Look at these excellent puppies, practicing their "settle on a mat" during class last night. 🥰
If you have a new puppy in your family, we've still got space in our next Puppy Class starting Wednesday 12th June at 5pm. Send us a message for more information.
📷 This is a short video that pans around the room to show three puppies each laying on their mats, waiting patiently while their humans deliver treats.
#toowoombapuppytraining #toowoombadogtraining #puppypreschool #puppytraining #rewardbaseddogtraining #positivereinforcement #toowoombasmallbusiness #supportlocal
We've finally got our Dogs QLD membership, which means we are ready to start trialling in sunny QLD. It looks like our first trial will be Tricks, our first try at Trick Dog Intermediate level. Here is a short clip of Wilbur learning "cross paws" left over right (he learned right over left as a pup, and we need both directions for the upcoming trial). 🥰 He's a great little learner, and so fun to train with.
📷 This is a video of a golden scruffy mixed breed dog laying on some dark brown carpet indoors. He crosses his front paws right over left to a cue given off camera, and left over right when prompted with an offered hand. Each response is marked with a "click" sound and he gets a small treat.
#trickdog #rewardbaseddogtraining #positivereinforcement #dogtricks #olddognewtricks #dogtrainingtoowoomba #dogsoftoowoomba
It's breakfast time! 🥓🍳🥞
Wilbur is enjoying his Ziwipeak dry food scattered in the grass this morning. Scatter feeding is a super simple way to make meal times more fun! It encourages your dog to follow their nose as they seek out each piece of food. You don't need anything - just toss the food over some grass. ❤️
If you have multiple dogs, you might use separate spaces to introduce this feeding strategy, or give it a miss if you think one or more of your pups is likely to stress about eating in company.
#ditchthebowl #canineenrichment #foraging #rewardbaseddogtraining #positivereinforcement #dogtrainingtoowoomba
📷 This is a video of a scruffy golden mixed breed dog sniffing in the green grass as he looks for his breakfast, which has been scattered over the area.
Point-to-point flying is a good way to encourage pet parrots to exercise more when you have limited space. This can be achieved by teaching a parrot to fly to an offered hand or between two perches. ❤️ This is our Greenwing Macaw flying from perch to hand down our main hallway.
Syringe Training with Scramble
This is a clip of Scramble taking his medication and supplements this morning, to try to address some feather plucking behaviour and chronic kidney and liver issues. When these issues first emerged at the start of the year, we were faced with the very unhappy times that come with restraining a parrot that hasn't learned to voluntarily take assorted liquids from a syringe.
At the earliest opportunity (with a break in medications), we set about building positive associations and teaching Scramble to take yummy fluids (e.g. apple juice) from a syringe. We then introduced various other fluids, with different tastes, continuing to reward Scramble for swallowing the sweet, plain, bitter, etc liquids.
Following some further diagnostics this past week, by the wonderful team at Bird and Exotics Veterinarian in Sydney, Scramble is now on three oral medications/supplements to support his little body and get his organs working as they should. Thanks to the training we did earlier in the year, Scramble sees the syringes and eagerly anticipates his twice daily dosing.
Good boy Scram! <3 If you would like some help with your parrots training or behaviour, we can help - get in touch via messenger or send us an enquiry through our website.
Just a quick update on Elmo the retrieving macaw - in just a couple more sessions we've greatly increased distance (how far Elmo moves to both get the ball and place it in my hand). He has demonstrated confidence with this skill now, so we can think of some fun ways to make it more interesting (such as him putting a ball through a hoop rather than into my hand). 😁
For a bit of fun this week, Belinda has been teaching Elmo the Greenwing Macaw to "retrieve to hand". This is a short video showing the approximations, or baby steps, we've taken to reach this point. All up, we've done about 6 short sessions over 4-5 days. There are all sorts of fun tricks we can build from here - flying retrieve, birdy basketball, putting coins in a piggy bank, etc. <3
These are the exact same steps we use to teach a dog (or a cat) to pick up an object too! You just need an object that is easy and comfortable for your pet to pick up, some treats, and a marker word (yes, good, nice) or signal (clicker, thumbs up) to let them know when they've got it right. Happy training!
