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Gardening Article: Dog Gets Into Water Garden When Owner Is At Work

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Dear Mr. Katz,

Ive read your book and its been interesting as well as helpful - its taught me to teach my dog some new behaviors and discipline.

However, I wouldnt be writing if I still didnt have a lingering problem.

The water garden is obviously too much fun to ignore. And theres birds landing in there to take a bath! Im nearly convinced its the birds tempting her, but I could be wrong. I dont think she really sees the fish.

In any case, I have tried the Snappy Trainers - the devices that work like a mouse trap but just make a big noise when tripped. She does not like them at all. But either I dont have enough of them or something else is getting her attention to the point that they dont matter. I have also tried leaving her in the house - that works too, but in the long run, Id rather have her outdoors. As a side note, my fiancés Malamute was here for a week and also thinks the pond is the cats meow - and shes the last dog we thought would venture into that much water. Help.

Thanks,
Sue

Dear Sue:

Its the same as house-proofing your dog, garden-proofing, etc...

You need to keep the dog confined to a dog run when you cannot supervise him.

Only allow him to run free in the yard when you can spy on him. This may take a couple of months or more, but the benefits will be a lifetime of reliability.

This is really the type of behavior where an electronic collar makes life easy. Instead of running outside to correct the dog, the dog instead things that the correction came from the water garden itself. This makes the training process A LOT FASTER. (Ever notice how quickly dogs learn not to play around in thorny rose bushes???)

If you dont want to get an e-collar, then leave the training collar on the dog, and do the No, no, no routine that I outlined in the book. This will work just the same.

Thats all for now, folks!
Adam