The Dog Squad

24/07/2024

When one daycare hooman is taking you for a bath so you climb into the lap of another daycare hooman for emotional support 😅🥹

08/07/2024

BEGINNERS GROUP CLASS!!

We have some spots available in our next beginners group class starting Monday 29th of July, this class runs for 5 weeks at 6:15pm.

Send through a message if you would like to be apart of this class & learn some very valuable skills with your doggie 🌻

23/06/2024

When you’re a person who dedicates their lives to dogs, works with dogs, competes with dogs, lives with dogs like we do… it’s a uniquely painful thing to loose one of your own.

On Thursday Claire said goodbye to one of her best friends, Lilo. Together they fought long and hard to battle the unknown but ultimately, Lilo’s situation progressed to a point where Claire had to let her pass with dignity.

It many ways, Lilo shaped the trainer and person Claire is today. She’s made friendships, joined sport clubs and had experiences she otherwise would not have had. When your life is dogs, it’s not just loosing a dog. It’s loosing a part of who you are, of who shaped you, of what you enjoy, of things that were still to come.

Lilo was to be honest, a bit of a bitch… in the best possible way, you know!? She had more sass than any dog should have the right to have, she had drive and determination, she had troubles and worries that she overcame because of her trust in Claire, she had the grumpiest of faces and the most beautifully loving disposition to those who earned her trust. Her loss will be felt everyday by all of us at The Dog Squad.

It’s strange thing to turn up to work after loosing your dog and have to love on someone else’s dog. It’s so bitter sweet. Both comforting and devastating. If you see Claire these coming weeks, I know she will appreciate your condolences, your dogs cuddles and love, an understanding of her loss and your appreciation that she’s still here for your pets. She may not want to chat or she may feel okay to but our clients are our work family so she wanted to share her sad news before she sees you all in the coming weeks.

Big hugs to you Claire from all of us at The Dog Squad, staff, clients and pups alike. To feel such loss is to have felt such love ❤️

12/06/2024

♥️ PLEASE HELP LILO & CLAIRE ♥️

Life with dogs is a blessing and a curse…… sadly this little familiar face to you all, our Madame lilo, has come down with a mystery illness and is currently battling the unknown toxicity in her body in intensive care at SASH.

Lilo is owned by our beautiful Claire and is a very unique and special dog. She is extremely talented and is involved in the dog sport community with her mum and has made a significant impact wherever she goes.

Claire’s flyball team have put together a go fund me to help cover medical costs that are increasing each day while they keep lilo stable and work out what is happening to her. The bill is currently looking to be at its highest end $16K, with prior vet bills before heading to SASH too. Claire is lucky to hold pet insurance but this won’t cover everything and with expenses likely to rise above $16K she’s still looking at a reasonable expense even with her pet insurance. This includes plasma bags that are essential to keeping lilo fighting right now but are very expensive.

If you have spare change anything will help - her sport community is leading the charge on this but her daycare community is welcome to assist in the cause ♥️

If anyone knows of any similar cases to Lilos please also reach out! She is experiencing liver failure due to an unknown toxin in her body, this includes vomiting, diarrhoea, lack of blood clotting and bleeding. The most common poisons have been mostly ruled out but we are all ears to any information that can help!

The go fund me link is attached below - please keep lilo in your thoughts, she’s going to have to fight hard to win this battle but we honestly do not know any other dog that would have better odds than her at beating it ♥️

https://www.gofundme.com/f/lilo-claire?attribution_id=sl:14ecff8e-e122-4ffc-814c-d2aad1a884e1&utm_campaign=man_sharesheet_ft&utm_medium=customer&utm_source=copy_link

04/06/2024

📣 CLOSED MONDAY THE 10TH OF JUNE📣

27/05/2024

We have a few spaces this week at our 🐾 Little Dog Farm Day 🐾 on Thursday. Existing clients and new dogs welcome (so long as they are little and social 😏). Send us a DM to book ❤️

05/05/2024

We are CLOSED due to flooding!!

We will be in contact with clients about TOMORROW !!

