Management is key when owning a dog: it is seeing the potential for accidents and incidents, and preventing those before they start.
Management can take the form of avoiding an offleash dog, training an emergency uturn, or using fences and babygates to prevent unwanted behaviors. Management is usually a low stress way of preventing problems, and it works instantly. Don’t want the dog jumping on kitchen counters? Put up a baby gate across the kitchen doorway.
Of course, management usually fails sooner or later (we are human after all!), so for serious behaviors, we recommend you start training too. For all problem behaviors, it is important to institute management as a component of training–behaviors that are practiced will continue. So prevent the behavior while you are learning a new one. My rule of thumb is that 80% of all experiences must not practice the bad behavior, but I really shoot for 100% during the learning phase.
Below, we’ve posted some inspirational links and articles about managing your dogs:
Baby gates and other handy stuff
Securing your fence for diggers
How many management tools can you see?
Notice all the attractive chewy items are behind some lattice, which is zip tied to stable features.
Cameron’s puppies and the little food machine!
