Unpacked Dog Education & Training

22/03/2025

This morning young Sage arrived equipped with her favourite ducky toy on board! 🦆 🌿

How adorable is she? 🥰

20/03/2025

Our next Scent Level 1 (beginners) 4 week course starts Weds 26 March at 5.30pm at Mount Clear Scout Hall.

Still a couple of spots left, but be quick! 🐾

Learn how to harness the power of your dog’s incredible nose and build your connection as they engage in the most naturally reinforcing game there is!

This wonderful activity is suitable for all dogs - from nervous reactive dogs to playful, driven dogs who want a job!

For more details and to book, please email [email protected].

Come and join the fun 🤩

16/03/2025

💯 yes!

We can be so laser focused on another dog about to interact with ours that we forget to take into account their dog is only half of the picture we need to see....and we need to see it with clarity 👀
The person you have JUST met needs the same critiquing as their dog.
Potentially hazardous situations occur because we don't look as critically as we should at the handler.
Our dogs may have shown interest towards each other, but we need to lift our eyes off their dog... and follow that lead/leash up to critique the skills of the other person.
⚠️Do they have any verbal or even physical control over their dog?
⚠️Does their dog engage with them...at all ?
⚠️Have we observed how they handle other situations their dog finds themself in and is that acceptable to us?
⚠️Do they have a vastly different idea of good play than you do?
⚠️Does their dog listen to them at all?
⚠️Are they not recognising exactly what is occurring or are brushing it off from being ill informed or even embarrassment?

We need to take a little more time to assess the other persons capabilities before agreeing to those interactions....even if our dogs are showing great interest in meeting and playing.

This dog training handout is available through https://www.abcdogsnz.com/product-page/abc-dogs-nz-dog-and-dog-interactions?srsltid=AfmBOoqeJOLywt66TTI-YH5TeNopQuPHoJ0OE4bOLb_UPlEFyMMEFP_H

13/03/2025

Chicken training workshops!! 🐓

So exciting! We have 2 dates for workshops run by Rebecca Faulkner in Daylesford coming up:

- Sunday 30 March - 1 day workshop

- Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 April - 2 day workshop

Highly recommended if you want to sharpen up your training skills and have some fun, this unique opportunity is not to be missed!

Rebecca is renowned animal trainer for film and TV. Spaces are limited and this offer is exclusive for Unpacked clients and friends 😊

Leigh and I will be participating at both workshops too!

Prices are $125 for the 1 day workshop and $225 for the 2 day workshop.

Ready for the challenge?

Contact us today via [email protected] or send us a message.

08/03/2025

We had the absolute pleasure of assisting in puppy assessments for Ballan Dog Training & Von Goron German Shepherds on Saturday 🐾

What beautiful, well rounded puppies they are - all 12 of them! 🤩

It is endlessly fascinating to us the role of genetics in shaping individual temperaments and personalities and highlights in CAPITAL LETTERS how important a good breeder is for producing quality dogs in our world.

A huge shout out to Maddie and her family for producing such beautiful pups, who made us wonder if we need a shepherd in our lives! ☺️

Thank you for having us - we are happy to help out anytime you need ❤️

(And yes, we did have some favourites!)

08/03/2025

And a huge congrats to our Saturday morning adolescent class graduates too! 🎓 🐾

This group kicked some major goals in the 4 weeks and we hope all understand their adolescent dogs a bit better! 🤓

Can’t wait to see how your journeys unfold together ❤️

There are still a couple of spots in our Level 2 Life skills starting this Monday 10 March at 5.30pm for any adolescent class graduates - all welcome! 🤗

08/03/2025

Congratulations to our Monday night adolescent class graduates! 🎓

This diverse group of dogs and humans had both individual and collective goals and we believe they achieved them! 🙌🏻

Can’t wait to see these teams go from strength to strength 🐾 💪🏻

06/03/2025

Come and join our last evening Life Skills - Level 2 course this Monday 10 March before daylight savings ends! ⏰

Do you want a dog you can go to a cafe with, take camping and on holidays? How do we build on the skills we learnt in adolescent classes?

Our Life Skills - Level 2 course is based on the Canine Good Citizen Test or Award - as our aim is always better and happier dogs in society. In fact, we finish the course with a group walk in Ballarat!

Our 4 week Life Skills (Level 2) course (with optional week 5 group walk) will cover:

🔶 'levelling up' our recall, loose lead walking, leave it with more distractions and other exercises

🔹 bridging/marking skills, including a fun game that will improve what your understanding of what it’s like for your dog

🔶 perfecting our greeting skills of people and dogs - teaching politeness / impulse control around doors, gates, getting in and out of the car, crossing roads

🔹 working on brief periods of separation and being calm while not being glued to your side!

🔶 standing for examination / vet visits, close or middle, come to heel and practising ’settle’

🔹 Defensive dog handling - what to do when an off-lead dog rushes you and your dog.

Suitable for dogs who have completed our adolescent class.

Next course starts Mon 10 Mar at 5.30pm in Redan.

To book your place, please email [email protected] or send us a message! 🐾

20/02/2025

Congratulations to this hardy group who endured a few heat postponements during this epic Adolescent course!

You did it!! 🎓 🎉

A wonderfully diverse group of dogs and owners who we absolutely loved working with. Can’t wait to see how your bond develops further 😊

19/02/2025

💯 yes!

As with everything in dog training, one size never fits all. The nuances are everything and being able to adapt accordingly is crucial.