Stay safe everyone ###

24/04/2024

🐶 Puppy Class Availability 🐶

When: 8th of May (Wednesday evenings) @6:15pm for 4 consecutive weeks
🐾
How long: 45minute - 1 hour each class
🐾
Where: The Dog Squad, Unit 3b/1 Morton Close Tuggerah
🐾
Cost: $216 for the 4 week block, $86 direct deposit to secure your spot
🐾
How to book: send us a FB message, email ([email protected]) or an sms (0402473317)

Looking forward to meeting you and your puppies ♥️

16/04/2024

📣ANZAC DAY CLOSURE 25TH APRIL📣

08/04/2024

Hello to all you wonderful people

Forewarning this is a touch long....

I have already thanked some of you in person - with some tears at times as well.

I would never have asked this of any of you - I have always been someone who struggles to ask for help and just tries to manage on my own. My parents didn't raise me like this - they have always helped me out whenever it's been made obvious I need it. This occasion was a hard one as my mum was over seas and my dad was out of reception in North Queensland. It was also hard considering I thought I had her covered for this and had prepared for this situation.

Nothing is more gutting then when you think your covered for something and it turns out you're not or only the bare minimum is covered.

My dogs are my entire life - you know that saying that 'dogs aren't your whole life but they make your lives whole' - well that's straight up not true for me. My dogs are infact my whole life.

Adopting tans has been amongst some of the best decisions I've made and will ever make. She is a phenomenal little ween - one of/ if not the best I've ever met and will ever know. Everything about her is so fabulous. She loves my other dogs and is the glue in my little crew. She is the epitome of snag-magic - always by my other dogs sides either snuggled on their paws or in the nook of their legs at times even curled up on top of their backs.

She is a dog that holds so much value by just existing- she helps dogs of all temperaments become the best versions of themselves. She's irreplaceable.

So facing the thought of either losing her or becoming paralysed was an overwhelming situation. I'm so thankful I have Zoie who came to be with me at sash so I wasn't alone whilst trying to decide what to do. Facing a bill of up to $20K is a lot of money for someone like myself especially when you THOUGHT you'd be covered for this. I was so frustrated with myself.

And so we decided that we would make it work - that I would work it out because the alternative was just not possible.

That night I expressed to Zoie how daunted I was at the notion of that amount of money and paying it back. And then not even 15 minutes later I get a message and a notification of a post on Facebook. My stupidly wonderful Dog Squad family had done the go fund me. My Kath, Kristy, Kayna, Zoie, Amy and Claire. I felt guilty at first because it felt like I was stealing money and that I didn't deserve it. But the girls and all of you made me feel significantly better with all your words of love and support and general caring words.

And now that I've come to terms with the kindness I now feel like it's not stealing or undeserving- especially considering that you're all now family to me and tans.

I just hope that I can equate the kindness everyone has shown me at some point or collectively throughout my life. I honestly never thought that this many people would care about me and/or my little snag.

So I will always be thankful for what you all have done. It's made a stressful time much less stressful and I've been able to focus more on helping Tana walk again (which she is already doing and trying to already run off 😂)

Know that the gratitude I feel is overwhelming and I simply get lost for words when I see some of you and don't know how to thank you.

Tana, Simon and I are currently sitting in our big dog yard, under the trees with a lovely breeze blowing, her in her little trolley dozing off. I'm grateful she is still with me and that it wasn't worse than what it was.
Not everyone gets to say that. How lucky I am to be able to ♥️

So much love - all the love I could possibly give
Maddy xx

04/04/2024

Rumble & Hank have some amazing news!!

We are now stocking Taste of the Wild 🥳

We are so glad we are now stocking this amazing food. Feel free to ask any questions if you are thinking about trying Taste of the Wild with your dog. 🫶

26/03/2024

Beginners Group Class ✨
We still have some spots in our upcoming beginner group class starting in 2 weeks time.
This class is suitable for all ages & levels of training.
Please shoot us a message if you would like to enroll or grab some more information.

Featured: our beautiful nervous girl junbug & her emotional support friend lilo

22/03/2024

📣 EASTER CLOSURE 🐣 📣

18/03/2024

Update from Maddy -

Thank you everyone for your generosity. I feel completely overwhelmed and still in shock. Between this fundraiser and the farm, I have enough to make a considerable difference towards the payment of Motana’s medical bills and I’ve asked the girls to close the GoFundMe now as it is only fair to take what is needed.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you, thank you, thank you. I will never be able to express my appreciation enough.

