Scent detection, adolescent classes and behavioural consultation service for all ages and breeds.
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Congratulations to our latest Adolescent class graduates 🎓 🐾
What an incredible group of talented and eager to learn dogs and humans! 😃
We were absolutely delighted with the effort this group put in over the 4 weeks as well as the thoughtful questions and insights shared - keep up the wonderful work! 🎉
Congratulations Lucy, Winnie, Blossie, Chuck, Cookie and Zooki 🥂- hope to see you all again soon! ❤️
Happy . We are privileged that we get to work with these amazing creatures everyday. We not only get to work with the dogs but the humans that committed to ensuring their dogs are happy & living fulfilled lives.
These a just a small collection of some of the dogs we’ve worked one on one with in the past month. I hope you’re all being spoilt today.
Show us a pic of your dog on this special day.
We are deeply humbled and grateful when clients take the time to provide feedback, reviews and messages of support 🙏🏻
It means everything to us ❤️
Put simply, we love it when clients pick up what we are putting down 😜🤘🏻
We put our heart and soul into every class and consult, treat every dog and human as individuals and love sharing our knowledge and experience.. AND we are always learning 🤓
Thank you Sharon @ Lilacbreeze Bernese Mountain Dogs for your kind words and your wonderful work with Blossie in this talented and engaged Adolescent class 🙌🏻
Blossie did her third week of Adolescence training with Unpacked Dog Education & Training this morning
We did some weaving, mark work ( with a towel as the mark)
Recall with distractions, leave it !,targeting, stay and some dog enrichment
All dogs are doing super well and each exercise is so brilliantly and precisely explained
Although it started out raining, everyone turned up and we were all so engaged that we didn’t notice it stopped 🤣
The take home notes are brilliant ( emailed with interesting links )
Cannot recommend this course highly enough
Great fun, learning and best part is that all dogs are engaged and happy 💜🐾💜
We’ve had several consults lately regarding aggression between two or more dogs in the home 🥊
Our advice and training plans follow this article quite well. In many circumstances:
🔸identifying triggers
🔹managing resources and the environment / spaces in the home
🔸educating the family on reading each dog’s body language (correctly)
🔹instilling some natural calming activities to decrease cortisol (stress hormone) and give each dog a dopamine hit
will help the dogs live in better harmony with each other 🐾
In one case, after our thorough assessment and consultation with the whole family, we recommended rehoming one female dog as the situation was dangerous, particularly with small children present in the home.
This dog went to live with the grandparents, which was a good outcome as the dogs could remain seperate but the family could still see her 😊
Fights amongst dogs living in the same home can be a very scary experience. In most cases successful re-introduction of the dogs is possible.
Is there anything better than a run in the park to run off some energy after helping mum with a consult. Happy happy boy.
Thanks for the help Uche, love you. ♥️♥️🐾💕
What does loose lead walking look like to you? 🐕 🚶♀️
As with all training, there is never one way to do something. In fact, it is a red flag to us if someone says there is 🚩
Firstly, we ask our clients what they want when walking their dogs on lead. Usually, it is just not having their arm pulled off when out and about!
Sometimes there is a physical condition that means the dog must learn to walk without pulling. Enter Banjo! 🪕
With so many poodle crosses, he started life as a bit of a pogo stick on lead! 😁 Enthusiasm and exuberance are beautiful qualities in our eyes, he just needed to learn a new way to walk, to ensure it was safe and enjoyable for them both.
This is his progression - more attention on his handler and reinforcing him for being in the position we want. All done through reward based training 🥰
He still has some work to do, but we are delighted with his early results and so is his happy mum ❤️
‘Yep, that’s my certificate’
Nailed it!’
