Joel Silverman, Professional Dog Trainer withPet Summer Safety and Training Tips

Joel Silverman, a professional dog trainer, shares important information about keeping pets safe and healthy during hot weather. He advises against leaving pets in hot cars and suggests leaving them at home if possible. Joel also recommends walking dogs in the mornings and evenings when it's cooler. He mentions signs of overheating in dogs and emphasizes the importance of contacting a vet if necessary. Joel suggests using metal water dishes and keeping an eye on their location to ensure the water remains cool. He mentions that different dog breeds have different tolerances to heat. Joel also suggests moving training indoors during hot weather and recommends using treats consistently during training but gradually fading them out. Well, we're doing everything we can to stay cool and stay safe and stay healthy during this hot weather. But what are we doing for our pets? More importantly, what are we not doing for our pets that we should be doing? And my guest who's joining me here at the RNJ Morning Program, it's great to welcome back professional dog trainer, television host. You've seen him, of course, doing all sorts of different dog training exercises and programs on television. Great to have Joel Silverman back with us this morning just to share some really important information. And Joel, I'm sure you heard while you were on hold there, we've got temperatures in the 90s in northwest Jersey today. So we're doing what we can do to stay cool, but we've got to take care of the pets at the same time. Yeah, absolutely. And this is a time of year that people sometimes make mistakes and stuff like that and take their dogs with them in the car, leave the dog in the car, all kinds of things that we just don't want to be doing. So people need to really, really be, you know, conscientious about that. Oh, that is such a horrible thing when you see a pet inside a locked vehicle in this weather. It can be fatal. It can be lethal. I mean, let's not mince words. A pet could die in a very short period of time. Exactly, exactly. I mean, it's just like, it just, the heat, it can get really, really super hot inside the car. And I always tell people, because, you know, if you're going around during the summer, just keep your pet at home. I just tell people that. Don't even take your dog in your car if you can avoid it. Just because if there's something that you feel like you're going to need to do, it's just you don't want to be in that situation where you can do that. So leave the dog at home if you can. That's like the big thing. The other thing I always tell people is just, you know, every dog is different. All situations are different. And when you're walking with your dog, I tell people that if it is really, really super hot, you give your dog that's a little bit more susceptible to heat, just walk your dog in the mornings. Do the long walks in the mornings, long walks in the evening, maybe a little short walk in the middle of the day, just making sure that you're keeping your dog cool. I always tell people to put your palm of your hand on the ground. If the ground is hot, too hot for your hand, it's too hot for your dog's feet. That's the other thing. I'll talk to people sometimes. They'll be talking to me and their dog is like kind of dancing around, you know, and it's like, you know, your dog is really hot. You know, his feet are really, really hot. So just, you know, take a look at your dog. And every dog is different. I would tell people that some dogs are going to stand there on pavement that's a little bit warmer than other dogs, but some dogs are very, very sensitive. And you could just, you could see sometimes dogs just, you know, kind of not standing in one place and just, you know, take a look at that. The other thing I would tell people is if your dog does get hot or does overheat and people say, you know, what, you know, what are some signs? Well, again, every dog is different, but you know, and you know your dog. If your dog is panting more than your dog normally pants, if your dog's tongue is hanging out a lot farther, if your dog's tongue is red, if he seems really, really super sluggish, you know, all those situations, you know, you always want to call your vet, you know. Don't think that, you know, it's always best to be safe. And talk to the vet. Let the vet know this is, you know, the story with my dog. And they might, you know, give you something that they recommend you do like, you know, getting your dog on something cool, putting ice packs on your dog, making sure, of course, making sure your dog has water and things like that, too. But they might want you to bring your dog in, too. So I always want to, you know, you know, be proactive. Yeah, definitely. And I was always told, Joel, and maybe this is completely wrong, but I don't know, but this is something I was always taught as a kid, that panting to a dog is the equivalent of a person perspiring. This is how a dog keeps its body cool and does, goes through the panting procedure here to kind of keep its body temperature down a little bit. Is there any similarity? Is that really what a dog is doing when panting, is trying to get their body temperature down? Yeah, exactly, exactly. And then also, you know, they also do it through their paws, as well. But that's exactly right. And so that's the other thing, too. When people say sometimes, like when people are traveling with their dog, sometimes they'll, on a plane, sometimes people will give their dog something to, a sedative or something like that or something to relax their dog. And what happens with that is