Turn Your Leash Into an Instant No-Pull Device, Free!

Your regular, ordinary dog leash can be used as a miraculous no-pull device. Seriously. There's a very simple trick called "the leash wrap" that can change your life. It's easy to put on and take off, and all you need is your dog's regular collar and leash. This is a particularly useful trick because you can employ it as needed, and then go back to regular walking.

Photo by Erin Koski

Ready? Here's the trick: Wrap the leash around your dog's chest or waist, leaving the snap attached to the collar, and passing the handle end under the snap end. Done.

When your dog pulls, they will now tighten the leash around their own body. When they stop pulling, the pressure lets up instantly. If your dog is wearing a martingale collar, you can even pass the handle end of the leash through the martingale loop to hold everything in place a little better.

There are a lot of commercial products that basically use this little trick. The Instant Trainer leash and the Monster Walker both use exactly this, with the leash positioned behind the ribcage. The Harness Lead positions the leash further up, behind the front legs.

I used to use this on a lot of my daycare dogs at pick up time, when they were over-the-top excited to see their humans and often forgot their manners. It's ideal for handling short bursts of excitement, like walking from the car to the dog park, or the very beginning of a walk. Be aware that the leash usually wraps around the dog's sensitive abdomen, so it can be surprising and possibly even a little bit painful the first time they hit the end of the leash. Try it out when they aren't bouncing off the walls first, so they understand the concept.

Of course, like all anti-pull gadgets, your dog can eventually get used to the leash wrap if you let him. It works best for dogs that already know how to walk on a loose leash at least part of the time. For a chronic puller, the leash wraps presents an opportunity to reward him for walking nicely before he gets used to the feeling and starts to ignore it.

What's your favorite solution for dogs that pull on walks?

The July Pet Gift Box

Oops, we got another Pet Gift Box. I was planning to cancel our subscription after the first one, but the site only lets you do that during a one-week period at the end of the month. I missed that window of opportunity, and realized it last week when I got a "your box has shipped" email. While this month's offering has only one food item that Brisbane can't enjoy, and nothing outright dangerous, the toys fail to impress me.

This month's theme is "barbecue", it's also "nostalgia" for me, but not in a good way. We have some dog treats made by Nathan's Famous. You know, the hot dogs? These are made in the USA from beef and corn syrup solids. They really remind me of the dog treats we used to buy at the grocery store for my cocker spaniel. You won't find them on the Nathan's website, the brand identity was just licensed by PetBrandz.com.

The other bag of treats is also made in the USA. The Grill-icious treats are made by Loving Pets Products and contain nothing but chicken and sweet potatoes. Definitely treats I would use if Brisbane could have chicken.

The weirdest thing in the box are the three packets of "petchup". These are condiments for dog food, with ridiculous names. Petchup, Muttstard, and Bark-B-Q. Surprisingly, they actually appear to be quality food additives and something I won't mind dribbling onto dog dinners. They are made out of broth and contain omega fatty acids, glucosamine, and prebiotics. I have no idea whether the actual products resemble the condiments they are named for. It Muttstard really yellow?

The best toy in here is the plush cheeseburger by Jakks Pets. The brand name is PhotoReel, I guess it's supposed to be made out of pictures of a bun, meat, cheese, etc. It's squeaky...and crinkly. My dogs hate crinkly toys. It's also made in China.

The other two toys...quite frankly they remind me of the cheap toys my mother used to buy at the dollar store for my childhood dog. There is a couple of plastic sausages on a rope, made by Pet King. They sell cheap pet toys from China.

The last item is a small squeaky rubber steak. It's small enough that I wouldn't be comfortable letting Brisbane play with it. I am absolutely certain my cocker spaniel had a few of these 20+ years ago. My friend recognized it from a Simpsons episode from 1989. It is made by Amazing Pet Products in...you guessed it, China. Our first Pet Gift Box was pretty awesome. This one fails to impress me in any way, the quality of the products is severely lacking. The cheap Chinese toys are going straight into the trash.

Cheapass Dog Fun: Non-Perishable Kong Stuffing

Every so often I get inspired and creative and stuff my Kongs and other food toys with sweet potatoes, bananas, applesauce, green beans, and canned dog food. I will inevitably regret this later when I find said Kong under the couch and full of mold a week later.

My dogs rarely empty a Kong completely, and we are all much happier when I accept this and stuff them accordingly. Sticking with non-perishable goodies means never finding a Kong full of green fur. If I stuff the toys in a very precise fashion, I might not even need to scrub peanut butter out of them after the dogs are done.