Gus 🐕 ❤️
Congratulations to this fantastic group of Adolescent dog training graduates! 🎓 🐾
The best thing about training are the personal milestones each team make, which is completely unique and extremely important to them! 🎉
We are so proud of you all! Congrats to Zuke, Onyx, Thomas, Gracie, Gus, Leo and Kayla ❤️
🗓️ It’s 1 year today since we met this family and their wonderful dogs, Koda (GSD), Lucky (Staffy x Whippet) and Milo (Chihuahua x), and what a great year it has been. 🎉
I (Leigh) have worked with these guys almost weekly for the past year and the results are amazing, and this is primarily due to the work the family consistently puts in 💪
🐕 When we met Koda, then 10 months old, she would excitedly jump on anyone that entered the house and pin them to the wall, she was dog reactive and completely hyperactive. Fights were breaking out between her and Lucky.
🐾 Lucky was very fearful of the great outdoors, he couldn’t walk for long without literally losing his mind and crying until he could go home. When his harness would come out he would run to the other end of the house!
Milo… well Milo is a special boy, 12 yrs young and has always just hung around for a treat or two! 🤣🤣♥️
👏🏻 As you can see, Koda now has lovely door manners, she sits and waits for people to exit and enter, she no longer jumps up. She is well behaved in the house and with education as to why the fights were breaking out (primarily resource guarding around food or certain toys), Lucky and Koda are now great friends. Koda can walk out in areas where there are other dogs and she is relaxed. ☺️
🙏 Lucky now loves his walks as he knows his mum has his back and will always be an advocate for him, he made a new friend in Uche and he has discovered scent work and the more places we take it, the more relaxed he feels in the world. 😎
I’m so proud of these dogs, and I am honoured that Deb and her family placed their trust in me to guide them, they have listened to everything I’ve advised, followed training instructions, we’ve experimented together to see what would suit each dogs way of learning (as all dogs, just like people, learn differently).
💕🐾 It is Debbie and her family who have consistently done the work and that is what having a good trainer/client relationship is all about. We are there to guide & to help you build your bond with your dog!!
Thank you for being Unpacked’s first client in Ballarat and for trusting me for this past year… and now also being a great friend ♥️♥️
For our adolescent class clients who have participated in our ‘temptation alley’ exercise in week 4… this is the video we talk about! 😂👌🏻
Good morning Ballarat, here we go with week 3 of Adolescent class.
We did this course in Feb and really enjoyed it! Great information for all pet owners, with knowledgeable instructors 😊 🐾
STILL SPOTS AVAILABLE!
We are very excited to offer another Pet First Aid Course!
Saturday the 17th August
$80 for 1.5 hour course
Limited to 10 per class so call 0353392266 now to secure your place!
Just horrifying 😢
These poor dogs… most with no human contact. And the puppy farm owners get out of it without a fine or imprisonment 😡
Know where your dog comes from! It’s quite simple, if you are not able to visit or meet the puppy’s parents (as the bare minimum) you could be buying from a puppy farm 🙅🏻♀️
More than 250 labradoodles have been surrendered to the RSPCA following the closure of one of Tasmania's largest dog breeders.
One spot left in our Scent Detection Level 2 class starting tomorrow night Weds 17 July at 5.30pm in Mount Clear 🐾
More exciting and challenging searches await! 🐶
Send us a message or email [email protected] to book your place!
Another cracking Adolescent class this morning with these legends 🙌🏻
Attentively listening, reinforcing the behaviours they want to see more of before moving into some dynamic dog passes 🐾
Come join us! 🐶 ❤️
It’s been a while since we shared some pics of our ‘baby’ Ash. She is now 9 months old & very much an adolescent (she’s enrolled in our next class 🤣). She is now a firm member of our family, everyone loves her and she loves everyone. 🐾🐾
Look at that bounce! 🐇
Oscar showing us how recall is done, with gusto!! 🤩
Anyone guess what this poodle cross is crossed with? 😉
(Hint: may or may not be a breed close to our hearts ♥️)
Some more great work from our current Adolescent class 😊
We finish it off next week with some fun games with these guys and we welcome a new batch of adolescent pups starting the course! 🐶
Thanks again to Tessa Mitchell for these fab photos 😊
Our current scent stars! 🌟
What a great range of breeds in our newest Scent Detection Level 1 class 🤩
Thank you Tessa Mitchell for the wonderful pictures 📷 👏🏻
Maggie, we will get you next week! 😊
Here we are sharing this again for our current scent class. Enjoy baby Jarrah’s first foray into scent. 💕🐾
We are having a short break from 23 - 26 June (back for evening scent class on Weds 26).
