Keeping play safe and fun for all the dogs that attend can be a challenge if you are not managing problem behaviors in dog daycare. First you must be clear on what behaviors are appropriate versus inappropriate for the dogs that participate. If you don’t have these lists it can be a great team exercise to discuss and create them.
We’ve been helping dog daycares keep play safe for close to twenty years. Our experience indicates there are two key factors to keeping play safe:
- A formal dog evaluation process to screen for dogs that are appropriate for the environment
- A formal staff training program that teaches canine body language, leadership skills and play group management
Even with both of these factors in place you will stay have dogs that display inappropriate behaviors. You’ll want to teach your staff to be consistent and proactive in managing problem behaviors in dog daycare such as:
- Mouthing
- Jumping
- Barking
- Gate crashing
- Rough play
- Poop eating
- Humping
We discuss tips on managing all of these and leadership exercises that can help your daycare counselors succeed in this video. We even share the clues when a dog should be dismissed from daycare or as we suggest referred to another service within your center.
Managing Problem Behaviors in Dog Daycare
Problem Behaviors
[00:00:00] People love to talk about the dog behavior stuff and that's what we're going to talk about today is really looking and talking about how to manage some of the crazier behaviors that we see in, especially in off-leash playgroups.
Couple of comments are already coming in about dogs, getting mouthy, barking control, let's see, grabbing each other with their teeth. So what do we want to start with first? I think let's start with first you should have a list of behaviors and this would be a good exercise to do with your team, if you don't have it, but to come up with a list of behaviors that are either appropriate or what you feel are inappropriate for dogs to display in your playgroups. And I think that's a starting point, so that everybody's consistent in either praising the behaviors you do want or intervening with the behaviors you don't want. So I guess that would be the starting point if you haven't done that. I think it's a great exercise.
Yeah. And the [00:01:00] great thing, we always do tell people to start with that, and it is a great exercise to do with your team so you're all thinking on the same page of music, so to speak, but it also, somebody just did post something about knowing when to dismiss a dog from daycare, that list of what you want as appropriate and what is inappropriate behavior that list becomes a really good tool to use if you do have to dismiss dogs, because then it's no longer about the dog itself. It's no longer about the breed of dog. It's no longer about the age of the dog or anything like that. It's strictly about this is what we want to see, and this is what we're seeing in your dog.
And that's why it's not a good fit for that particular dog because of the behavior we're seeing. It's not a good fit for our environment. And I know sometimes when we tell people, think of those appropriate versus inappropriate behaviors most people immediately think of we don't want a dog that's going to growl or bite or like the obvious things.
But there's other [00:02:00] behaviors too. Like one of the inappropriate behaviors, I didn't want to see dogs that drooled a lot. Cause drooling is a sign of stress. So if you had outside of just regular drool, like from some of the breeds that do drool more like Mastiffs, you're going to have drooling, but I'm talking about a dog that just kind of sits in the corner and doesn't really cause any problems is not showing any aggressive displays, but he's so stressed out that his day just consists of him sitting still and drooling. That for me was not a behavior I wanted to see. Spinning behavior for my, for those of you that have heard Susan and I talked before we talk a lot about the fact that we didn't, we had indoor facilities and I didn't want to see dogs that were doing spinning or those behaviors that can become what are they called? I can't think of the term.
Chronic behaviors that are compulsive behaviors. That's the word I'm looking for. I didn't want them to learn that at my facility or practice it at my facility. So that kind of spinning behavior that was compulsive I didn't want that. And that [00:03:00] was fairly common in my facility if I had herding breeds because they just didn't have enough room in my facility.
So that was a dog that just needed a different location. Wasn't a dog that didn't necessarily not fit in daycare. He just didn't fit into my daycare. So really think through what are those things you want to see and what other things you don't want to see in your daycare? I think that's a great starting point.
Yeah. And what kind of triggered that was, the first question about mouthing and I know there are some dogs that do use their mouths a lot, mouths on human skin was not fair I felt to my staff, if it was an adult dog, that was a problem where they would grab and almost like a level one bite.
I think that was one of the inappropriate ones for the safety of my staff. And I know you have a story you like to tell about someone that came in up to you I think at an event that she was at. Yeah at an event this was years ago and someone came up and we, it was not, it was a dog training event, so we weren't really there to talk about daycare or that kind of [00:04:00] thing and we were all dog trainers, but we happened to get into a conversation about daycare because she worked at a daycare. And so then I told her, that I had my own daycare, cause this was when I had my facility and she started talking about, it's just so crazy to work there and blah, blah, blah.
And then she said, a lot of the dogs are really rambunctious and really mouthy and of course that's just normal. And I was like I don't no no it shouldn't totally be normal. Like you should have moments of calm. And she was, it was winter so she had long sleeves on and at one point she said, so is, do you get your arms all messed up?
I was like, what do you mean? And she pulled up her sleeve and she had black and blue marks, like from her elbow from her shoulder down to her hand, Just completely filled with bruises from either dogs mouthing her dogs, jumping on her and she was like, this is just what it's like. And I was like, no, that's not normal.
So we had a conversation about, how they should be accepting dogs and what kind of dogs they should accept, but no, your staff should not think that is part of their job to [00:05:00] get beaten up by the dogs. And so that is definitely appropriate versus inappropriate. I would say. It's not something you want to see.
I will say that in terms of how to stop that kind of behavior, whether it's the dogs, jumping pawing, clawing at you mouthing you all of that or all of that stuff is signs of arousal. So a lot of times that is a dog that is probably high arousal and with some dogs, when they get really high energy, high arousal, they start to display those, signs, which are sometimes a call for help.
It's sometimes the dot going I can't cope anymore. And that how it comes out is the dogs clawing at you panicking. Grabbing your arm and that's all the dog's way of saying this is too much for me. So guess what? That's actually not good for the dog and it's not good for your staff. It's also not for the dog.