📸 of beautiful little Montana from a few months ago

17/03/2024

Beautiful Montana had her surgery yesterday. She’s got a critical few days ahead of her but she’s eaten a little bit today, can’t toilet by herself yet but is trying to walk with support. She’s going to be weaned off the strong pain medication over the coming days

Madeline is so unbelievably thankful and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of support offered to her by friends, family, clients and even people she hasn’t met. She has said she will never be able to express enough thanks and gratitude for the kindness and generosity shown to her.

I’ve popped the link to the GoFundMe page below if you wish to donate

https://gofund.me/e7e7bd18

Or if you want to send your dog on a Farm Adventure trip where the full fee goes to help
Montana, the dates are;
🐶 Big dogs - Friday 22nd March
🐶 Little dogs - Tuesday 26th March

16/03/2024

Our beautiful Maddy needs our help 💔 Today, her sauso, Montana woke up wobbly in the back legs. At the vet, over the course of a few hours, she lost the ability to move her back legs and was diagnosed with IVDD. This required immediate specialist surgery at SASH this afternoon.

Unfortunately, Maddy’s pet insurance has a sly loophole and she’s found out that the $20,000 surgery is not covered as she thought it was. This is devastating, especially when you hold pet insurance exactly for these situations.

We’ve put together a GoFundMe page and we’re also going to run two additional Farm Trips where our staff will donate their time to run the farm adventure and the entire fee for the Farm Trip will go directly to the vet bill for Montana.

So if you are not able to donate please share this post, if you can donate even a little please do so at the GoFundMe link below and/or if you want to send your dog to the Farm (so fun and your dog will love you for it) and have this fee donated to Montana’s vet bills, please send us a DM to book.

Additional farm days will be;
🐶 Big Dogs - Friday 22nd March
🐶 Little Dogs - Tuesday 26th March

GoFundMe link -
https://gofund.me/e7e7bd18

Madeline is such a kind and caring person and she would never ask for this kind of help. But we have such a wonderful community, so we’re asking on her behalf. Even the smallest amount or a share would make a huge difference to this crazy vet bill that Maddy did not foresee having to pay.

My name is Zoie and I’m making this GoFundMe account for my best friend and business partner, Mad… Zoie Phillips needs your support for Montana’s IVDD Surgery

12/03/2024

👇📣 APRIL SPECIAL📣👇

12/03/2024

11/03/2024

We’ve got some spots available in our little dog play pen on a Monday, Tuesday and Friday 🥰👌

If your interested, please shoot us a DM and we can send over further information and book in an assessment. Our little dog pens are full of the most sweet, gentle and playful friends so if you have a dog who is a bit reserved and needs a little helping hand with socialisation, daycare with our little friends would be a perfect option because they are truly a fab bunch of dogs 🙌

08/03/2024

📣 Big dog Farm day availability this coming Thursday the 14th of March📣

New dogs are welcome!
So please send us a text message to enquire 📞 0402473317

01/03/2024

Many of you may know that Zoie (one of our Directors) is a registered breeder of Bernese Mountain Dogs 🖤

She’s just had a litter of 4 beautiful puppies to her gorgeous girl, Fallon 🥹 If you’re interested in following these sweet babies as they grow, and all other Bernese / breeding adventures with Zoie, give her a follow on her Instagram; valkirie_bernese

She has 2 pups 👀 for a 🏡 and would LOVE if one of The Dog Squad clients wanted to add a Berner to their family 🤭

27/02/2024

🎓Puppy Classes Availability 🎓

We have spaces available for our March Puppy class starting on the 13th

Class goes for 45 minutes, for 5 weeks on a weekday evening 👌

We cover the following topics;
- How to teach basic obedience
- Developing a communication system
- Creating life skills
- Food quality/ basic nutrition
- How to create a healthy relationship with your pup into adulthood (eg, handler focus and engagement)
- Addressing and managing common puppy behaviours
- Basic health care
- Basic grooming
- Biological fulfilment
- Exposure and habituation (getting you pup used to random things in a man made environment)
- Socialisation

Plus more

If you are interested we have a few spots left so send us a message to book in 🙌

📸 Our Claire’s beautiful young Yaski

14/02/2024

✨ Mini Group Training Courses ✨

We will be holding 2x 30 minute Mini Group Training Course that will run for 3 consecutive weeks from Tuesday 19th March.