Developing a relationship built on trust and mutual respect should always be the goal ❤️

**** SOCIALISATION - HOW EASY IS IT TO GET RIGHT? ****

When you get a puppy you’ll likely have heard or have it on your mind that you need to socialise your puppy. And that’s great. It’s one of the most important things to do with any pup.

Over the last few years we’ve raised a load of foster puppies. I think there have been 11 in total. We’ve had them as young as still needing to be on a bottle and we’ve had some until they are almost a year old. We’ve raised them similarly using the same principles but we’ve had to tweak a few things for each one.

Socialisation is about exposing puppies to different environments, people, places, animals and situations that they are likely going to have to cope with when they get older. It’s not necessarily about teaching them to say hello to lots of different people and other dogs. This will depend on the individual dog.

Puppies will come pre-wired to behave a certain way and they will also come pre-wired in terms of their confidence, tendency to show fear, and how well they recover in situations. This basically means, it’s not all down to how you raise a puppy to determine how well they behave and cope as they get older. This is why there is a high failure rate within the working dog world. Not all dogs that have been bred for a specific job end up being able to do that job for numerous reasons and it doesn’t matter how much training or socialisation that has been done. If the dog is not cut out for it then it just wasn’t meant to be.

This is why good breeding practices are so important, and the breed really does matter. You don’t see any dog trainers going for chow chows, bull dogs, or great danes to compete in a sport with. There’s a reason why so many dog trainers want a malinois nowadays.

Dog training is full of nuances. I’ve read a few dog training books that have a list of all the things we need to expose our pups to by a certain age which is a great idea in theory. However, dog training is full of nuances and we need to learn when we can push our puppies and when we can’t. Socialisation should be about desensitising and habituating them not sensitising them.

If we have a pup that is on the more timid side, and we keep exposing them to things they aren’t coping well with, we may end up making them more sensitive as opposed to getting them used to things. We often see this happen during adolescence. Well meaning owners who really have tried to get it right and socialise their pups end up seeing a ‘relaxed’ or ‘calm’ puppy hit adolescence and then start expressing themselves in all those places they felt overwhelmed in when they were a pup.

We want to create resilient dogs. We want our dogs to be able to recover quickly when they get a sudden fright. But to do this we have to make sure we don’t overwhelm them to the point they can’t cope. We want our pups to experience tolerable stress. We don’t want to over expose them to the point they experience toxic stress. Tolerable stress is something they can tolerate or are able to remove themselves from. Toxic stress is where they cannot tolerate something or have the option to get themselves away from something for a prolonged period of time.

Socialising a puppy isn’t always easy. Especially if you get a rescue pup that hasn’t had the best start. If you go to a good breeder and get a typically social breed like a labrador it will likely be a much easier and nicer experience. You could get away with making a lot more mistakes usually because a well bred dog is a much more resilient dog because of consideration of genetics with the sire and the dam.

Ask any dog trainer when they would like you to get in touch with them for training and they’ll likely tell you when you think you don’t need it. Meaning, if we can help you train a dog BEFORE the problems arise it will be better for everyone involved. If you wait for a problem to arise then you could be working for a long time to resolve the problem or if you want a quick-fix, you’ll likely get told to do some pretty rough things to your dog in the name of training only for the problem to resurface at a later date.

So if you’ve got this far and have a pup or are thinking of getting one, please get in touch with a trainer now. Don’t wait for things to go wrong. Socialisation is not easy. Having someone to guide you through this stage can be infinitely helpful.

If you’d like help from us, visit www.thinkdog.nz or get in touch about my adolescent dog programme

17/02/2025

Some of our recent Level 2 Life Skills graduates! 🎓

Congratulations all! 🎉 🐾 🎈

09/02/2025

What do you like to do on your weekends?

Today we celebrated Tanya’s birthday at Blue Pyrenees Estate with a beautiful platter and a delicious sparkling rosé 🌹

So important to take time out of busy lives! 🥂 😊

03/02/2025

Did you know that we provide private scent sessions?

For those unable to attend a class or those you want some one-on-one tuition, this might be the option for you! 🐾

Archie and Freddie enjoyed some scent training in the comfort, and coolness, of their own home last week and took to it like ducks to water! 🦆 💦

We can’t wait to do more with them again soon! 😃

03/02/2025

Chicken training camp! 🐓 👏🏻

Looking for expressions of interest from our clients for a chicken training camp, to be held in Daylesford.

Quite a few of you have heard Tanya rave about the chicken training camp she did years ago and how much she learnt! Highly recommended for lots of fun and to improve your training 🐥

We have contacted the organisers and said we might have a few people interested, so they could potentially run one just for us if we couldn’t squeeze into this one.

Please let us know if you are interested, if this date works for you or whether another might be better 📅

02/02/2025

Some of our recent adolescent class graduates 🎓 🐾

We’ve loved watching your bond develop and can’t wait to do more with you!

Some gorgeous pics here ❤️

21/01/2025

We pride ourselves that a dogs welfare is our number priority, this includes our clients dogs and our own dogs 🐶

☀️☀️ It is 37°C here in Ballarat today, way too hot to work with dogs, so our guys are sound asleep under the air conditioning with mum watching the tennis.

💦 Remember to ensure your dogs have access to lots of water 🚿 on days like this, as well as yourselves.

😂 And yep.. if you own a Labrador you know that no matter how hot the day… a Lab will always want to sit on you!!! 🦮

19/01/2025

Our new scent superstars! 🌟

Lots of fun in our first week of our Level 1 Scent Detection course - a wonderful mix of dogs and handlers!

Can’t wait to see where they get to in 4 weeks 😊 👌🏻

📷 Us and Tessa Mitchell 🙏🏻