So sometimes it's a matter of, can we change the environment to lower the arousal level of any dogs that are doing that? We had a dog that the solution for him [00:06:00] was no afternoon daycare. Like he had to limit the number of hours he was in daycare. He was like child without a nap. So you could come in the morning and then we actually did do a nap time in the afternoon, but it was just too much for him. The second half of the day, he always got too amped up and it was just, he just didn't have the right kind of personality to last for a whole day in daycare, which is really why I like enrichment based daycare, where the dogs get a lot more rest. But look at if you're getting dogs that are super mouthy, super jumpy, super grabby I would look at arousal levels and how you can maybe help the dog by more rest time, or maybe they don't come as often. Cause we'll also see that a lot in dogs that come every single day. We also see that a lot in lodging dogs when we get lodging back lodging dogs that are doing daycare also, even if it's a normal daycare dog, if now you add the fact that they're coming to daycare and they're overnight lodging [00:07:00] with you for a continual period of time, sometimes they just need more rest over time.
And the sign of the fact that they're not getting too much rest enough rest, is all of that arousal behavior. Yeah. And one thing exercise that we do teach to help staff have dogs respect that personal space boundary is that hula hoop game. Where you guys may have seen a video of Robin or me doing this, but you put it like hula hoop and you don't have to have a hula hoop it's just nice because as a boundary, but you could take out a square, you could have, a piece of rope but something that shows a boundary and then you take small steps forward, backwards, and the dogs learn that there's a boundary that I'm not supposed to cross.
And that can help especially new staff, because I know sometimes dogs will take advantage they're opportunist and a new leader comes in and they haven't really earned the respect yet of the dogs. And so that hula hoop [00:08:00] exercise is one of the first ones that we recommend introducing to your daycare staff members, to help them have that good leader posture and help the dog see them as a leader. Yeah, and I, if you guys have never seen, we actually did an experiment and videotaped it, and it's in a Knowing Dogs now, but where we videotaped me walking into a group of dogs who I didn't know, once in using the posture of what we call royalty and once using the posture of what we call victim.
So when we're trying to tell people, especially your new staff, how to enter a room and how to interact with the dogs. We talk about walking like royalty or walking like a victim, which gives you a good, hopefully like idea in your head as to how to walk through that room. So we actually videotaped this cause I said let's actually see if this works.
So I walk into a room and this is a group of dogs I did not know and not a daycare. It was not my daycare. And I walked in the [00:09:00] way I would normally walk in, which is that royalty, posture, head up, shoulders back, I'm walking relatively slow, but with purpose and the dogs pretty much all came up to me and they were interested in me because I was a new person, but there was not that much barking.
There was not that much jumping. And within a couple of seconds, they just dispersed back and started doing whatever they wanted to do again. Then we did the same experiment with me walking in, in the victim posture, which is, head down sort of shoulders, slunched over kind of shuffling through the room slowly, just, and it was amazing.
The difference in the dogs, all of them ran up to me. They were in my face, they were literally jumping up to my face. They were barking. It took them a lot longer like I had to walk about 180 degrees through the room in a big arc before they even will start or left me alone, like it they just kept doing it.
And it was actually very eyeopening to me. So it [00:10:00] does really make a difference as to how you train your staff to interact with the dogs. Because if you do find one staff member is the one who always seems to have the issues it's probably that they need a little bit of help learning how to be more assertive and walk a little bit more and handle themselves a little bit more assertively.
The great thing is all that stuff you can teach. So don't just roll your eyes and go ah, they just walk all over him or her. You need to help that person so that she can get better. I think we got lots of questions. I was gonna go to barking but a couple of questions about barking, and I also want to come back in a second to somebody had posted a question about oh let me go to this one first. So the dogs that like to bite hands and clothes and the owner doesn't care when it's brought to their attention. So here's the challenge with when you're having issues with a dog in daycare, it might vary very well be that behavior does not [00:11:00] present itself at home, especially behaviors that are presenting themselves because of high arousal, because when the dog goes home, most likely they're not in that state of high arousal because they're in a house with probably just the pet parents and maybe, couple of family members, but they're not in that high energy.
When you say that owners don't care a lot of times they're probably thinking that's just weird. They don't do that at home. So it is hard to convince an owner to care the way maybe you care because you're seeing totally different behavior. So I do find that helping with videotape, helping to videotape the dog, helping to show pictures of other dogs so that you can show the behaviors that you're seeing and why we want to help curb those behaviors.
But I also think you have to approach the pet parent with a solution. So like that dog I talked about that literally could only do a half day with, at my facility. I went to the pet parents and I was like, here's, what's going on like in the afternoon, he's really ramped up. He's jumping on the staff, [00:12:00] blah, blah, blah and we had a video to show this happening and I actually wanted to dismiss the dog, but the pet parents were like can we talk about some ways to manage it? And so then we had a big conversation about, I think if we started with just fewer days a week and half days, I think that might help.
And so we worked with the pet parents who come up with a solution. So you also want to just make sure you're talking to the pet parents in a way that you're helping them to solve the issue, not just saying this is what he does at daycare. Cause then most pet parents are going to go, huh? Doesn't do that at home.
And then the conversation doesn't go anywhere. So you really have to present it in a good way too. All right. So jumping back to barking, do you want to start with that, Susan? Yeah. There's many different reasons why dogs bark. So I think you have to really try to figure out what are they barking at?
Is it a bark when someone passes by like a alert, barking, or is it where they're marking in the face of other dogs or are they [00:13:00] barking at the staff? So knowing what they're barking at, if they're just barking and play again, it goes back to what's appropriate or inappropriate dogs are going to bark and, occasional play barks should probably be okay unless you've got noise issues and then that's a totally different management issue. Barking that's just as people pass by again, it's training your staff to anticipate that putting up blocks, if you can, where they don't see what's passing by setting the dogs and your space up for success.
Staff members positioning themselves with their facing the dogs and getting in a way and distracting them would be one thing. If they're just barking in the face of another dog or the staff, I think that's intervene that dog needs a break. And so that's when you try to distract, if you can't do that intervene and then maybe give a break, if you need to do like behavior modification using timeouts that's at a higher level and takes [00:14:00] a lot of consistency and someone that's really good at knowing how to manage that. And then I don't know if you want to talk about that. Yeah. So yeah, I definitely think, cause there's a whole bunch of people that said bark barking was an issue. It really does come down to figuring out why the dog's barking and a couple of things that we do like to try.
