[Riggan]

Lois,

In my experience, lasers easily create obsessive / compulsive disorders in many dogs and then generalize to chasing light beams, shadows, and other rapid movements. Some dogs never develop these issues, but the problem is you won’t know whether your dog falls into that category until it is too late. I would avoid them like the plague. I have used lasers with dogs, but it was to train service dogs to retrieve the item that was pointed to with the laser. There was no chasing involved, so it is a completely different issue.

Good luck!

[oldSAP-Charlie]

Hi Lois, I was about to post a new topic here because I’m also looking into what else I could train my 1yr 7mo old Mal. I have limited space and only am able to bring him to a larger are during weekends. I entertain him by redoing all of his learned commands whenever possible and also making him search his favorite ball. It’s fun for him and doesn’t take much from me physically.
That said, I’d also ask our other members here what else they would suggest to further develop his agility, physical awareness, etc. in a limited space.

[GC]

any Amazon box is destined to get a few small treats in it and closed again. my 8-mo old GSD will spend a half hour tearing thru several of them in the morning, at least until I can finish a cup of coffee. also, hiding treats around the house is a fun activity for them each day on schedule. and of course, more bully sticks and pigs ears…

[Elisa]

Greg, please make sure that when buying pig ears they are 100% natural and are not made with rawhide. If they are not all-natural, it is likely that the pig ears could contain preserving chemicals and/or rawhide, both of which are dangerous for dogs. U.S. manufactured pig ears are usually safest because of strict quality control standards.

[Scott]

Laser pointers can also wreak havoc with a cat’s emotional/attentional regulation systems. People warned me not to use a laser with my dog, saying that it would be too much for my reactive dog. It was great advice. However, I thought that the cat’s reaction to the laser was cute, at least the first couple of times I used it. It was scary to see the behavioral changes in my cat around the laser. When I saw her behavior just in response to me walking into the room holding the laser pointer in my hand–extreme agitation, crying, calling out, running around frantically–I never used the laser again. A month or two after that, I picked the laser pointer up again to see if the cat would remember. Same agitated response. Use lasers around dogs and cats with extreme caution.

[Melissa]

Hi Lois, on the ball front, I’m not sure if you can get these in the state’s, however, I got my boys pet love mighty mutts chew proof balls you can put them on a rope to create a tug or stuff the middle with likes of peanut butter (they say guaranteed for 3 years too).

That’s a large ball, they do 3 sizes.