We got this amazing snufflepillar from Pawz and More to help keep Wilbur busy as he continues to recover from his TPLO surgery. Such a fun and colourful way to serve up a little lunchtime snack. 🤩
Wilbur got a new Rogz Tumbler food toy today. These are some short clips from his first time using it.
As you can see, it encourages him to push, paw, and chase to get the food to fall out. In these clips, the toy is set to the hardest difficulty. This meant it had to be flipped to make food fall out (rather than just pushed).
Food toys are a fun way to keep your dog busy for longer at mealtimes and to encourage different types of movement and activity as they work to get their food.
Different toys can promote chasing, pawing, nudging, licking, sniffing, holding, and chewing.
What food toys have you tried with your dog (or other pets)? 🤩
Scramble is our Crimson-bellied Conure. He is almost 3 years old and was raised by Belinda when he unexpectedly hatched from an addled (shaken) egg in 2020.
Unfortunately, he has recently started plucking feathers from his wings, back, and sides. This started in the midst of our moving and seemed likely to be related to stress.
Despite stress being a strong contender as the cause, we took him to the vet for a check-up and blood test. This revealed a staph infection that required a week of antibiotics and a possible chronic kidney problem that requires follow-up up bloods next month.
Treating his infection meant restraining him twice daily for oral medication. Over the course of the week, he became increasingly fearful and avoidant when he saw the syringe in our hands. It was extremely upsetting for everyone.
Now that his infection is cleared up, we are working on teaching him to take liquid from a syringe. At first, he was very cautious of the syringe, having had recent unhappy experiences with one, but the taste of apple juice won him over.
As we continue to work with him, we will introduce plain and then bitter tasting liquids, with tasty rewards to say "thanks for swallowing that".
It would have been ideal to have taught this skill prior to needing it, but sometimes we just don't prioritise these skills due to the illusion of not needing them.
Sometimes it is necessary to do things to our pets that they don't like, but we can work hard to make those instances few and far between. Teaching them to participate in their own care for weighing, medication, grooming, etc is a valuable investment of time and effort.
If this is something you would like to explore with your pets, get in touch via message or email.
Foraging is a great way to occupy more of your pet's time and energy with the task of finding food. Parrots in the wild spend their day flying, climbing, and walking around to meet their daily nutritional needs. This looks very different to eating from a freely available bowl. This is a short video of Goblin the Princess Parrot learning to manipulate a new toy to get seeds to fall out. We've used sunflower seeds to make it extra rewarding to interact with the toy. There are lots of commercially available foraging options for dogs, cats, birds, and many other species! You can also make lots of homemade foraging opportunities.
The past month or so, Belinda and Wilbur have been brushing up on their obedience skills (heeling, position changes, turns) in preparation for their first Rally O trial.
Wilbur managed a very happy 89/100 (qualifying score is 75) despite handler nerves/error at the first exercise (10 point deduction).
Rally O is a sport that focuses on teamwork and having fun. Tight leads, stern words, and corrections are heavily penalised or even disqualified.
We can't wait for our next try in the ring in the New Year. ❤️ Remember you CAN teach an old dog new tricks! Wilbur will be 9 years old in January, and this is his first ever try at trialling in any sport. Look at his wriggly little tail!
When we moved to Sydney, I joined the local dog training club with Wilbur as a way to meet some doggy people in our area. The Brush Farm Dog Training Club Inc is a lovely club that teaches obedience skills using reward-based methods.
The classes have been a fun way to find gaps in some of the formal obedience cues we've dabbled with over the years, and we have been doing our homework to get better. Wilbur's ability to walk in a formal heel pattern or to sit squarely beside me are irrelevant to his being a "good dog", but we are enjoying having some new training goals to work towards.
Today we walked to the ovals where classes run to do some practice. Unfortunately someone else turned up seconds after we did and proceeded to sit down and ignore their dog as it ran wherever it wanted. It was to the left of frame, which is apparent with Wilbur's focus being drawn that way.