Susan mentioned some of them with body blocking, closing the visual barrier, like blocking the visual barrier of the dog barking at something. Sometimes we'll do happy walks, which just putting a leash on the dog and walking them through the room that works really well for dogs that are barking because they have gotten too aroused and they're just, it's that dog you look at it and you're like, I don't even know what he's barking at. He's barking for the sake of barking. Sometimes that's just an arousal issue. So putting them on a leash and walking around with them not in a punishment way, but just in come on, we're going to go you're going to hang out with me for awhile. Sometimes that will reassure the dog and calm them down a little bit, so that can help. I have seen people use [00:15:00] gentle leaders, which will for dogs again that are high arousal that can help to calm them down just because of the way it fits on their face for other dogs, they will just pull that off and it won't work at all.
So you have to experiment. And then if you do get a situation where you want to try to manage and work with a dog and a training behavior standpoint, then that is through timeouts and a timeout essentially is the dog barks you immediately mark the barking by saying something like bingo. I like to use the word bingo, the whole other reasons for using that.
But you could also say enough or stop barking or whatever. And as soon as you say that, then you put the dog in a crate. And you wait about 10 to 15 seconds. If they're not barking, you let them out. That does require somebody basically following that dog around to respond immediately and I would put that in the training realm.
And if you had to do that a lot, I would actually probably even charge more for that. So sometimes you have to decide is that even a [00:16:00] dog that's suitable in daycare and it might be or it might not be. And if it really is going to take that much time, you have to decide if you have the staff who can a hundred percent focus on that one dog and not the other dogs in the room.
So it becomes a judgment call too, on your part. So I do think barking is stressful for your staff. It's also stressful for the dogs. So it is something that you want to work on and in a good playgroup, you shouldn't have a ton of barking. It should definitely not be all day. And it should definitely not be long periods of time.
And it may be, you have too many dogs in a space. I know when we were going out and doing on-sites, that can also get the energy and arousal up, which often gets the barking up. And I know I was in one group and I said, okay, we're going to take half the dogs out of this group. Go put them in rest time.
It was amazing. The difference. Just reducing the numbers to where the dogs have more space to [00:17:00] interact and relax and that just brought the energy level down right away. Yeah. And I would really experiment a little bit with all of those things to see. Sometimes you will find that just one or two dogs are what's causing that energy in the room to be too high and all the other dogs are responding and reacting to that.
And often, if you really look hard at the group, you'll figure that out. You'll be like, or if you don't just experiment, just go, okay, let's just go 30 minutes and take these two dogs out. And Susan and I have done that a lot and it's just like night and day difference of how one or two dogs can change the whole dynamics in the room.
So really don't be afraid to experiment with some of that. And it might mean that you have a couple of dogs that are going to be on a different schedule than all the other dogs in daycare. Maybe they have more breaks, maybe they have more time outs rest periods. Not timeouts, but maybe they have more of those.
This is again why we like enrichment because enrichment daycare, a lot of those rest periods are [00:18:00] built in. The other thing I'll say about barking is from the training standpoint, you also have to make sure you're not accidentally rewarding the barking. So if you don't have trainers on staff, it's very common that a dog here's an example is a dogs in a crate they bark because they want out of the crate. And then most of the staff are like, Oh, we don't want them barking. Let's just let them out. If you let them out while they're barking, you've actually just rewarded the barking. So same thing if your dog's barking in daycare, and then you go over and pet the dog and you go it's okay stop barking you've just rewarded the barking. So you have to really pay attention to that too, and pay attention to how you might be, or your staff might be inadvertently rewarding the behavior. And because anything that gets rewarded is going to increase. So dog barks at you and they want your attention and then you give them attention you've just rewarded the barking. So they're likely to do it again. So you have to really monitor that as well to make sure you're not accidentally rewarding the very behavior that is [00:19:00] annoying you. Which is really calming. So I'll say that too. All right. So Pet Resort in Green Springs said, let me try this, show this on screen.
They have a small amount of gravel and the yard and some of our campers like to pick up the rocks and then others follow suit, and we're worried about them swallowing. So I definitely think is a valid concern and that's a concern with anything. We had mulch for awhile. I had what's it called dog litter for awhile and it was the same thing. There were always be dogs that would try to eat that stuff. So it it's definitely is a concern. I would really just be monitoring whether or not they are swallowing it. And I don't know that you can prevent it a hundred percent, but what you can do is really identify the dogs that are at most risk of doing that and those dogs may need to be just really closely supervised. Especially if you have an owner that has [00:20:00] had a dog that has had surgery or whatever, like it's a known dog that is known for swallowing stuff or eating stuff that causes them to have surgery. Those dogs, I would definitely be monitoring and maybe even keeping them on a leash when they're out in that area.
I don't know, Susan, if you have other thoughts on that. No it's a risk and some dogs will consume it. In fact, there's someone I knew that used to come to the Urban Tails, Daycare that just posted on Facebook, that there had rocks underneath, like a garage apartment and a dog ate one and swallowed it and had the surgery and so they were putting up the barrier fence. So it is a high risk. I would actually be screening dogs that apply and find out if they have ever eaten a rock or something like that, just so you know. Yeah. Cause a lot of times those dogs that will eat and swallow stuff like that have had surgeries or the owner knows that they do that.
So that is one of the questions you can ask. I have seen in some situations I have seen [00:21:00] people who will, who have a known like chronic dog that eats things and they will use a muzzle in daycare. It's not my favorite choice. It is an option though, but if you're going to go that route, there's a couple issues.
One is you really want to make sure that owner has desensitized the dog so it's comfortable wearing a muzzle and is very happy to wear a muzzle. The second and I would have the owner do that work at home so that they could all get used to it. You could do it, but if you do it, I would charge more for that.
The second issue is you also have the concern of every owner who sees a dog in a muzzle is going to assume that dog is aggressive. So it becomes a communication issue with the other pet parents as well. So just really making sure that they understand this dog's wearing a muzzle when we're outside so he doesn't eat rocks, not because he's going to bite your dogs. So there's a little bit of a PR communication issue with that as well. But I have seen some folks who will take dogs that they know have issues like that, and they just make sure that everybody [00:22:00] knows why the dog's wearing a muzzle and the dogs perfectly happy wearing one.