All messages and enquiries will be responded to after that time 😊
Apologies to anyone who got an unprompted email with this fact today.. seems there was a computer glitch (couldn’t be handler error 😉)
Have a great weekend! 😎
Theory Thursday! 🤓
We are going to share our own and others thoughts on dog education topics we see in the dog world.
We see so many dogs in conflict and we think this article offers some great insights 🐾
Grab a cuppa and have a read!
APPROACH OR AVOID: Should I stay or should I go now?
In his book 'Emotional Ignorance', neuroscientist Dean Burnett postulates that there are two behaviour systems that dominate animal behaviour: approach and avoid.
Whether you are a human, a mouse or a spider, approach behaviour is great for finding territory, for finding a mate, for finding food and for finding shelter. With this behaviour system comes exploration, feelings of curiosity and anticipation.
Likewise, whether you are a human, a mouse or a spider, avoidance behaviour is great for staying alive.
As The Clash said back in 1981, should I stay or should I go now?
It's always a balance between meeting our wants and needs, and self-preservation.
Of course, we can find ourselves in conflict over approach and avoidance. We can see a lot of that with our dogs. I'll always remember my dog Tilly in her first few weeks here after rehoming. She'd get so overwhelmed by strange humans (especially tall men) that she'd rush in and then end up wetting herself because underneath that, she was still in self-preservation mode. Her body said 'go in' and also 'move away'.
It's at that time we might see displacement behaviours, fidgeting behaviours and a difficulty in keeping cool. It's at this time that impulse control goes out of the window.
That's why, whenever I see a dog who is frantic to greet others, I often feel there's an undercurrent of anxiety there. These behaviours indicate conflicting goals: stay safe or approach. It's often not "friendly" behaviour. It's conflict over staying safe and approaching.
Of course, we don't just see conflicting goals with approach and avoidance. We also see it with two 'approach' behaviours.
Lidy often gets this: she'll have a bone or a chew and if I call her for a walk or her breakfast, I see a kind of choice paralysis. "Ooh, I want that AND I want this..." where she can't do either, and wanting one stops her doing the other one.
This is one reason it's never as simple as all that to think about giving dogs more choice - it can be paralysing to have to choose! If you've ever debated over which phone to buy, which car to get, which cereal you want, you'll know this feeling. Every time you stand behind someone in a queue at a buffet and you feel them dithering, that hesitation is those two (or more) goals competing with each other where both are equal in terms of incentive.
And this can also happen with avoidance behaviours. I see this sometimes with dogs who pancake on walks, where going back is as unpleasant as going on.
In his work on hierarchical behaviour systems, Dutch biologist and ethologist Niko Tinbergen theorised that we wouldn't just see hesitation as a result of two competing (but equally relevant) behaviour systems designed to meet two incompatible goals... we might see displacement behaviours, conflict behaviour & frustration, or even opting for a third behaviour system not connected to the first.
I saw this with one of my client's dogs. He was quite uncomfortable around guests, but he wanted to be with his guardian. But his guardian was near the guests. What did he do? He went and hu**ed a cushion - a completely different behaviour entirely.
You'd think working out whether you should stay or go would be easy. When Mick Jones wrote the song, we might argue that he was experiencing that same challenge of how difficult it can be to decide to approach or avoid.
This is complicated even further because approach behaviours and avoidance behaviours are tempered by traits. For instance, one group of researchers in the 1990s bred lines of rats that were selected for approach behaviours. They noted that some rats would enter new spaces and explore frenetically, approaching situations that were unpredictable and unfamiliar even though 'wait and see' would have been a better approach.
When the researchers bred these rats as a population, they realised that 'approach' behaviours - what we might think of as boldness, confidence, risk-taking or high likelihood for approach - were a heritable trait that could be passed down to future descendants.
