Like most dogs, Sadie always comes to investigate the smell of food. But unlike most dogs, Sadie often rejects what she’s smelling as something she doesn’t want to eat. For example, Sadie knows and is not interested in the smell of chocolate. That is one quirk I’m very thankful for, especially at this time of year. Sadie will hear me opening a bag and unwrapping something and come to investigate. As soon as she smells that all I’ve got is boring old chocolate, she goes back to whatever she was doing. But if the chocolate is mixed with other smells, like candy with peanut butter or coconut, that is a different story. It always takes some convincing for Sadie to understand that even though it smells like peanut butter, it is still not for dogs.

I had to do a lot of convincing yesterday as I was preparing the house for trick-or-treaters. I always give out candy from one of the traditional jack-o-lantern pails. As I got mine out of storage last night, Sadie came running over to see what I had. I guess the pail smells like all of the candy I’ve given out over the years, so Sadie got very excited. She was running around my legs, jumping up, even barking, trying to get me to give her the pail. I kept telling her it’s “not for Sadie,” a command that usually works to make her understand when something is not for dogs. But this time Sadie would not give up. She was just too excited. So finally I lowered the empty pail down for her to look inside and her confusion was priceless. Sadie just couldn’t understand how it could smell like so many good treats, but be completely empty. Every time Sadie sees that jack-o-lantern pail, she wants to look inside to find the candy that makes it smell so tantalizing.

The moral of my story today is that you need to be careful with candy at this time of year. You probably have more candy around the house than usual, and in different locations. If my picky dog is interested enough to investigate the candy pails, I’m betting your pets are interested as well. Make sure you keep candy well out of reach of your animals, especially if you leave them home unattended. At my house I keep our candy pail on the floor by the door on Halloween so it’s easy to grab when the doorbell rings. I don’t have to worry about the candy on the floor since Sadie won’t go down the stairs needed to reach the area by the front door. But during the hectic doorbell ringing, trick-or-treating hours, don’t forget about putting your candy away out of your pets’ reach. Make sure you look around the house for any candy that may have fallen or been forgotten. I know when I was a kid I dumped out all my candy on the floor to go through it, and I’m guessing I’m not the only one. One lonely, forgotten piece of chocolate on the floor can be dangerous for your pets. Even if that small amount of chocolate doesn’t cause immediate harm, it may give your pet a taste for chocolate that could lead to disaster later. So keep a careful watch over candy this Halloween season and make sure your furry family members stay safe and healthy.

When you begin training a puppy or new dog, one of the first things you need to learn is what motivates that particular animal. For most dogs this is usually some type of food. It could be some carrots, pieces of turkey or chicken breast, or even a dollop of peanut butter; if a particular treat can be broken into small pieces and makes your dog spin around your feet in excited circles whenever you hold it, that food would make a good motivator for your dog.

But not all dogs are food motivated. Occasionally if Sadie is in the right mood I can use some type of food to get her to practice a trick or command. But more often than not, Sadie has no particular interest in food. So I’ve been working on discovering other methods of motivating my dog.

Many service dogs are trained to work for a toy. They are raised with only one toy to play with, and they only get to play with that toy if they’ve done their task correctly. Therefore the toy becomes their motivation for obeying commands. Unfortunately Sadie has way too many toys for this strategy to work for her. You need to implement this practice the minute you bring a dog home, or your dog will simply find other items around your home to play with. Sadie will listen to a command once for a new toy. But once she’s had the toy, she will no longer work to get it. If I take the toy away and ask her to perform a specific action to get it back, she just walks away from me in search of something else to do.

One form of motivation that works more frequently for Sadie is simple praise. Most dogs want to please their owners, and try to follow commands whenever they can figure out what their humans want. Sadie loves it when I clap my hands and make a fuss when she does something correctly. Once Sadie understands what I’m asking of her, she happily listens to my commands in exchange for my energetic praise.

Occasionally I try more unconventional methods of motivation. As I discussed in yesterday’s post, L is for Little, Sadie has an obsession with tissues. If I take a tissue and dangle it in front of Sadie, she will try every command she can think of to get me to give it to her. Once Sadie performs the appropriate task and receives the tissue, she begins ripping it up. I then can take one of the many new pieces of tissue, dangle it in front of her, and she is willing to act on my commands to get this tissue piece. This form of motivation works for longer periods of time than treats, because there is an almost endless supply of tissue pieces and you don’t have worry about counting the calories of tissues since my dog is not eating them. The tissue as motivator also has more practical applications, like my use of throwing the tissue to show Sadie the direction to jump through her hula hoop (see my post H is for Hula Hoop for more information about hula hoop training). I could not use that method with a food motivated dog, as I would not want to throw pieces of food around my house.

In general, most dogs are happy and willing to follow your commands and complete whatever tasks you set for them. All you need to do is find the right motivation that works for your dog.

This post is part of the Blogging From A to Z April Challenge.

Check out Slimdoggy‘s blog hop below for other great pet blogs taking the challenge with me.

This part of the Tasty Tuesday blog hop. Check out tasty treats from my fellow pet bloggers below.

Thanks for liking us! Sadie and I really appreciate all the love!

In honor of National Peanut Butter Lover’s Day, Sadie gets to play with one of her all time favorite toys – the almost empty peanut butter jar. She can spend hours at a time trying to lick every last trace of peanut buttery goodness from the bottom of the jar. And as a bonus for her humans, she’ll have nice peanut butter breath when she’s done! So whether it’s straight from the jar, on a sandwich, or any other way you like it, enjoy a tasty treat of peanut butter today and have a happy National Peanut Butter Lover’s Day!

Thanks for liking us! Sadie and I really appreciate all the love!