I think those would be my two requirements. So gate control is another one that a horrible, there's like a million questions in here. So we gotta go faster. Okay. So do you want to start with gate control and I'm going to screen through really quick to see other questions? Yeah. Gate control is actually one of the leadership exercises that we help staff learn and part of our Daycare Games, because it is again taking off, it's that next step of the hula hoop game.
It's getting dogs to respect the boundary and you'd have to work up to that. And your staff has to be consistent. And so first it's working with your staff so that they know they can use body blocking and back dogs away from gates and doors. And so you want to start doing that not at arrival and the departure time you want to do that at times when it's slower during the day, and be consistent that you work up to ideally [00:23:00] a three-foot two to three foot barrier, where the staff can again, use body blocking small movements and back dogs away from the gate. And then open the gate and either let a dog out or another dog in, without them being mobbed, it can be done.
We've worked with a lot of centers that have done it successfully. You just have to be consistent and every staff member has to do it and you have to practice and get good at it. Prior to those arrival and departure times. Cause that's when things are more high excitement, it's a key event and it's going to be harder to do.
And that's why when we do have the leadership exercises that are part of our Daycare Games, they have a purpose and we encourage the staff to practice them every day because it enhances the leadership skills and makes the dogs easier to manage. Yeah. And I would say while your staff is working on those behaviors to where you do get better at being able to manage the Gates.
We used to do is number one, there are probably [00:24:00] some dogs you can name off the top of your head that are like, if only that dog wasn't there at departure time, it would be so much easier. We used to crate those dogs at departure time, or we would put them in a, we would bring them in the morning, let them potty, and then we would put them in an enclosure until every dog had arrived, because a lot of times we had certain dogs that they would play well, but when dogs are coming in there, they're right at the gate, like barking their heads off and showing their teeth. And no pet parent wants to see that as their little FeeFee's going into daycare. So some of those dogs until we got better with them, we just took them out of the room during those times until we were basically preventing the problem from happening. So moving the dogs away for some dogs, we also could just leash when we would see an owner was getting ready to come pick up we had some dogs that we would just throw the leash over their head and walk them away from the gate.
And then somebody was at the gate managing the dog that was going home. So that's another option, but the idea is the [00:25:00] ones that are the worst at causing the problems at the gate or the ones that are worse about like biting a dogs butt as they go through the gate, which we had that had problem a lot with some of our dogs, those dogs just get, have to, they have to get out of the room until you are able to manage this better as a whole.
So there are management techniques that you can use in between times. And I would let the owners know, so we always told the owners hey, we put your dogs up at five because he just gets too agitated when dogs are going home and it's not good for him, whatever. Or they would see us, take the leash and move away from the group.
So there are ways that you can manage it. But overall the idea is to do exactly what Susan said, which is train the dogs to stay away from the gate until they're called through. And I did put a link to our Grow Your Pet. Care Business, Facebook group, because we have the Daycare Games going right now for those that maybe aren't participating it's a great time. You can go to our Facebook page. It's a free event. We [00:26:00] hold every year in February. Unfortunately this February, there's some bit more chaotic because of the ice storms that are happening everywhere. But because we're holding them right now, there's a ton of people posting videos on what their teams are doing.
And I know last week, because we were working on getting ready for the Daycare Games last week, there were a lot of people posting how they were working with their dogs, using boundaries, and then how they were working with dogs to stay behind the boundary and then calling them through one at a time.
So the Facebook group is free to join, but you'll see a lot of people who are implementing some of this already. And there's just a ton of more videos from pet care facilities right now in the group than usual, just because everybody's sharing all their , their daycare game stuff. So if you're interested in seeing how some facilities are doing this with live video, just join that group and just go scan some of the pictures in there.
Cause there's a lot of good stuff happening. So Debbie Oliver had said, when you find yourself having to work with one dog too much, we shouldn't hesitate to talk to the owners and charge extra if [00:27:00] you have the staff to do that, almost like a day train, which a hundred percent I would agree with that.
I, so I'm a big advocate of trying to help the dog as much as possible if you can. And if you have the staff that has the ability to do that, but I also balance that with there might just be some dogs that you don't have the time or the staff, and they just need to be dismissed and, or given another opportunity for a different activity in your facility.
But if you are going to have the staff who has time and you have the ability to work with a dog, I would a hundred percent charge that at training rates, because that's really what you're doing. You're spending more time with that one dog than all the other dogs in your group. And then Stephanie said, we have a two hour nap time.
It's not normal for dogs to play 10 hours a day without any quality rests. And I hundred percent agree with that. So Susan and I are big advocates of giving dogs rest times. And I started my facility with no rest time. I then added a two hour rest time [00:28:00] because a good mentor of mine convinced me to do that.
And it turned out to be the best idea. We would actually recommend even more than one nap time during the day now, because we think that's healthier for the dog. So which again is why we keep harping back onto an enrichment based model of daycare. The way that it's set up, typically as the dogs get a lot more downtime anyway.
All right. Do you want to talk about, so we did have a couple of questions earlier on about knowing when to dismiss a dog. Susan, do you want to talk about that? Definitely. And again, when you dismiss a dog is to your protocols, but in my mind, if they there's three key considerations you want to be, have your appropriate versus inappropriate behavior list.
So they're probably doing some kind of inappropriate behaviors, but if you have knowledge and you have concerns that there's going to be a risk to another dog or staff member of being bit or seriously injured and that's physically and or emotionally. So [00:29:00] belaying and picking on other dogs is emotional damaging as well.
And I, what was the third thing? Good grief. A person or an animal is going to be injured. Those go with those two maybe the third one will come back to me. So if you know that, so if and we have the permission of Ann Dunbar, we have the Ann Dunbar bite level scale, a level three by or above shows, inappropriate bite inhibition.
And so generally, that is definitely a gauge to where it's not appropriate for the dog to continue in play because that's a risk and what I always talk to my team about, if we kept that dog in group and then it ended up bit another dog and the pet parent of that second dog said, could you have known this was going to happen?
