Welcome to Week Twenty-Nine!

It’s hard to understand how your little chowzer dog, who seems to inhale her food when you feed her, suddenly won’t eat when you leave her some munchies while you’re away from the house. It’s especially frustrating when you know you will be away during her normal meal time, so you really hope she’ll eat the food or stuffed Kong you left her. Want to understand more? Read this week’s Perfect Puppy column, "Why Won’t My Dog Eat When I’m Not Home."

In last week’s Kids & Pets column, we talked about dog kisses; that dogs lick rather than kiss, and why it’s safer to teach your dog to lick the top of your hand rather than your face. By teaching your dog to lick your hand on cue, it gives her a way to interact with you without using her teeth (play nipping) or licking your face! This week’s Kids & Pets column, "Teach Your Dog to Lick Your Hand" to help your kids teach your dog a safer alternative to licking faces!

Sometimes you tell your dog to stay when you open a door, sometimes you tell her to wait, and most of the time she’s not great whether you tell her wait or stay! That’s probably due to lack of consistency and practice rather than whether you tell her to wait or to stay. You do some studying and read that some dogs are taught how to "wait" and other dogs taught how to "stay," and you can’t figure out what the difference is! This week in Training For Success we talk, "What is the Difference Between Wait and Stay?" to help clear up the confusion and why we recommend you put your focus on teaching your dog to "stay."

"My dog is so guilty! She knows she did something wrong and she did it anyway!" If every dog trainer had a dollar for every time someone tries to convince them that they absolutely know that their dog knew better and that their dog did whatever out of spite, well we’d have some very wealthy dog trainers! Due to people misreading their dog’s body language, what is seen as guilt is really a fear response! In this week’s Understanding Your Puppy column we dive into this for a clearer understanding in, "Guilty! My Dog Knows She Did Something Wrong!"

The staff of the MyPetTrainer.com and LostMyPet.com community is here to support YOU!! We hope you enjoy learning from your Week Twenty-Nine issue of MyPetTrainer.com.

Together in success,
The staff of MyPetTrainer.com