The Whole Dog Tasmania

18/04/2025

Training is tiring.

Lucky has a sweet spot for a session, followed by a sweet nap.

Puppies sleep 18-20 hours when they are 14 weeks old, like Lucky.

Create an environment where they can learn to switch off/self regulate and sleep, both eyes closed and limbs twitching in dream land.

Crate training is one way to achieve this. Using white noise in the house also helps.

Biting/mouthing/chewing becomes more frenzied when puppy is overtired. It’s hard to train or get the best out of an overtired puppy.

Let them sleep and prevent others from touching them while they sleep. 💤

If you need help with behaviour and training, get in touch.

16/04/2025

Meet Raffy.

This lil chap is learning how to self regulate/practice calm when triggered by noises and movement outside his home.

He’s a fine fellow with bright eyes, a shiny coat and a jaunty gait. He learns fast and has an engaged and clever handler, so this team have absorbed information and are turning it into knowledge and action.

It’s a pleasure to help eager humans help their dogs who are struggling with big emotions in response to triggers.

Get in touch if you need some help with behaviour and training.

12/04/2025

If you wouldn’t use it on a human child, don’t use it on a dog

It used to be a choke chain....now it's a check chain. Instead of a choke collar it's a French collar. Instead of an electronic collar or a shock collar, it's a remote collar or training collar.

We use euphemisms like these to hide unpleasant or unpalatable truths. And trainers shouldn't be hiding anything. They should be upfront and honest about the tools & methods that they use and how those tools work. And if that involves physical punishment, restricting air supply or applying an electrical current then they should be honest about that too rather than hide behind disingenuous names.

Euphemisms make the unpalatable, palatable. And there's no place for euphemisms in dog training.

11/04/2025

Herders

Herding behaviours, or the way our dogs move through the world, are widely misunderstood.

It’s common for people to see their herder barking, circling, or nipping at a delivery person or visitor and say, “He wasn’t being aggressive, he was trying to herd.” But that confuses how the dog is moving with the context of the situation. Just because the behaviour looks herdy doesn’t mean it’s not also driven by fear or aggression.

So, what is herding behaviour?

We’ve taken predator behaviour and altered it to suit a purpose. In herding breeds, we’ve kept some parts of the predatory sequence and removed others. The full predatory sequence is:

Orient → Eye → Stalk → Chase → Grab → Kill → Dissect → Consume

In herders, we’ve enhanced the early parts like eye, stalk, and chase, and bred out the parts we don’t want, like the grab bite and kill. What’s left is a kind of exaggerated predator behaviour that looks intense but doesn’t end in a bite, at least ideally (or unless it's warranted).

Sheep are prey animals, so even a sheep who has never met a dog before still knows to move away from one acting in a predatory way. Creeping, staring, and stalking are all clear signals. Sheep don’t need past experience to read that body language. It’s built into them to recognize predators, just like the behaviour to move like one is built into your dog.

Border collies and other herding breeds do this automatically. It requires no learning. Their brains are wired to move that way. It’s not something they think through, and it’s not a trick. It’s just how their body responds to certain triggers.

All breed behaviours have what are called “releasers.” These are triggers in the environment that flip a switch in the dog’s brain. That switch turns on what’s called a modal action pattern (also known as a fixed action pattern). These are hardwired behaviour sequences that tend to run their course once they’ve started. They don’t need to be taught. The dog doesn’t plan it or think it through. It just happens.

Modal action patterns aren't just a dog thing. A spider doesn’t learn how to spin a web. Once the right conditions are there, they just do it. And, what's really cool, is they build the web appropriate to their species. Birds are the same. A robin isn't taught how to build a robin's nest, and a cowbird isn't taught to lay her eggs in someone else's nest. A sea turtle hatches and crawls toward the brightest horizon, usually the moonlight over the ocean. It doesn’t think about it. It just goes. A hen will sit on and rotate anything egg-shaped, even if it’s a golf ball. The shape is the releaser, and the sitting behaviour follows.

Even p*eing can be part of a modal action pattern. A male dog sees a vertical object with scent on it, and boom, leg lift, even if he barely has any p*e left. And no, this doesn’t mean your dog is trying to take over the world. It’s not a dominance thing. It’s just how they p*e.

Think of a border collie seeing something move across a field. Without any training, they drop their body low, stare, stalk, and creep forward. The movement of the object was the releaser. The sequence that follows is the modal action pattern. It’s like pressing play on a pre-loaded track in the brain. The dog isn’t choosing it. It’s instinct, shaped by generations of selective breeding.

So now imagine herding behaviour as being neutral. It doesn’t carry any emotion on its own. It’s just movement. Just like the way I run is simply how I run. But emotion can happen at the same time.

I can run and be scared. I can run and be playing. Just like a border collie can be herdy and happy, or herdy and scared.

Herding behaviour doesn’t tell you what your dog feels. It only tells you how they’re moving.