I would have to say yeah, because month ago he bit another dog. I would feel horrible about that. Because I put that dog at risk, knowing there was a history and a pattern of issues. So I think that's it. Oh, I know [00:30:00] the third one, Robin, it's the dogs that are displaying stress behaviors.
Like you said, the drooling, they're not happy in the environment. I think we have a responsibility to be those dog's advocates and also dismiss them because that environment is not emotionally good for those dogs are showing you all the signs that they're not happy. We strongly think that the dogs that are in your daycare playgroups should be enjoying it and happy.
That means you're seeing green body language from almost every dog in the group with very little bit of yellow behaviors and body language going on. So that's our benchmark, which is really high again that's why we like enrichment based daycare because a lot of the yellow dogs that people that have had full day play, take them out and put them in an enrichment model, find great success for those dogs, as well as their full day play dogs are happier and their teams are happier.
Yeah. And I would say the [00:31:00] other thing we talk about a lot is setting up your pet parents for success. Meaning when we do evaluations for daycare, what we usually tell people is set that up where it's not an event like a pass, fail evaluation. So tell people the pet parents that you're going to evaluate their dog to see what their dog likes the best.
Because it might not be daycare. Now, if you only offer daycare, like in my facility, I only did do daycare. I eventually did add a modified in daycare program. What it was is a specialty daycare program. But if you have the ability, I would have a couple offerings and it might be you're going to have the dog in a lodging enclosure during the day, but take it out multiple times with one-on-one play or enrich again, enrichment days, daycare.
The reason that we like that is it gives you a lot more options of stuff to do with the dog, as opposed to just day long play. But if you bring the owner in and you say, we're not, we're going to evaluate your dog for daycare, it becomes [00:32:00] pass-fail either your dog can come to daycare or they can't.
And so you set that owner up for disappointment right from the start. So we say change that language and say, you are going to evaluate the dog, but you're evaluated to see what they like the best. And then you can go back to them and say, what they like the best is playing one-on-one or with a team of a three dogs.
They really don't like this whole daycare thing with 20 dogs over here. So we're not going to put them in that. We're going to do this with them. And so it allows you as the pet professionals to say, this is what's going to be best for your dog. And you're not just giving them the he doesn't, he's not been in daycare kind of scenario.
And that, that plays through the entire time the dog comes to your facility. Somebody else had just said that they have a dog that's gotten older. So we have some dogs who have been coming to day camp for a few years and are just now starting to really display problem behaviors. Could this be them feeling like they own the space and is there a way to help them?
So this also comes into play with [00:33:00] dogs that might, what we call age out of daycare is as a dog gets older, I would be having conversations with your pet parents to say, just like children. They get older and don't necessarily want to go to the playground. Most of us as adults have probably not gone to a playground in a long time and actually slid down the slide and or if we've done it, we maybe do it once or twice and then. It's actually, you're really tired the next day. Take my word for it. Or you're really sore the next day, trying to do those monkey bars, dogs are the same way. So it is very likely that in that situation, because the dogs have been coming for several years, they may be reaching that point where they're like, man, I'm over playing with all these dogs.
You get some breeds, typically like labs are well-known for being older and still super, super juvenile in terms of their behavior. And then you get other dogs that will age out faster. So it really depends on the dog, but it is likely that those dogs who are getting older just probably want me to shorter place period, [00:34:00] and maybe a fewer number of dogs to play with, because they're just not as going to, they're just not going to be as playful as a four month old puppy or a six month old puppy.
And it is not uncommon for dogs to start to become more defensive of their space, especially if they're there all the time. And so that is possible too, which you brought up Katie, that it is, that is possible that they could just become a little bit more protective of their space. So making sure that they are getting enough rest and they are getting enough interaction with different dogs to make sure that doesn't become a big issue. And I would say it was senior in geriatrics. They may be physical pain of other dogs or bumping into them. They may have arthritis. And so they may be giving warning signs to keep dogs away. So they don't get bumped and jostled around because it hurts. Tara said, is this going to be replayable?
Yes, because this is on Facebook live. It will stay on Facebook live. You can always find it on our Facebook page, we also do take the Facebook lives and we [00:35:00] put them on YouTube. So in another week or so it'll also be on our YouTube channel, but you can definitely find it again. And then Amy said, this was back to that owner about the dog was chewing on people's arms and the owner didn't care.
She said the owner acknowledged it and said she loves to chew on her son's sleeves and hands, and doesn't want us to correct her. This is where it goes back to that appropriate versus inappropriate behaviors. I would simply be telling the lady that the owner, that dogs putting their mouth or on your staff in terms of their bodies, there's clothes, whatever is inappropriate behavior.
It's not the behavior you want and your daycare environment. It's not fair to your team. Having the mouth invite other dogs is a totally separate issue, which I'll talk about in a second, but having them do that to people is not appropriate. And therefore the dog's not suitable for that environment.
That's, I wouldn't really get into, you could explain to her why it's really not a good idea for her son, but it's not that's her call. If that's the way they play or whatever. I know a lot of my [00:36:00] husband actually, like I know a lot of guys that play rough with their dogs and my husband does it with our dog, but he has an off switch.
It's now you can do it now you can't. So when the game is on, they do play a little bit more rough. But my dog also knows that if his teeth touch flesh, the game ends, that's a whole lot to teach an owner. And if the owner really doesn't care, I wouldn't even go there, but I would be saying. It's not appropriate in our daycare.
So your dog, can't come if that's the way that you insist on lettng your dog play. So that really, that's a good way of approaching that really to say, it's just not going to be appropriate. So this is a great one dogs that play rough, but not with rough intentions and they can be off putting to other dogs.
So I was actually going to talk a little bit about mouthing and that kind of thing Susan, but do you want to start with some of that. Yeah, I think we always say that if the other dogs are not having fun, you need to intervene. And so your staff needs to do, splitting redirecting and if you do that [00:37:00] enough and you're proactive, some dogs do learn to take it back much that others don't, it's still inappropriate.