The first course will start at 6:15pm and will cover all aspects of leash work, including;
💙 appropriate devise to use on your dog
💙 how to get your dog to stop pulling
💙 how to motivate your dog to be attentive to you and focused on you during a walk
💙 basic marker words
💙 information on the stages of training to help you achieve nice walking under high distraction levels.

The second course will start at 7pm and will cover all aspects of recall including;
🩵setting appropriate expectations
🩵 creating a training plan to achieve a sound recall
🩵 tips to help your dog be less interested in distractions and more interested in you
🩵 basic marker words
🩵 and of course, how to teach recall to your dog.

These classes will be run by one of our Directors, Zoie 👌

I am going to limit the number of dogs in these mini courses to keep the group small and ensure each person gets individual time spent with myself to ensure they achieve as much as possible in the three weeks.

Please send us a DM or SMS to book or enquire further.

13/02/2024

ATTENTION BIG DOGS 🐶 Our waitlist is OPEN 😱 to all big dogs that would love to come to daycare. Please reach out & we can pop your big one on our waitlist ✨

13/02/2024

ATTENTION ALL LITTLE DOGS 📣 We have some daycare spots available for little dogs. Send us a message if you would like your little one to come have some fun with us at daycare ✨

30/01/2024

Puppy class availability!

🎓Puppy Classes 2024🎓

Our first puppy class starts back on the 7th of February!

Class goes for 45 minutes, for 5 weeks on a weekday evening 👌

We cover the following topics;
- How to teach basic obedience
- Developing a communication system
- Creating life skills
- Food quality/ basic nutrition
- How to create a healthy relationship with your pup into adulthood (eg, handler focus and engagement)
- Addressing and managing common puppy behaviours
- Basic health care
- Basic grooming
- Biological fulfilment
- Exposure and habituation (getting you pup used to random things in a man made environment)
- Socialisation

Plus more

If you are interested we have 2 spots left for our first class and then vacancies for our classes after that

Send us a message to book in 🙌

📸 Our Claire’s beautiful young Yaski

25/01/2024

🎓Puppy Classes 2024🎓

Our first puppy class starts back on the 7th of February!

Class goes for 45 minutes, for 5 weeks on a weekday evening 👌

We cover the following topics;
- How to teach basic obedience
- Developing a communication system
- Creating life skills
- Food quality/ basic nutrition
- How to create a healthy relationship with your pup into adulthood (eg, handler focus and engagement)
- Addressing and managing common puppy behaviours
- Basic health care
- Basic grooming
- Biological fulfilment
- Exposure and habituation (getting you pup used to random things in a man made environment)
- Socialisation

Plus more

If you are interested we have 2 spots left for our first class and then vacancies for our classes after that

Send us a message to book in 🙌

📸 Our Claire’s beautiful young Yaski

22/01/2024

Socialisation classes start back up this Saturday- message us to enquire 👌

19/01/2024

✨ Beginners Group Class ✨

Our first group class of the year will be held by one of our Directors, Zoie. If you have done Zoie’s puppy class and wish for further training with your pup, are struggling with an adult dog’s behaviour or simply want to spend time working with your dog to foster a positive relationship , these classes are you go to.

We work on all areas of basic obedience such as sit, drop, loose lead waking, recall, focus work, duration work, compliance of known commands around distraction and so on. Each exercise is targeted to the needs and skill level of you and your dog. It’s the perfect environment to challenge you and your dog under the guidance of a highly qualified trainer.

Zoie has 15 years of dog training experience and has a passion for offering training advice that is realistic to achieve in the confines of this busy world we live in.

Class starts on Tuesday 6th of February at 6:15pm. The course runs for five consecutive weeks and each lesson runs for around an hour.

Send us a DM for further info or to book.

19/01/2024

📣 Public holiday closure 📣