Peanut Butter is my standard stuffing, and each time I try something new I end up going back to it. The big jar lives in the refrigerator, but this stuff is shelf-stable. A peanut butter-stuffed Kong can spend months lost under the furniture and come back looking no worse for the wear. Peanut butter feels wet and sticky, but it actually has a very low moisture content, which prevents bacterial and fungal growth. The oil in it will eventually go rancid after a year or so, but it doesn't get gross hanging out inside a Kong under the couch for a few weeks. Heck, it could probably sit under there for a few months and still come out pretty much the same way it went in.

Brisbane and Ulysses cannot reach all the way to the bottom of a large or extra large Kong with their tongues. If I smear peanut butter all the way down to the bottom, I will have to scrub a solid plug of it out when they're done. For this reason, I usually start my Kong-stuffing with something dry and bulky to fill the space. A small scoop of kibble works, but I normally like to use something less dense. Broken up Cloud Star Buddy Biscuits and Zukes Skinny Bakes are currently my favorite things to cram in there.

Next I use a butter knife to spread peanut butter all the way around the inside walls of the Kong. A few more small biscuits help fill the space in the middle, and then I seal off the opening with more peanut butter. Sometimes I stick a biscuit in the opening for them to break off before they begin the unstuffing project.

This "How to Stuff a Kong Toy" diagram is all over the internet, and it always makes me laugh because it was clearly drawn by someone with no sense of perspective. Either this is a gargantuan XXL Kong, or those bone-shaped biscuits are tiny. Our Kongs are mostly size large, and I don't think I've seen any bone-shaped biscuits significantly smaller than the inner diameter of the toy.

I've also seen those "marrow bites" dog treats they show in the "dessert" layer, and a large Kong could fit maybe one or two in there. Definitely not five. Honestly, I think my dogs find kibble to be higher value than most biscuits, those things are pretty bland, so offering them as a dessert seems kind of silly. I also like the "tantalizer" placed in the small hole at the end, my dogs totally ignore anything in there. Maybe one of these days I'll try putting something really exciting in it to see if they notice. I'm thinking Limburger cheese or something equally stinky. They love stinky treats.

My dogs need no "appetizer" sticking out of their Kongs, they're really just in it for the peanut butter. I keep trying to find something less nutritionally dense to stick in there, but apparently nothing else is worth quite as much effort. I'm not going to argue.

I do occasionally leave Buddy Biscuits sticking out of the top of the Kongs before I freeze them, but it's for my benefit rather than theirs. I don't think the dogs care. I just like seeing those little guys waving like they suspect nothing.

So far, as long as I stick with the dry biscuits/peanut butter formula, I have yet to scrub anything Lovecraftian out of a Kong toy.

Cheapass Dog Fun: A Quieter Crate Tray Replacement

Our local thrift shops provide me with a perpetual treasure hunt, and several of them even have specific sections for pet stuff. I recently purchased a 36" wire crate minus its tray for $10. I have three different 36" crates, and at least two of them are usually set up in the house. When I wanted to use the third crate, I just slid the tray out of one of the others and brought it along with me.

When I began crating and rotating Brisbane and Ulysses, I found I needed all three crates. With

only two dogs to crate, I could still pull the tray out and stick it in whichever I needed at the moment, but this was highly inefficient and just plain obnoxious. Replacement crate pans were $30 or more, and new crates around $45 at Ross. While hunting on the internet for a less expensive DIY option, I found people suggesting plywood, cardboard, and finally horse stall mats. 

At my local hardware store, I found 24" foam floor squares. These link together, are thin enough to cut, and provide cushioning and shock absorption. They are, however, fairly thin. When I put a single square in the pan-less crate and then leaned my bony forearms on it, I could easily feel the wire crate bottom. It took three layers of foam before I could rest comfortably without feeling the bars under the foam. Yes, this did involve crawling halfway into the crate and planking on my forearms. It was worth it.

The nice thing about these interlocking foam tiles is that they are easy to cut. The width was perfect for my 36" crates, but the 24" tiles were obviously too short. A second tile, cut in half, fit perfectly. The tiles interlock nicely so I don't have to worry about them gapping, and since I have multiple layers of tile in there the seams don't have to line up. 

The tiles fit ok with just a little bending of the wavy puzzle edges, but they fit my crates much better without the wiggly bits. Note: When cutting off the wiggly bits, be sure to leave one edge intact if connecting multiple tiles! My tiles each came with a couple of thin edge pieces for making the tile a square with no wiggly bits. I put a couple of these under the plastic trays in my other two crates to keep the pans from rattling against the bottom. Brisbane doesn't like rattly crate trays, and I don't like hearing every time a dog moves during the night.