You need to observe the body language of what we would say, the dog and the victim, or, the riskier position. And if their body language is saying, no, I don't like this. You intervene, you can't let one dog be a bully, even if they don't intend to be a bully, it's still negatively impacting others, your dogs in the group.
Yeah. And I think we see this a lot in, at dog parks. You'll go to a dog park and you'll see one dog that's body slamming another dog. And if a dog, body slams another dog who likes body slamming, that's great. But if a dog who likes body slamming is body slamming like a poodle typically poodles are not miniature poodles are not into that. So the poodle is like not having fun here. And the most common response we get from the body slamming dog is, Oh, that's just how he likes to play. So then I always tell people, okay, let's [00:38:00] translate that I have two kids. They're adults now, but when they were little and I took them to the playground, if my son were to go up and shove another child and the child fell down and the pet parent, the child's parent would come to me and be like, Hey, your son's being a bully.
I could not get away with going that's just the way he plays. He likes to shove people. I don't know. We would expect that I would be going to get my son to play that way with someone else who would likes that. And that's what we need to do with the dogs too. So it's totally about looking at how the other dog feels about it and then finding them the right playmate or, and, or intervening when it's appropriate to intervene because all the dogs need to be having fun.
And so I totally would agree with, and it is sometimes dogs that goes for puppies to that don't necessarily understand when an adult dog's telling them to stop because they haven't quite figured out. Sometimes you have to go help that puppy and go, okay no, he doesn't want you to play with him right now.
You gotta go over here. So it's definitely about [00:39:00] making sure everybody, all the dogs are having fun. And part of that is matching them with the right playmates to begin with, which becomes part of your staff's job. Someone, this is my favorite comment, freaky, fast, relentless poop eater. So there are some of those.
I told them we had several people actually that were asking about poop eating. So I actually had one of those dogs that was ridiculously fast at no. Like we got to where we knew who was gonna, who was going to poop by watching this particular lab because he would eye in on it and he could, I swear he could run across the room and eat it before it hit the ground.
It was. It was freaky. I love that freaky fast relentless poop eater. What we did with OB was we started leashing him when we saw that he was like that because it really was not something we could stop and he didn't do it at home. So that was the other kind of weird thing. But it does become when a dog has gone to the bathroom part of that becomes you are now body blocking poop. So that whole body [00:40:00] blocking that Susan talked about earlier with using a hula hoop and teaching dogs to stay away. We did that a lot. We body blocked that particular dog a lot. Because we would have to clean it up obviously. And then while we're cleaning up, we got really good at body blocking.
So we did that. Sometimes we would just leash him. There were certain times a day when he would go out, we would let him go like after nap time, for instance, all the dogs would go outside and we knew they're all going to go to the bathroom. We would not let him out there during that time. Cause it was too much of a challenge to try to balance all that.
We would body block when he was out there, when dogs would go to the bathroom. And then we obviously did talk to the owner just to make sure the dog didn't have any kind of medical or nutritional issue. The other thing I'll say though, about poop eating is that sometimes we inadvertently teach the dogs that there's a big game to be had when dogs poop.
And especially if they're, or this happens too, if they grab things and you suddenly start to become really animated yourself and you're like, Oh no, don't do that. And you run after [00:41:00] the dog. And then he's Oh, they're chasing me. Now. You could actually teach them yo start keying off of things that fall, including poop, paper towels, whatever.
So you have to make sure you're not inadvertently creating that behavior too, but otherwise it becomes a ton of management. I don't know, Susan, if you had any luck with other things. No, we do have that one video where recall did help. We have a using practicing recall so you can call dogs away, probably a freaky fast, relentless poop eater it wouldn't work with, but it might work with the slow. Yeah. That I like you. And then, so the recall can help other dogs possibly avoid eating poop. Yeah. So we actually do have a video where that was one of the techniques. And again, if you recall is one of the Daycare Games activities that we teach.
So if you really teach the dog to come to you and can call them away, that's a great opportunity. Even if all you're doing is calling away and then petting on for a minute while the poop gets [00:42:00] cleaned up, that can help too. But that is definitely it. It's frustrating and disgusting at the same time.
I'm not a professional dog trainer, but I hang out with a lot and have really good friends who are, and I know the key to stopping behaviors is not letting them practice them. And that's yeah, exactly. That is part of the issue. I do know at home as a trainer, I have recommended dogs some of there, sometimes it's a change in diet.
Sometimes it's putting something on their food that will cause their poop to taste bad. That works. If they're eating their own poop, it does not work if they're eating other dog's poop. And then there is the option to some people will say spray, bitter apple on it. My feeling is if I'm spraying bitter apple on it, I might as well just pick it up.
But yeah, you could try that. I just don't know that it's really worthwhile to do in a daycare environment. Cause I just feel like I'm on spring. If I'm taking enough time to spray butter, Apple on something, I'm also just pick it up. So that is one of the grosser ones I'll have to say. Okay.
We'll talk about [00:43:00] fights in a second. I'm just going through to see we have about 10 more minutes. Humping do you want to about that real quick. We have several people that are hooked on that humping or mounting. Yeah, humping again. Why is the dog doing it? Is it play? What is the response of the other dog that the one that's being humped?
What's his body language? You would use the same splitting, redirecting again, teaching the staff to positively intervene and they have to start to be proactive. You know who those dogs are when they start to go, they need to be moving in that direction and cut the dog off and not letting them do it.
It could be where you could do happy walks if they continue to do it. So you have to not let them get away with the behavior and be consistent. If you're not going to allow it, if that's on your inappropriate behaviors list. Or uncomfortable for one of the dogs. Go ahead, Susan. If there's a, like a dog, that one dog, that's getting humped by a lot of different dogs and that's [00:44:00] unusual, you may recommend that the parents of the dog getting humped by many different dogs that, that doesn't usually happen. Get checked out by a veterinarian for a UTI. We had seen that, but that's usually not the case when people are talking about dogs, that hump constantly, but just wanted to throw that in there. Yeah. Which is a really good point. So we have lots of ideas on some folks who said, would the mulch or gravel eating, teaching a dog to drop it?
