Eco Dog Training

Are You Ready For Earth Hour?

March 27, 2010 By Colby 3 Comments

Earlier this week we celebrated National Puppy Day in hopes of bringing awareness about the thousands of puppies in shelters needing a home.

Today we were checking out the Raise A Green Dog blog and found their article We Are Ready For Earth Hour. So what is Earth Hour? Its’ a time (1 hour to be exact) when homes and businesses come together to make their stand against climate change by doing something simple like turning their lights off for one hour.

Are You A Green Dog?

Linus, Stetson, and I have been focusing our effort on becoming green dogs (and people). So at 8:30pm tonight (March 27th, 2010) we’re going to make sure we turn off all the lights in the house for an hour.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have much time to prepare for this years Earth Hour. However, Gracie over at Raise A Green Dog learned a cool new trick to kick off Earth Hour.

Take a look at the second video in the post We Are Ready For Earth Hour…and actually I embedded the video in this page for everyone to see:

Yep, that’s Gracie from Raise A Green Dog learning how to turn off the lights to kick off Earth Hour. Pretty cool trick Gracie!

How about you? Are you going to participate in Earth Hour?

Do You Leave Music On For Your Dog?

November 3, 2009 By Colby Leave a Comment

During my lunch hour I was reading the book Green Dog, Good Dog and trying to learn more about how to turn Stetson and Linus into eco-friendly dogs. By the way, Green Dog, Good Dog has lots of great tips on how to reduce your dog’s carbon pawprint and one of the great things I like about this particular book is that they have 4 different levels of involvement. That is, you don’t have to go from one extreme to another. Instead you can choose to make a more gradual transition on your journey to becoming an Eco Dog or move more rapidly.

Back to my story…one of the sections in this book talks about the benefits of leaving music on for your dog when you leave the house. Is it beneficial to your dog? or is it a waste of electricity and and making us eco-unfriendly dogs?

image by by Kema Keur

Do I Leave Music On For My Dogs?

Until today I never really thought too much about the consequences of leaving the radio on for the dogs when I left the house. I always thought it was a good idea not only because it could be soothing for the dog, but also because it drowned out any noise or activity happening outside the house that might excite or frighten my dogs.

I did take one step towards a greener life-style. We chose not to leave the television on and opted to use the radio for our dogs. However, is it really helping my dogs? Are they less stressed out with the sound of music?

Here’s an excerpt from Green Dog, Good Dog:

Dr. Gerald Buchoff notes that many people leave a television or radio on for their dogs when they leave for work for extended periods of time. In his opinion “That’s an awfully wasteful activity and probably is no more entertaining for your dog than looking out the window.”

The book however recommends that if you’re going to play music then try playing harp music which is particularly soothing.

What are my final thoughts on this one? I mainly like to leave music on to drown out the noise and activity going on outside my house. Linus in particular can sometimes get stressed out when he hears noises outside the house. I’m going to try getting harp music and playing that for my two boys for the next few weeks and see if it has any noticeable effects.

How about you? Do you turn on the radio or television when you leave your dogs home alone?

By the way I’m not quite finished reading it yet, but so far I’ve thoroughly enjoyed Green Dog, Good Dog. If you’re interested in starting Eco Dog Training with your dog then you might want to go get a copy of this book.

Filed Under: Eco Dog Training Tagged With: Eco Dog, Eco Dog Training, Eco-Friendly Dog, Green Dog, Green Dog Training

Eco Dog Training and Blog Action Day 2009

October 15, 2009 By Colby Leave a Comment

What does eco dog training have to do with Blog Action Day 2009? Keep reading to find out…

We started writing to this blog over two years ago and why? Because we want to make a difference. We like offering information we learn about dogs, puppies, dog training, events, tips, product reviews, etc.

However, today we focus on a much bigger issue. This is our first year participating in Blog Action Day and once again we’d like to make a difference no matter how small. Now you might be asking what the heck is Blog Action Day. From the Blog Action Day website:

Blog Action Day is an annual event that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day. Our aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.

Blog Action Day 2009 – Climate Change

This years topic is climate change. I hear what you’re saying: “How can I – 1 person – make a difference?” Well, we each need to do our part. After today I’ve learned enough to start making the small changes in my life to make a difference. When friends and family see the changes I make to my lifestyle hopefully it will resonate out through their own lives.

Here’s another interesting clip from the Blog Action Day website:

More than any other country, action taken by the United States to limit greenhouse gases and build a clean energy economy is needed to achieve a sustainable solution to our global climate crisis.

This December world leaders will gather in Copenhagen to negotiate a global response to climate change. As a world leader in greenhouse gas pollution as well as clean energy technology, the United States needs to take bold action by implementing comprehensive clean energy policies to curb emissions.

President Barack Obama has said that climate change is an urgent threat, and that he wants to restore America’s responsible leadership in the world.

This is a chance for people around the world and in the United States to join together in telling President Obama that we want him to lead the United States in taking bold and significant action to reduce greenhouse gasses.

Time is running out, and our planet can’t afford to wait.

Take Action

We want to make Linus and Stetson eco-friendly dogs and I want to be an eco-friendly person. Eco Dog Training is a first step for us. What are a few things we can do to reduce our carbon pawprint? Well here are a some actions Linus, Stetson, and I plan on taking:

We’re going to start making our own toys. Any toys we currently have will be stitched up and reused.
Continue to encourage others to adopt from animal shelters.
Only use biodegradable doggy poop bags.
Talk more about eco dog training and show everyone how to live a more eco-friendly life with your dog.

I know there are tons of other ways to help save the environment, but we don’t want to overwhelm you all in one post. A great site for information on raising a green dog is Johann’s Raise A Green Dog website. We follow his posts daily and use many of his green tips in our own lives. By the way, Johann is also a participant in Blog Action Day 2009. Which reminds me I did want to recognize all the pet related sites participating in Blog Action Day 2009:

Pet Sites Participating in Blog Action Day 2009

I read most of the articles from these sites and also added them to my RSS reader so I can read their future posts (except for the non-english sites). If you participated in Blog Action Day 2009 on your pet website and you’d like to be included in this list then just email or add a comment with a link to your Climate Change article.

What can you do to reduce your pets carbon paw print? How are you going to make a difference?

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Dog Tagged With: Climate Change, Eco Dog, Eco Dog Training, Green Dog