I could see this being a viable solution for any size crate, though my dogs are all under 50 pounds. The seams connecting the mats might be more prone to gapping with a heavier dog. I bought a pack of six tiles for $20 and used 4.5 of them to make a new crate floor. It wasn't a whole lot less than the $30 plastic replacement trays, but I like it a lot better. It's silent when the dogs move, and I imagine it's a lot more comfortable for them too.

The obvious downside is that these aren't quite as easy to clean as a plastic tray. When Ulysses tipped over a bucket of water in the crate, I had to pull out all three layers and lay them out to dry separately. On the the other hand, these aren't prone to warping like a big ol' sheet of plastic. They're lighter than plywood, too.

Another obvious drawback is that these would be way more fun to chew than plastic. None of my dogs is destructive, they don't demolish toys or gnaw the furniture. 

If my dogs liked to chew things for fun, I would be replacing my crate tray with a store-bought plastic or metal crate pan, or looking for an appropriately-sized metal oil pan. Fortunately, my guys are content lounging in their crates instead of eating them.

The foam crate floor has only been in service for a couple of weeks, but I already like it better than the plastic pans because it is quiet. I'm willing to bet it is more comfortable, too. While it's not a solution for every dog, shock-absorbing or anti-fatigue mats have got to be more comfortable than plastic for bony elbows and elderly joints. Have I mentioned that it's quiet? The foam crate floor is currently in one of our bedroom crates, and I no longer wake to the sounds of dogs getting more comfortable at 2am. I even used my last tile and a half to pad the existing tray in the other crate.

Cheapass Dog Fun: Bake a Super Easy Dog Cake!

Brisbane's birthday is tomorrow, and we're taking cupcakes to daycare to celebrate. These were some fairly high-effort cupcakes, but dogs are the easiest friends to cook for because they literally have no standards. To make halfway decent cookies and cakes for humans, you need at least half a dozen ingredients to achieve the correct texture and taste. Dog cookies and cakes work with two or three ingredients, and need no leavening agents or spices.

Five ingredients for fancy cupcakes.

Ingredients

1. Something Tasty. I've used peanut butter, cheese in all forms including canned, and ground or diced meat of any sort. Leftover stew, meatloaf, or casserole works, too.

2. Something Dry. Flour, oatmeal, cornmeal, almond meal, cooked rice, cooked pasta, bread, crackers, cereal, chips. 

3. Something Wet. Cooked, canned, or mashed fruit or vegetables, eggs, juice, or even water will work.

Last year's cake was made out of leftover Swedish meatballs and crushed Special K cereal. This year I decided to go all-out and make something pretty. Brisbane's birthday cupcakes (pupcakes?) are made out of ground beef, quick oats, banana, applesauce, and canned parmesan cheese. 

Too crumbly, needs some wet stuff.

I browned the ground beef because I didn't want the cupcakes to be too greasy. If I were using something less squishy, like steak or chunks of cheese, I would have chopped or shredded it, or maybe just run it through the blender or food processor. I threw in the parmesan cheese just because I saw it in a dog biscuit recipe once and thought it was neat.

Eggs and flour make a really good binder for sticking everything together in baked goods, but Brisbane is allergic to eggs, so I have to use other sticky things. I used quick oats and applesauce instead, because oats can be used as a binder in meatloaf, and applesauce helps keep everything moist.

I considered adding ground flax, baked or microwaved sweet potato, and shredded carrots to this recipe, but I was feeling lazy today. I did throw in a mushy banana because it was convenient.

The correct texture is kind of doughy.

I didn't actually measure any of these ingredients, I just started by adding all of the ones that I had the least amount of. One banana, one pound of browned and drained ground beef, and as much parmesan cheese as I was willing to feed to the dogs. Then I poured oats and applesauce in and mixed it. Too dry and crumbly? Add more applesauce. Too wet? Add more oats. 

I was shooting for a fairly dry and doughy texture, wetter would have been fine but also would have taken longer to bake. Too dry and the cupcakes might have come out crumbly. If I had wanted to make dog biscuits instead of cake, I could have made the mixture even dryer and then shaped it into flat patties and baked it on a cookie sheet.

The nice thing about this mixture is that it has nothing that I expect to expand or contract while cooking. This gives me the freedom to shape the final product before it goes in the oven.

I filled the first round of cupcake liners sparingly, the second batch would be mounded over. I originally set the oven timer for 10 minutes because I didn't think anything really epic would happen to them that quickly. When the timer beeped I tried stabbing one with a fork, which came out pretty greasy. After another ten minutes they looked a little more dry so I decided they were done.