I would definitely work on that. But again, if that is goes into the category of training. If the dog doesn't already know that behavior Jamie talked about doing a hand targeting or touch to redirect. I actually Jamie's a trainer, so I know that Jamie hold on. But I actually love that behavior of hand targeting.
I teach that to my own dog. I often redirect my own dog by telling him to touch my hand. And that is such a rewarding behavior to him that he will leave just about anything to come and touch my hand. In fact, last night he was chewing up an [00:45:00] Amazon box, an empty box, and I was, he didn't want to come to me.
It was the weirdest thing, call him. And he like, no, I want you to chase me with his box. And then I was like touch and he ran over and touched my hand. What does that mean? Like hand touch is more rewarding than a recall. That's what I just learned from my dog. But I do love that one, but again, if you haven't taught that to the dog and built up that reinforcement history it's probably not going to work, but if you have trainers on staff and they're working with some of those behaviors, I would absolutely try that. So if you have a lot of daycares have dogs that they've already gone through training, and that can be a great way to do redirection redirecting in general for any bad behavior is good.
Typically, if it's a, not a train, a dog that's already trained, we would just redirect by walking up to the dog and saying, Hey, come on puppy, let's go over here. And you just walk them in a different direction and point out something else to them, or bring a toy to them and show them the toy. And get them to go play with that.
So redirecting in general is always a great option for any inappropriate behavior that [00:46:00] the dog's showing. But if you can teach something like a hand target, I would totally do that. Cause I, I love that behavior for redirecting dogs. So we had a couple of question. One person was talking about where did I just see it?
We have gotten a few new clients where they have claimed their dogs have been in daycare before but their behavior with us may suggest otherwise, how would we, how would you approach the owners with bad news considering they're not really expecting it? I love that's a great question. It was a great question.
And I think this is where your centers list of appropriate and inappropriate behaviors comes in really handy because you can say for the dogs that play in our playgroups, these are the behaviors we expect. And these are behaviors that are not acceptable because we have found that this is the guide we use to ensure that all the dogs come to our playgroups are having fun and enjoying the environment.
And then you can talk about the behaviors you're seeing from those dogs that are on the inappropriate list. And you don't ever have to talk about whether they've been [00:47:00] in another daycare or not. It really doesn't matter. It comes back to the behaviors and explaining why, what they're you, what you're seeing isn't appropriate and you need to be doing that every time you see it, so that it's not a surprise. And be talking to them about what some solutions may be, whether having some training could help and what the solutions may be. And it will be tough. And all you can say, as I don't know how if they bring up well, my other daycare never told me there could be a lot of reasons I could have been doing it and they didn't care.
They didn't recognize it. You don't know. And but all you can talk about is your own environment and what your standards and expectations are. Yeah. And I would be having that conversation. It's not just, they get the evaluation and they're in and they're good. Like I would be having that conversation with them all the time.
So you're opening that communication with them all the time. Telling him that, how great their dog is and what the behaviors look like, but also letting them [00:48:00] know if there are any concerning behaviors or those behaviors that you don't really want to see. You're letting them know that. But I agree with Susan a lot.
I will tell you there's a ton of bad daycares out there. Just flat out horrendous daycares. And we, Susan and I have seen a lot of them. And there are daycares that are like, there's literally daycares out there where dogs are getting injured on a weekly basis and people still bring their dogs. And that it's horrendous to us, which is why we're so passionate about trying to teach people how to do it.
Because those of you that are on calls like this and trying to learn they're you guys are the ones we want to see succeed. But there's a lot of bad daycares out there. So it's very possible that dog went to daycare. Hated it. But nobody ever told them for all we know they never even were in a playgroup.
But you don't want to call that out. I don't want to talk badly about competitors or whatever. It could be that the dog was younger and was okay in daycare. And now they're three and maybe they don't want to go to daycare. It could [00:49:00] be something as simple as that, but it really just goes back to just opening those communications and just talking about what is right, what is appropriate and not appropriate.
And then what you can offer them that will help them to exercise their dog and maybe it's not daycare. So just having other options is really helpful. Debbie Oliver had posted in there that she saw a ton of older dogs. Not even older than four plus couldn't believe how much more fun they had when we switched to smaller playgroups.
And she does enrichment and enrichment days based daycare. So having that again as an option, as a way to sometimes keep those dogs in your facility without all of the problem behaviors surfacing, because they're smaller groups, there's more rest. It's a little bit more one-on-one and a lot of those bad behaviors don't show up.
And generally making more money cause you're usually charging more. So Lisa said how long is an ideal time out? So if you're talking about for training where I'm actually putting a dog in a timeout, because I want [00:50:00] them to learn that a bad behavior is associated with the timeout, I would say 10 to 30 seconds, not any longer than that, really, because much longer than that, the dog's going to forget why you even put them in there. So they won't make the connection really well. If you're talking about more of the dogs just really amped up and needs rest, then I would probably give the dog where you're not actually trying to teach them anything you're just trying to say we need to take you out of the playgroup and give you some downtime. Then I would say 30, 30 minutes or so at least give them some downtime, maybe even an hour. But if you're doing it for training, it's usually relatively short. And which is why it's hard to do that in a group environment, because you're trying to, you have to really be on top of that dog, like the whole time they're in a group.
So hopefully that makes sense. Let's see. Yeah, lots of. So people are talking about some other options with the teaching drop it, rewarding them when they leave it. I also agree with all that [00:51:00] praise is great. And again, why you have appropriate list is that you can encourage your team to praise the dogs when they're doing the behaviors you want.
Especially if that was a hard behavior for a dog to leave poop, that would be a big party of praise and celebration. And so we should be doing more praising than we are correcting, but unfortunately, that can be challenging. Yeah, lots and lots of lots and lots of practice to give you the opportunity to praise is really good too.
And then a lot of times it is common for us to ignore the good behavior, because we want that good behavior. And then we just start thank goodness they're quiet. And then you forget to praise them for being quiet or thank goodness they're not jumping on me when I walked in the room, but you forget to praise them for not jumping.
So you really have to pay attention to catching the dog, doing something right. And rewarding that behavior, not just always harping on the dog when they're doing something wrong. And that, because again, the more you reward things, anything, the more you reward that the more that behavior continues. [00:52:00] So you want to make sure that you're taking that opportunity to really reward those dogs.