To understand what’s really going on, you have to look at the full picture: body language, context, and emotion. Herding dogs often default to these behaviours when arousal is high. That might be during play, when anticipating something, or when feeling anxious or overwhelmed. So when your dog runs out to circle and nip the delivery person, don’t brush it off as “just herding.” Step back and look at the whole picture to see what you're dog is saying!

You can learn more about herding breed behaviour and how to support these dogs in Urban Sheepdog: https://amzn.to/4g0o6VT

03/04/2025

Sleep.
The critical component in the wellbeing of your dog.

As a cynologist, I can’t emphasize enough how vital sleep is for dogs, playing a role as crucial to their well-being as it does for humans. Sleep serves as a cornerstone for a dog’s physical health, emotional stability, and cognitive functioning. Yet, in my experience, many pet owners often over...

02/04/2025

Go deeper on R+

Positive reinforcement is a pleasant approach to our interactions with animals (and even fellow humans). Used correctly, positive reinforcement can be beautifully nuanced, scalable, infinitely adjustable to the specific animal’s preferences, and calibrated precisely to sending clear messages ranging from “nice job!” to “Holy smokes, what an outstanding decision made under difficult conditions!” In short, R+ is awesome!

What I often see, unfortunately, is a somewhat clunky use of positive reinforcement. The reinforcement often becomes just food treats or maybe a toy rather than a range of possibilities. The pay scale is sometimes just one treat, no matter how difficult the behavior. Rewards can devolve into promises and prompts with the handler reaching for the treat pouch as the dog looks about ready to do X. This happens without the handler even noticing – but the dog sees it and read it correctly, and it all becomes part of the interaction.

The power and the presence of intrinsic reinforcement goes unnoticed or misunderstood, though it speaks to the individual dog’s interests and joys. Instead, we reach for the extrinsic reinforcers which can be powerful, but can also set up both handler and dog for disappointment and frustration when not used with skill. Or when the dog expects to see a prompt or promise.

I read through various forums and discussion groups, so I get to see how a wide range of R+ trainers recommend working with this or that behavior problem. Most troubling to my way of thinking is that many behavior problems are treated as if the dog has a chicken or cheese deficiency. So many techniques frame behavior issues as something that can be addressed with sufficient supplementation of chicken or cheese.

Read more at: https://suzanneclothier.com/widespread-chicken-and-cheese-deficiency/

01/04/2025

Progress = practice
Practice = patience

Wise advice:

31/03/2025

Barking is information.

Once again thanks to .brains for this.

27/03/2025

A great post on a very relevant topic: Bunnings and puppies

🛒 Puppy School Conversation: Taking Your Puppy to Bunnings – Is It a Good Thing or a Bad Thing?

Taking your new puppy on outings like a trip to Bunnings might seem like a fun and harmless way to socialise them… but is it really the right kind of exposure for every pup?

Let’s unpack the pros and cons of outings like these so you can make an informed decision that supports your puppy’s development, confidence, and future behaviour.

✅ The Potential Benefits

Thoughtful Exposure: Bunnings can be a great place to carefully expose your puppy to a variety of sights, sounds, smells, and surfaces—trolleys, cement floors, sliding doors, people wearing hats or work gear.

Safe Social Observation: Before your puppy is fully vaccinated, they can safely observe the world from a trolley or in your arms—gathering experiences without the physical risks.

Real-World Prep: For future working or assistance dogs, practicing neutrality in public spaces like Bunnings can help lay the foundation for calm, focused behaviour in busy environments.

⚠️ The Possible Downsides

Too Much, Too Soon: If your puppy is overwhelmed, overly excited, or fearful, the trip may do more harm than good. Puppies need positive experiences, not just new experiences.

Invaded Personal Space: Well-meaning strangers often rush in to touch puppies. If your pup isn’t ready or you're not watching their signals, this can quickly escalate from subtle signs of discomfort (head turns, lip licks) to growls or even defensive snapping.

Unintentional Learning: If a puppy learns that growling makes scary things go away, we’re reinforcing that behaviour. Instead, we want to be proactive and step in before they feel the need to escalate.

Misunderstood Socialisation: Socialisation isn't about meeting everyone and everything—it's about building confidence, choice, and comfort in a variety of situations, with your support.

🎯 Conclusion: Be Strategic, Not Spontaneous

Taking your puppy to Bunnings can be a valuable experience—but only if it’s done with intention, awareness, and a strong understanding of your puppy’s stress signals and threshold.

The goal isn’t just “get them out and about.” The real objective is to support their emotional resilience, build trust in you as their guide, and set them up for a lifetime of appropriate, confident behavior.

So before you pop your pup into a trolley and head out the door, ask yourself: Is this about my needs or my puppy’s wellbeing? If it’s the latter—and you’ve got a thoughtful plan—then it could be a fantastic opportunity.

27/03/2025

De-mystifying the scary dog door by ensuring good stuff happens when he goes through it.😍
Here’s Spencer making small steps for dog-kind.

This 8 year old recent adoptee also smashed Eye Contact and
Touch in his first session with his new mum. Who’s excited for future training sessions? WE ARE!

26/03/2025

A fabulous post for all dog families