The dog cupcakes came out slightly greasy, but not too bad at all. I frosted them with cream cheese because it looks deceptively like icing.

The waiting is the hardest part.

I could have left these plain, but I have fun decorating them. This year I just went with regular rainbow sprinkles to make them look as much like people cupcakes as possible. Are regular sprinkles good for dogs? No. Will a dozen sprinkles on a cupcake hurt a dog? Probably not.

These are definitely major treats for my dogs. The cream cheese and beef makes them a high-calorie and fatty special-occasion food. If this were more than a once-a-year event I would probably skip the tablespoon of frosting on each cupcake.

Happy Birthday Briz!

Cheapass Dog Fun: Make a Springpole!

A springpole is a resistance tugging toy for a dog, but it actually requires neither a spring nor a pole. Mine is made from a couple of old bike tire tubes and some nylon webbing that has its own little backstory*. Making a springpole can be incredibly easy and cheap, or it can require some serious construction. It all depends on the person building it and the dog that will be playing with it.

Materials

1. Something springy or stretchy. (Strong spring, bicycle or car inner tube, pilates band...)

2. Something to tug. (Rope or fleece tug toy, plain old rope, fleece pajama pants...)

3. A place to hang it. (Tree branch, swing set, engine hoist, ceiling beam, door frame...)

The tug toy that tugs back!

A springpole is another lazy way to exercise a dog, right up there with lurecoursing and flirtpole. The springy or stretchy thing in the middle provides resistance so when the dog tugs, the toy tugs back. 

Making Brisbane's springpole took perhaps five minutes. (It contains neither a spring nor a pole, as my husband helpfully pointed out.) First I walked across the street to the bicycle shop and asked for a couple of punctured inner tubes, one was longer than the other so I tied a knot in it to even them out. Then I cut a length of nylon webbing tossed it over a tree branch, and tied it to the tubes. I had Brisbane stand on his hind legs so I could see how high to hang the toy, and then tied that on. Done.

Brisbane works out.

I read in a Clean Run agility magazine many years ago that tugging with front feet off the ground or barely touching is great for a dog's core muscles, and particularly awesome for dogs with long backs. I've seen plenty of pictures and videos of pitbulls hanging off these things and flying through the air, but Brisbane is seriously injury-prone and I needed to hang his toy where he can get it while keeping at least some feet on the ground.

This is a great setup for Brisbane, but I would need ti think about using car tire tubes and hanging it a lot higher if I had an athletic pitbull or a larger dog. Many people use garage door springs, but this person used a smaller one for her less-intense tuggers, and here someone with a Viszla puppy used a little storm door spring and a plant hangar. If I were to make a springpole for Ru I might use a bungee cord or a exercise resistance band and mount it in a door frame for indoor chihuahua fun.

Joy!

This tutorial begins with building a sturdy frame to hang the springpole, starting with setting posts in cement. This would be a great option for a yard with no trees, and dogs that need something sturdier than a plant hangar mounted on a fence. I'm guessing a hangar for a punching bag or some other sort of workout equipment frame would work well for a seriously athletic larger dog.

I own a large spool of heavy duty nylon webbing, used to make Teva sandles. This stuff is amazing and I will probably using it to make harnesses and leashes eventually. The spool of nylon webbing has its own story, and may eventually get its own post. Many years ago, my father-in-law worked for the Teva sandal company and acquired a giant spool of sandal strapping. A few years later while cleaning out the garage, he dumped it on the curb with the garbage. I spotted it while stopping by to visit my then-boyfriend, and threw it in my trunk. The spool traveled with me to college, where my friends and I used bits of it to tie things to the roofs of our cars, suspend stuff from the garage ceiling, and generally kludge things together in college-student fashion. When I graduated and got ready to move home, I left the spool in a pile of stuff at the curb, where one of my friends scavenged it. Three years ago, my husband and I moved back to my college town. Three months ago, that friend cleaned out her garage and returned the infamous spool to me. My husband was baffled by its reappearance. All he knew was that it was thrown away twelve years ago and then suddenly reappeared on our porch.

Cheapass Dog Fun: Flirtpole!

A flirtpole is basically the dog version of those fishing pole toys for cats. I have a very small yard, much too small for a satisfying game of fetch, but it's big enough to play with the flirtpole. It's an effortless way to exercise Brisbane without going anywhere or doing anything.

The flirtpole at rest.

