Petsitting for a friend's mental dog. Advice please.

[skelaki]

Originally Posted by lawl_rawr

Thanks Honeycrisp for the advice! We've had her for three weeks now and I know things won't change overnight but something has to give or these next nine months will not be fun.

She is given two walks a day. A good 4 miles with me in the mornings and I have the kids take her out for a smaller one in the evenings.

A trial run probably would have been a better idea but she's a good friend that I went to boot camp with over ten years ago. She's still active duty and if I was still active duty I'd hope someone would help me out in the same situation. My husband says I'm too nice sometimes.

Dog park is out of the question as she can't stand any other dogs.

and yes she's not given any treats unless she's acting accordingly. If anything I think we are giving her too many treats thinking that she'll take more to the kids.

Forget dog parks http://leerburg.com/pdf/dogparks.pdf . They can be dangerous due to human ignorance mainly, and I'm glad you've wisely decided to forego those.

She needs much more exercise, especially mental exercise. Daily obedience training for as little as 10 minutes will give her as much stimulation as a 10 mile hike. http://leerburg.com/pdf/markers-clickers.pdf . have fun and teach the dog at the same time. You can work on obedience training, fun tricks (such as teaching the dog to help with the housework), or new games such as dog versions of the old redlight, greenlight game. You can even incorporate some mental exercise into your daily walks.