It's something we know instinctively with our dogs: we want strong approach behaviours in many breeds, and avoidance behaviours in others. If your Maremma livestock guardian is a bold explorer, they're not likely to stay put with sheep, given the chance, are they? You want them NOT to be curious or exploratory on the whole. But if your spaniel isn't a bold explorer, they're going to be rubbish as a working dog.
"Me? Go in those bushes?! I don't think so!"
These traits can sometimes add even more conflict to a situation. You know, dogs who approach when they should take some more time to appraise, or who are anxious and would benefit from hanging back, but then go and approach and feel all yucky about it but end up too close and then struggling, like my cocker spaniel Tilly did.
It also causes problems when paired up with another trait, that of emotional lability. That simply means how plastic, changeable, intense and swift your emotions are. Several of my dogs have been pretty chill on the whole, but others have been extremely vulnerable to intense emotions and emotional change. If you are a dog selected to approach, a bold and exploratory dog breed for example, but you're also vulnerable to intense and changeable emotions, it means you're even more likely to get suckered in to approaching only to then take offence should anything unpredictable happen.
Avoidance and approach can also affect emotional processing. It's pretty tough for your brain to do its natural thing of downgrading the significance of stuff from THREAT to NON-THREAT if you're highly aroused and emotional. It makes it tougher for dogs like this to adapt to the world. It also makes it much easier for them to sensitise, for things to become extremely exciting or extremely threatening, and for them to stay so.
For that reason, it's important we understand how our dogs cope with new situations and with unfamiliar things entering their world. If our dogs avoid the world, it's hard for them to downgrade that threat status. If our dogs rush in like fools, it's easy for them to sensitise.
Like Mick Jones of The Clash, it'd have been better for them to have done nothing other than wait around for a while until things made more sense.
In the next few posts, I'll be exploring all things approach and avoidance to help you know which strategies will help your dog the best.
One last spot left in our Level 1 (Beginners) Scent Detection class starting tomorrow night Weds 19 June at 5.30pm in Mount Clear 🐾 Be quick!
Over 4 weeks, delve into the fascinating world of scent for dogs and have fun exploring how enriching it is for both dog and handler! 😃
From fun-loving, bouncy dogs to working dogs who need a job and even dogs who are fearful or nervous, this is the most inclusive activity you can do with your dog 🐶
Email [email protected] or send us a message to book your place 🐶
We love all animal behaviour related projects and this is one that has had us enthralled for years.
African giant pouched rats use their acute sense of smell to sniff out landmines and detect TB in sputum samples. Now, they are set to become search-and-rescue specialists too.
Sturt Street
Ballarat, VIC
3350
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What does loose lead walking look like to you? 🐕 🚶♀️ As with all training, there is never one way to do something. In fact, it is a red flag to us if someone says there is 🚩 Firstly, we ask our clients what they want when walking their dogs on lead. Usually, it is just not having their arm pulled off when out and about! Sometimes there is a physical condition that means the dog must learn to walk without pulling. Enter Banjo! 🪕 With so many poodle crosses, he started life as a bit of a pogo stick on lead! 😁 Enthusiasm and exuberance are beautiful qualities in our eyes, he just needed to learn a new way to walk, to ensure it was safe and enjoyable for them both. This is his progression - more attention on his handler and reinforcing him for being in the position we want. All done through reward based training 🥰 He still has some work to do, but we are delighted with his early results and so is his happy mum ❤️
Beautiful Maple 🍁 passing the ball test! 🎾 One drop of odour on the purple ball 😁 Life is distraction - well done Maple! 👏🏻 #scentworktraining #scentdog #scentdogtraining #nosework #scentdetection #scentdetectiontraining #scentwork #ballaratdogtrainer