A flirtpole can be made from anything that resembles a stick and a string. I've thrown one together from a dog leash and a pvc pipe, another from a flagpole and a horse rein. Our current flirtpole is made from a horse lungewhip, which absorbs shock very nicely and also wobbles around unpredictability.

The bait on the end of the flirtpole needs to be something soft and bite-able. I used to use stuffies that I was tired of seeing, and these would inevitably get destroyed and result in stuffing strewn across my lawn. We've run out of ugly stuffies, so today I tied one of the Mighty Dinosaurs to the pole. Mini Spinosaurus survived the game with zero wear, thus proving the superiority of these stuffies.

Flirtpole is a very exciting game, it really gets Brisbane into prey-drive chase-mode.

In order to avoid destroying our flirtpole, he needs to have a good 'out', 'leave it', or 'drop' command. The game is played by teasing him with the toy, whipping it around rapidly, or just spinning him in circles. Eventually he will catch the toy and enjoy biting it for a few minutes before I ask him to let go so we can play again. I can also turn this into a self control game, where he must sit or lay down and wait to be released to get the toy.




If Brisbane didn't have joint or back issues, I would also encourage him to jump up and catch the toy. Instead, I try to keep him running flat and straight. He still ends up making a lot of turns, but he has yet to hurt himself playing flirtpole.

Ru does not play flirtpole. He might if he was an only child, but Ru has learned that the flirtpole turns Brisbane into a mindless chasing machine that runs over chihuahuas without even noticing. When the flirtpole comes out, Ru goes inside and hides on the couch in his tiny lair.

Cheapass Dog Fun: Play Mat Stay Mat

Brisbane's Ruffwear portable bed makes an awesome mat for practicing games like the ones I found in Control Unleashed. The idea is to teach the dog to lay down on the mat and stay there. Brisbane gets very excited about racing to his mat and sprawling on it, Ru occasionally decides to participate. Before we started playing these games, I kept the Ruffwear bed in the car for convenience. After we started using it for training games, I briefly considered buying a second one.

To be honest, I bought Brisbane's Ruffwear bed on clearance for 50% off. I was lucky to find it, and I really don't need to spend $70 for something to throw down on my floor for a few minutes of training. An old towel or a throw rug would do the trick, but I found something more fun.

I love thrift stores, and we have some amazing ones nearby. Something I often see an abundance of is baby play mats. They come in a delightful array of shapes and themes, always in bright colors. They are lightly padded and easy washable. I'm pretty sure these things come as part of a baby gym set, with doodads that suspend toys over the kid, or pillows to prop them up on their tummies. They never have these when I see them at the thrift stores though, the mat is the sad remnant of a once elaborate baby toy...or something.

At any rate, these mats are easy to find, cheap or free, and a lot of fun to play with. They apparently make decent ultralight pet beds, when I toss on on the floor it is likely to collect a dog or cat within a minute or two. Play mats are probably not as durable as the Ruffwear bed, and they probably collect a lot more dirt and crud outdoors, but they are also easy to replace. They're pretty cute, too.

Cheapass Dog Fun: Food Packaging

There are lots of fun dog toys and dog activities out there, but unfortunately most of them cost money. They also tend to involve time and effort, and sometimes I am feeling sick, or lazy, or it's raining and my dogs refuse to go outside because they might melt. (We live in Southern California and they can easily go 8 or 9 months without seeing rain, so Brisbane and Ru always find it disconcerting.)

One of Brisbane's favorite, totally free, hobbies is shredding stuff. Josie enjoys shredding paper towels and toilet paper. Brisbane is only interested in shredding things that once contained food. He is also very good about not eating things that aren't food, so I never have to worry about him swallowing bits of potato chip bag or candy wrapper. This means that the vast majority of our food packaging takes a trip to Brisbane's lair before it reaches the trash can or recycling bin.

Empty cereal box? Hand him the entire thing and let him pull the bag out, rip it open, and lick the crumbs out. Restaurant takeout containers? Close them up tight and let him figure out how to open them to lick them clean. Empty peanut butter jar? Biggest Kong ever.

I wouldn't do this if Briz had a tendency to snarf down garbage along with his food. I am also careful to read labels and avoid giving him anything that might have traces of his allergens, or artificial sweeteners. Ru also occasionally enjoys a bit of shredding fun, but I am a bit more careful about traces of chocolate and other no-no foods because he is ridiculously tiny and therefore more susceptible.

Plastic bags can present a suffocation risk, so happy fun shredding time is a supervision-only activity. It also makes a mess and requires sweeping and/or vacuuming, depending on the type of floor. Still, it can add a few minutes of fun and problem-solving to Brisbane's day with minimal effort on my part.