Okay. So we have two more minutes. So we're going to go over a tiny bit because I just want to get in breaking up fights. So I will start by saying that if you have more than two fights a year, that require medical attention by either the dog , either the dog or the human really. That's not normal.
So if you have, so that's the first like key metric that Susan and I would look at is on a 12 month basis. How many fights do you have that require veterinary care for the dog or medical attention for the human? And if that's more than two, then I would look at your evaluation process cause there's prob you're probably taking in dogs maybe you shouldn't have, or your staff training process because your staff is probably not trained to manage the dogs. That's like just the number one criteria we would start with. So in terms of breaking up fights. It is obviously possible for dogs to [00:53:00] get into fights. The way to minimize that right off the bat is good evaluations and good staff training.
So we always caveat that by saying you're better off spending more money, time and investment in how you're doing your evaluation and how you're training your staff than on any money you could pay buying the eight gazillion things you could buy to help you break up a fight. No, I'm not going to say you don't need some things.
I am just going to say, when I walk into a facility and they're like, here's the 20 tools we have to break up fights so that we can break up fights really quickly. I'm like, okay, but how many fights you breaking up? Cause if it's a ton, then there's a bigger issue you need to deal with. And that is evaluation process, your staff training process.
Okay. That's a soapbox issue for me but fights are possible. So you do want to train your staff to be able to respond to a fight, typically the tools that we would use and if I forget any, I'll throw this over to Susan, but typically the tools we would use are number one, making a really loud sound.
[00:54:00] So an air horn, like a Marine air horn, there's little tiny canisters of air that make a really loud noise when you blow them can be a really effective tool. Throwing something over the dogs can be a really effective tool making any kind of loud noise. So if you have stainless steel water bowls, and you clank them together, any kind of loud noise like that.
All you're not going to necessarily break up the fight so to speak what's happening is you're startling the dogs enough that they stop and redirect to what what was that which gives you and your staff, hopefully an opportunity to jump in there and separate the dogs. So you're really trying to startle the dogs more than anything else.
So that's our number one is loud noise. Second one is covering something, throwing something over the dogs where you're blocking their vision and you, if you have a blanket or a towel or whatever, and you throw it over the dog, sometimes they will get disoriented. And again, let go of each other because they're not sure what's going on, which gives you a chance to separate them.
So that [00:55:00] would be the second choice. Third, our last choice is always grabbing the dogs. It's what everybody does instinctually is grab the dogs, but that's a really good way to get bitten. So grabbing the dogs is really our last choice. And if you are going to grab the dogs, we would say, throw a leash over them and try to separate them that way.
If you actually grab the dogs. We would say, grab them behind their neck. And not behind their neck, sorry. That's where that's coming from. She's lost her mind. Grab them by the hind legs is what I meant. And basically you're just, again, you're disorienting them. You're going to grab them by the highlights and lift them up.
So they're off kilter, which is going to make them turn around and figure out what's behind them. So as soon as you do that, you have to be prepared to essentially toss them to the side. I always say toss them. But then I envisioned somebody doing that to a Yorkie and throwing it across the room. That's not what I want you to do.
I want you to just pick them up by their back legs and then move them to one side and let go, because they're going to probably whip around and potentially bite you, [00:56:00] which is why that is the last option we would ever recommend. Typically the loud noise or disorienting them in some way is the fastest way and break them up on it as a general rule.
So Susan, I don't know if you want to have had anything else to say with that. You covered that one. So we do get a lot of questions about water. Should we use water? And I will say, Oh let me back up a second. The loud noise thing. Either yelling or banging something together or using that air horn that is only going to work if you do not use those on a regular basis.
So these tools that I just mentioned, those are not like day to day tools, those including yelling, those are tools that are saved for when a fight happens, which hopefully you never need to use. But if you're making that loud noise, like every single day the dogs will just ignore it. So the only reason that works to startle the dogs is because it's not something they hear on a routine basis.
The other thing you have to remember is with any loud noise, you're trying to disorient the dogs that are fighting. There's a really good chance [00:57:00] that when you do that, you're going to scare some other dogs in the room, which is the other reason you don't want to use that on a regular basis. Blowing and loud air horn, when a dog's barking, I don't think is appropriate.
Because I think there's other ways to stop a dog from barking. And then if you've make that loud noise and you look around your room 90, I can guarantee you, you're going to have a Sheltie who is just like quivering in the corner now because they're like, Holy crap. I'm scared to death now. So you have to really be careful about using that.
Obviously, if a fight breaks out, that's the collateral damage, which is why we would say do a good evaluation, do staff training really well. So you don't have fights. There was something else. I was going to say about that though. And I can't remember what it was. Oh, someone had asked about break sticks break sticks, or sticks you can put in a dog's mouth and separate them. They're often used you see them a lot of times with bully breeds. If there's books and magazines, you read about that, sometimes they refer to the bite sticks or break sticks. I don't think they're a bad tool. They're hard to use. And so again, it's, that's an extreme fight if [00:58:00] you really need to get in there with that type of a tool.
So I'm not saying you can't use them, but it's a hard tool to use if you've never done it before. And I think there's other options that I would look at beforehand going back to the water. Water will sometimes work, but you have to have enough water to make it effective. So if all you do is pick up like a bottle of eight ounce water bottle and poured over the dog's head. It's problem. They're not going to work. If you have a hose that is turned on and you can spray it at the dogs, that probably will work because they're going to be startled, but you, the hose, you don't really have enough time to be like, let me unroll the hose and run over here and turn it on and go back.
That's just too much time. Cause this all is going to happen within 10 seconds typically. And hopefully you've stopped the fight by then. All right. So Lisa said my air horn sat on the shelf for so long. They expired. It is a really good thing actually. They had life lifeguard whistles at one point, but my staff was ridiculous with overuse.
Yeah, exactly. That's the thing about [00:59:00] giving any of these tools out is if you. If you overuse them, they won't work when actual fight happens.
To learn more about teaching your staff about canine body language, be sure to check out Knowing Dogs!