easier to give in. You only have so much impulse control. You may be good all day and then something sends you over the edge and you gorge on ice cream. Same goes for your dog. They may ignore the first five dogs and then after the sixth one will turn into a screaming maniac.

Mr. N has conquered bikes and joggers and squirrels and cats for the most part using this method. We're continuing to work on his hardest challenge, dogs. He tries very hard and sometimes he backslides but we're getting there.

No dogs were barked at during the making of this post.

It is very difficult to capture a squirrel and dog in the same frame.

Welcome to First Monday's Positive Pet Training Blog Hop hosted by Cascadian Nomads, Tenacious Little Terrier and Rubicon Days. Please share your responsible pet owner positive pet training tips by linking a blog post or leaving a comment below. Any positive reinforcement training posts or comments are also always welcome. The Positive Pet Training Blog Hop goes all week long. Our next hop will begin Monday, Nov. 2nd with a training and exercise theme and continues for a week. 

Giant Bubbles in the Park

During our afternoon walk, Mr. N and I meandered down to the river and were greeted with the sight of dozens of bubbles floating in the air. 

Occasionally, the bubble performers bring their giant bubble wands and create enormous bubbles during sunny afternoons. We've always missed their performances before so we paused to watch the bubbles float and melt away in the Indian Summer air. 

A toddler came running over, waving her hands in excitement and paused in front of a stream of iridescent bubbles. Entranced. It wasn't just the children who delighted in the spectacle. Just about everyone who walked by paused for a glimpse and the reminder of pure joy and childhood.

Mr. N was briefly intrigued but then decided there were more other interesting things in the park like the geese and the Aussie that was illicitly playing fetch behind us twenty feet away off-leash. Little Dog was very good and held his sit stay despite bubbles popping by his head and the Aussie.

Enjoying the Last of Summer

Watching #Portlandia and #Grimm Being Filmed

We occasionally run into Portlandia and Grimm filming around the city. Mr. N was not perturbed by the fake zombies and he thinks he would make a very scary wesen (fairy tale creatures in Grimm).

We didn't have a chance to watch the most recent filming of Portlandia due to errands in another part of the city. They were packing up as we walked by but Mr. N posed at the pizza place they were shooting.

Which show would your dog like to be an extra in?

From the Archives: Mr. N's First Lure Coursing Run

The first time Mr. N went lure coursing and won his first CAT (coursing agility test) title after three runs. I was looking at some old photos and found this video from his first trial. He's running on a dirt field so he basically looks like a moving speck of dirt after the first fifty feet or so.

The dogs chase a plastic bag on a line pulled by a series of pulleys. The non-sighthounds run the CAT. Small dogs (under twelve inches) and brachycephalic dogs run 300 yards and the big dogs run 600 yards. The dogs run individually and in order to pass, the dogs must complete the course in under a minute and half (300 yards) or two minutes (600 yards). 

Taste Testing #InstinctRaw. Nature's Variety Instinct® Raw Bites, an Easy Way to Feed Raw.

This post is sponsored by Instinct® and the BlogPaws Professional Pet Blogger Network. I am being compensated for helping spread the word about Instinct Raw but Tenacious Little Terrier only shares information we feel is relevant to our readers. Instinct is not responsible for the content of this article.

Mr. N is a super snob about food. Or as he prefers to think of it, he is a gourmet. This is the dog who turns his nose up at kibble and goes on a hunger strike which is why we switched to raw feeding. And certain people in this household are terrible about remembering to thaw extra food after feeding Mr. N and the container is empty. Hint. It's usually not me. Nature's Variety Instinct® Raw Bites is an excellent solution to both those problems. 

It's super quick to thaw which is awesome because otherwise you're trying to figure out what else to feed your dog in the morning and your dog says he is starving and needs to be fed right this instant. Mr. N appreciates the high protein and real meat of the Instinct (95 percent venison, lamb, organ and bone + 5 percent fruit and vegetables and other ingredients) although he doesn't see why there should be fruits and vegetables at all. Mr. N is a devout carnivore 

The Raw Bites for dogs come in chicken, beef, turkey, lamb, duck, venison, rabbit and tuna. Mr. N is currently eating the venison. He evidently approves because it's been about two weeks and he has eaten every single meal on time. He has been prone to skipping breakfast this hot summer. The Instinct is nutrient dense and high quality. Mr. N has been eating smaller quantities than with his previous food. 

A lot of people have health and sanitary concerns with raw dog food.I wash my hands before and after raw feeding and his bowls get rinsed with hot soapy water after meals and tossed in the dishwasher on a regular basis. Mr. N eats on a towel in his crate. I wipe down his crate with vinegar weekly and towels get washed in hot water. So far neither of us have been sick with salmonella or anything like that. 

We've been using the Instinct mostly during meal time but I've been using them for trick training as well. Here's Mr. N practicing crossing his paws with the Raw Bites as a reward.

 And saying his prayers before he eats. He is thankful that he gets to eat his favorite things for dinner like venison and lamb and beef and all the other animals bigger than him. 

If you're interested in trying out Nature's Variety with your pets (they make a cat variety too), they're offering a $3 off coupon. For more information and other offers, follow them on Facebook. 

Recovering Reactive Dog

We were walking down the street when a car drives by with the window open and a dog barking his head off at Mr. N. Mr. N turns and looks for a long second. He gives a huff and proceeds to turn away from the dog and we cross the street to get some distance.

 The car parks and a woman walks out and apologizes for her dog saying he always gets really excited around other dogs. I tell her that it's OK. That we've been there.

We are still there but he gets better and better every day. Even though it feels like we backslide sometimes.

Mr. N is a recovering reactive dog. These days, his outbursts are much fewer and usually provoked by our neighbors' dogs (with territoriality added to the mix) or unexpected close encounters like when we go around corners. He has been making mostly good choices and will turn away or emit calming signals.

Little Dog is learning some impulse control. He is a good boy.