Daily Challenge! "Put In": Muzzle Training or Flip Cup?
Channel: Melissa McCue-McGrath, CPDT-KA
Date: 2020-04-24

My colleague, Nina Ragone of New England Dog Training Club, suggested we focus a bit on muzzle training dogs. Excellent! In preparation for putting a muzzle on a dog, teaching a dog "Put In" or "Muzzle Up", or "Wear Your Mask" can be a great game to make putting something around their muzzle really fun. 

This the third of the #CreepyBasement dog training series. 

In all seriousness, muzzle training is important. If your dog is injured, eats inappropriate things (poop, rocks) or is a dog who gets too amped up during playtime, this might be the tool for you. Normalizing the muzzle is something positive reinforcement trainers have been working on for years, most notably Maureen Backman, founder of the Muzzle Up Project (https://muzzleupproject.com/) In short, every dog should be acclimated to a muzzle, not just "bad dogs" or "biting dogs". I have those terms in quotes because those are the phrases I hear as a trainer from students who might be afraid of what the public thinks of their puppy. So, by normalizing these tools, like we are with masks during Covid19, we can help others make the leap to practice using this tool for whatever reason. 


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For any questions, topic ideas, training video suggestions, etc., please don't hesitate to reach out: considerationsbook at gmail dot com. 

If you like this and other challenges, consider liking, subscribing, all that stuff that everyone says on these videos. 

Lastly, I wrote a book in 2015 called, "Considerations for the City Dog". If you have read it, please leave a review and tell your friends! If you haven't, consider purchasing from dogwise.com or amazon.com in either Kindle or paperback format. In these unprecedented times, any form of income would be wonderful, and that book can help a lot of people. So, if you have the means and would like to support dog trainers like me who are trying different things to reach their students remotely, know that every thumbs up, shout out, and purchase goes directly to help us reach our students. 

Thank you! 
For more information, visit MelissaMcCueMcGrath.com, MelissaMcCueMcGrath on Instagram, @muttstuff on Twitter, the Muttstuff Facebook group, and the Considerations for the City Dog Facebook page.