While this is not a clip of tight heelwork and steely focus, there are a few things that might be helpful to notice:
1. I didn't nag Wilbur to start. It was no problem for him to notice the other dog and assess whether it was something for him to concern himself with. I kept the lead relaxed and rewarded Wilbur with food when he turned his attention to me.
2. His attention remained split as we started, particularly as he veered left towards where the other dog was. I encouraged him to move towards me using a happy voice and rewarded the moments where he was closest to me and looking at me.
3. Wilbur does not usually rush towards other dogs like he does in this clip. That confused me at the time, but i didn't get mad or yank on the lead. Again, i kept the lead as relaxed as possible and rewarded Wilbur when he came back. On watching the video, I can see that Wilbur was looking the other way as the dog approached and it would have been quite the shock as it suddenly appeared in front of him.
4. I asked Wilbur for something simple, rewarded him, and opted to finish there. The stakes of this train
This is an all time favourite video of ours, showing baby Wilbur having a total malfunction when Elmo walks over and says "hello".
It is also an excellent example of why management is so important when you bring a new puppy home!
We have lots of pet parrots who are accustomed to being out of their cages most of the day. When Wilbur joined the family, it was important that he not have the opportunity to learn that chasing birds is fun.
The puppy pen meant that Wilbur's response to Elmo was limited to the sandpit. He didn't learn that pouncing towards a bird causes them to flap, squawk, or fly (which would be fun to chase).
It was only after several weeks of managed interactions and reinforcement opportunities for engaging in settled behaviour or other activities when in birdy company that Wilbur was allowed to share space with the parrots without a pen or leash in place.
If you need help settling a new puppy or pet into your home, get in touch! Otherwise, enjoy this video of Wilbur and Elmo.
As we get settled into our new home, we have found ourselves in possession of a lot of cardboard and packing paper (moving and IKEA).
Wilbur enjoyed a shreddable delight at breakfast today - his dry food scrunched into packing paper and placed into a small box.
For an expert shredder like Wilbs, this puzzle posed no problems. As you can see, he is adept at sepating the biscuits from the paper as he goes.
This is an easy and fun foraging activity. Use some discretion - if your dog ingests paper or cardboard, this isn't the puzzle for them!
Weekly treat prep!
We often recommend using soft, meaty treats for training in distracting environments (like walks, training classes, etc). This could be something like cooked chicken, cooked steak, or chopped up dog roll.
This is a time lapse of our weekly treat prep, chopping and portioning a 2kg Prime 100 roll for use during training sessions and classes this week. It takes 10-15 minutes. If you were only training one or two dogs, this treat supply would last AGES!
These portions of dog roll keep for up to 3-4 days in the fridge (if they weren't all eaten before that). We freeze what we aren't using right away.
Whenever we are near a set of scales, Wilbur practices stepping on, sitting, and waiting for a treat. This makes monitoring his weight for health, nutrition, medication, etc very easy.
Wilbur has practiced hopping on and off scales at the vet clinic and various pet shops, and sometimes we play hop on/hop off on miscellaneous objects on walks too. It is all a fun game!
If your dog is worried about stepping on the scales at the vet, it might help to practice stepping on a similar object at home first. Reward them with a treat for approaching the platform, stepping one foot on, two feet, etc.
When they are comfy stepping on and off a low platform at home or on walks, you might try again at the vet clinic or pet shop. Take some treats!
Zuul is a 10mth old Staffy X who was pulling like a freight train on walks.
Zuul's human has been doing lots of great loose lead walking practise over the past few weeks and things are already much easier!
As long as the lead is loose, Zuul is free to wander and sniff. She gets treats when she checks in with her human and when she turns back when called. The goal is for walks to be fun at both ends of the lead.
They still have some work to do around other dogs (Zuul gets very excited), but they are on their way and already making progress there too.
Great job Team Zuul!
Arthur, Lilly, and Lacey enjoyed some rough and tumble at the end of class tonight, then their humans did a great job helping them settle again before home time.