it can be a double-edged sword because your dog can't pant. If your dog needs to cool down, your dog is going to have, and is going to be, you know, kind of sleeping where the dog is overheating. That can be kind of a double-edged sword. So you want to be able to allow your dog, you know, to pant and understand the fact that that's how your dog, you know, cools itself. Really a great suggestion by you. Do it like early morning, early evening when we're not in the real high temperature of the day. That's a great suggestion right there to get out and do the walking then. It's a really good idea. Yeah, and then the last, you know, a couple of things, too. Just make sure if you're, you know, if you have water dishes and stuff like that. I like to use aluminum water dishes or metal and stuff like that. Sometimes just being outside, the metal water dish being outside in the shade in really, really sort of hot temperatures can get really, really super hot. If that's getting hot, that means the water is going to get hot, too hot for the dog. The other thing is if you are keeping your water dish outside and it is in the shade and then everything is cool, that's great. But remember throughout the summer, the sun is going to change. The sun is going to drop. And a water, you know, a water bowl that was not in the sun, you know, may very well, early in the summer might be in the sun at that same time of day later on in the summer because that's what's going to change. Always just make sure that water dish is, has got cool water in it. That's like really, really super important, too. And just, and the big thing is just remember every dog is different. All dogs are different. If you have a Border Collie or a Australian Shepherd, dogs that are more high strung, yeah, those dogs are a little bit better. Those dogs may be, you know, being a little bit warmer temperatures and walking with your dog. But when you're dealing with a dog like a, you know, a Newfoundland or St. Bernard or dogs that are larger, those are dogs that may be, might be more susceptible to heat. Yeah, good information from our guest this morning, professional dog trainer Joel Silverman who is back with me here at the RNJ Morning Program. Just a reminder of just some simple tips and some things you could do to keep your pets safe and of course healthy in this hot weather that we're all dealing with. And Joel, maybe not a bad time now to move any training or anything that people are doing. Move it indoors. Move it into the air conditioning. Keep going with the treat routine that you like to see people do when they're training their dogs. But maybe take a break from the outdoor training and move indoors for a period. That sounds like a good idea, too. Exactly. And the thing is, too, what I tell people, too, is that when you train behaviors on your dog, when you train things, you know, like you're training your dog to heal anyways, you need to train your dog to heal in a sterile area, an area where there's not, you don't want to train your dog to heal on the street or train your dog in a park. Train your dog in the house, inside. Lay the foundation, you know, for the heal, the sit, the lie down. Train that foundation in the house in an area where there's no distractions. And once you have that foundation, once the dog is trained in that area, now we can slowly move our dog outside. So it's a great time to actually train new behaviors inside your house. Oh, interesting. Yeah, that's cool. And you still, the Build Jack treat, that's still the one that you like to use when you're doing your training? Yeah, you know, people that know me know that I've been using Build Jack food and feeding the treats for, since 1990. And I know Bob Kelley, you know, the president really, really well, a good, great guy. And yeah, and, you know, a lot of different types of treats are out there. And I, again, you know, back when I first started doing it, they only had one type of treat. Now they've got a lot of different types of treats, you know. And I prefer these called Little Jacks, and they're about a third the size of the larger treats. And so I like to be really, really super conservative when I give the treats. And I don't like to give too much. So the Little Jacks are really, really good. So I like to use those. Again, you know, we talk about training. Just make sure you train, use treats consistently to train the behavior. Once the behavior is trained, we want to eventually fade out the treats. So we increase tactile rewards, which is petting the dog and eventually fading the treat out. Because if you're only using a treat and you're, and that's all you ever do, then you're basically, it's almost like a bribe. So we want to eventually condition the dog to accepting that tactile reward and start fading the food out to where it's like, you know, you're giving, you know, 90% food, 80% food, you know, 50-50, then eventually only, you know, 5% or 10% treats and 90% tactile reward. Good information. Any place we can go online, Joel, for some more tips and maybe ways to avoid dog bribery? Any more tips that we could find online? Avoid dog bribery. Yeah, billjack.com, B-I-L-L-J-A-C.com, you can go there. I got a bunch of videos up there and all the information about Bill Jack and the food and the treats and stuff like that. You can always go to my website, which is joelsilverman.net, J-O-E-L-S-I-L-V-E-R-M-A-N.net and get information on some of the stuff that I'm doing as well. And yeah, thanks for having me. Anytime. Joel Silverman, professional dog trainer. Thank you for the tips. Always a pleasure, my friend. Stay cool and we'll talk again very soon. Thanks for having me.