Go Flynn-y! 🩵 #leonbergersofinstagram #giantpuppy #megafloof #agilitytraining
@maggiemoobueheeler and her bro Eddy love to jump! 🤩 🎉 #cattledogsofinstagram #agilitydog #blueheeler #redheeler #mightaswelljump
Jarrah’s #trustfall ❤️
Weekend bone bliss 🦴 💕 #rootails #rawfeddogs #needtherainforourgrass
Absolutely brilliant recall from McCoy the Goldie in our week 4 Adolescent class! 🙌🏻 #totalrecall #dogtrainersballarat #adolescentdogtraining #dogtraining
Kizzy the wonder dog! 🐕 Nailing a hide up high 🦸🏼♂️ 👏🏻 🐾 #rescuedogsrock #scentdetectiontraining #bullyx #bullybreed #dogtraining #offtojointhecircus
Merry Christmas to all our wonderful clients, friends and family 🎄💕 may you enjoy a relaxing and peaceful day, surrounded by those you love ❤️ A heartfelt thank you to all our wonderful clients who have made us feel so welcome in Ballarat in 2023. Here’s a video of our Level 2 Scent Detection graduates to end a wonderful year - we are so proud of them and look forward to many sniffy adventures with both new and exisiting friends 😃💜 #scentdetection #scentdetectiontraining #conservationunpacked #scentwork #nosework #dogsofinstagram #ballaratbusiness
Gypsy the brilliant papillon giving her mum some lip when she’s found her odour! Oh the sass!! 😂 We love both her and her handler Wendy 😊 #scentdetectiontraining #nosework #noseworkdog #papillon #superdog #sassypants
We are super proud of these two! Lex is a 12mth old Dutch Shepherd with a tonne of drive and energy. Which can be great when needed, but sometimes over-arousal interferes with a dog’s ability to think clearly and learn. This week, Emilie worked on sending Lex out to search in a quiet way… and she reaped the benefits with this very clever boy 🐕 Well done team! 🎉 #scentdetectiontraining #scentdog #nosework #teamwork #dogtraining #dogsofinstagram #dutchshepherd
Dogs and handlers having such a fabulous time in our 5 week scent class… that’s always the goal! 😍 Well done Silke and Luna 🐶 #scentdetectiontraining #scentdog #nosework #scentworkisfun #teamwork #dogsofinstagram
Repost for our current scent class 😊 Throwback to Jarrah pairing scent for the first time at 9wks old. Scent in a container (with holes) and marking and rewarding any interaction with the container. She has never forgotten this scent (truffle) and it is exactly how we start pairing any new scent (we now use pods 😉). What a champ! #scenttrainingfordogs #scentdetection #scentdetectiondog #dogtraining #puppytraining #springerspanielsofinstagram #mindtheuggs
A big week on the windfarm 💨 #conservationdetectiondog #englishspringerspaniel #workingdog #windfarm
Teaching our wonderful client the timing of the clicker and reward to get Elsa beautifully over the seesaw 🥰 🐐 #goattraining #sorewarding #wonderfulclients #animaltraining #farmlife Jamberoo Valley Farm
Magnificent Sootie 💙 Why we love scent work for dogs so much is because it is a fabulous activity for all dogs and the applications are immense - from our shy, anxious and scared dogs to help grow in confidence by lowering cortisol through the act of sniffing, dopamine hits that feel amazing for the dog and the building connection with their handler. From these dogs to the fun loving ones who just want another game to play and challenge them, all the way to professional detection dogs who help in bio security, armed forces and conservation. Sootie makes our heart sing 🎶 he came to his first workshop as an extremely scared boy who could barely move. With our help, his incredible mum introduced the box game to him and continued to practice it at home and even now in unfamiliar locations. This is Sootie’s remarkable progress at our most recent scent workshop in Berry. Progress built on relationship and trust first and foremost and his incredible spirit. This work builds confidence, resilience and connection, one find at a time. We can’t watch him without crying! 🥲 we are so proud of you both 💙 #scentwork #scentworkforalldogs #rehabilitation #anxiousdog #buildingtrustandrelationship #dogtraining
#ThrowbackThursday Throwback to Jarrah pairing scent for the first time at 9wks old. Scent in a container (with holes) and marking and rewarding any interaction with the container. She has never forgotten this scent (truffle) and it is exactly how we start pairing any new scent. What a champ!
