Gentle Paws Animal Services

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Halifax, NS
Gentle Paws Animal Services

Tabea Stawitz, Certified Separation Anxiety Trainer and Certified Dog Behavior Consultant. Halifax NS

10/07/2024

Hello Everyone,

My email is currently down. Please bear with me while I figure it out!

Sorry,

Tabea

08/27/2024

Happy international Dog day from these two weirdos and the one who started it all

07/31/2024

Congratulations to all the amazing businesses nominated for CommunityVotes - Halifax!

Official 2024 Community Voting Awards Platform for Halifax, NS. Where the community votes for their favourites every year.

05/26/2024

Hi Everyone,
Priest has been really sick the last little bit. This has led to sleepless nights and just general chaos in the house. I feel like I missed some messages. So if you are waiting for a reply and haven't gotten it. Please reach out!

I should add he is getting better! And we are sleeping through the night again.

05/14/2024

Management is so important and honestly so boring!

There is nothing wrong with dogs eating chews separately, being in a different room, or in a crate!

Please set your dogs up for success.

PS this is a dog house and we will forever have dog hair on the floor and mud everywhere. My house looks like dogs live here and I don’t care!

05/05/2024

Thank you .rescue for allowing me to come to today’s event.
Had a blast and met some very cute dogs!!!

Thank you for everyone who stopped by by me and table for a chat, bought a book, took some samples.

Hopefully see you again next year 😊❤️

05/04/2024

Don’t forget to stop by and visit me & tomorrow at Steele Wheels in bayers lake!! This event is in support of .rescue ❤️

**Museum entry is $12 for adults, $10 for students and seniors, 12 and under are free

05/01/2024

Join the Joy Ride!

We are so excited for this Saturday, May 4th!

Steele Wheels in Bayers Lake, Halifax, NS is hosting a pet-friendly marketplace to support APAC! 🫶🏽🫶🏽

Bring your best friends, those with fur and those without, to Steele Wheels and take in the pet-friendly marketplace and beer garden, including lots of local breweries and featuring Crafty Beasts Brewing Co and the launch of their latest pup-beer, Catch Pumpkin Ale! 0% Alcohol, 100% pup-approved!!

There will be prizes, food specials, and on-site pet portraits from Wet Nose Images - Halifax Dog Photographer.

$12 Adults, $10 Seniors/Students, Children 12 and under and fur-kids are always free with a paying adult!

Huge thanks to our vendors and beer garden partners!! ♥️

pets

Made with Love by Lisa Doucet
baileys.barkery
Bog Dog
Homeward Bound Pet Food Delivery Halifax
Salty Dogs Barkery
Made By Liz , Chloe's Pawsome Designs
Chow Time Pet Foods
Gentle Paws Animal Services
Kayla’s Dog Services
East Coast Dog
Sam & Paisley Treat Company
Cheesy Paws Dog Bakery
AprilVets Bayers Lake
Garrison Brewing Co.
Propeller Brewing Company
Bulwark Ciders
Nova Scotia Spirit Co.
Coldstream Clear Distillery Dartmouth
Lake City Cider
Schoolhouse Brewing

And very special thanks to Steele Wheels for hosting this amazing event!
🚗🐾🍻📸🥳

04/15/2024

You are doing fine. Keep doing the things that work for your dog even if it’s slow. Every persons journey looks very different. Since dogs are all individuals it’s important to focus on the dog in-front of us, not other people’s dogs.

03/16/2024

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored” -Aldous Huxley

Just because you ignore science and pretend to be ignorant to it, doesn’t make you right. And a lot of you need some science in your life!!

Training with tools hurt, if they didn’t they wouldn’t work. It really can’t be more straight forward.

Photo credit

03/09/2024

I know everyone has their own feelings on this matter.
But someone reached out to the kennel club about LickiMat hosting an aversive trainer and this was their response. I am so glad the kennel club will be reviewing this. And as suspected lickimat.uk has dirty deleted their post while ignoring the whole backlash.

03/08/2024

I have supported LickiMat for a long time now. Between spending my money and recommending them to clients and friends. But at this point please buy and alternative like SodaPup or WEST PAW because platforming an abusive trainer is just not acceptable in this day and age.

You are always allowed to make your own choices, but personally my support for Lickimat ends here.

12/04/2023

I love my dogs. I would die and probably even kill for my dogs.
But when I got my dogs I had expectations for all of them. And each one has turned out wonderful in their own way, but not in the way I wanted.
And honestly that is wonderful. But has also required a grieving process. I had to let go of my expectations for my dogs, and that required me to grieve for them. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t love my dogs.
Many of my clients have gone through the same process because their dog didn’t turn out exactly how they wanted. And their expectations they had when getting a dog was not met. There is nothing wrong with that, grieve the dog you wanted, for as long as you need. But also make sure you are meeting your dogs needs for who they actually are.

Edit: this post has been misinterpreted by some people. There is nothing wrong with any of my dogs! There has never been anything wrong with any of my dogs. But if you must know.
Priest is very anxious, he has a lot of anxiety, separation anxiety and generalized anxiety disorder. This was not something I want for any of my dogs and it makes life a bit of a struggle because everything requires perfect planning.
Prudence is super food picky, she spits out almost all treats and rejects food. This means I have had to figure out what will work and what to use very carefully in every situation. And what will motivate her.
Paco was very frustrated on leash, he wanted to say hi to everyone and when he didn’t get his way he would bark and lunge and it was honestly a nightmare. He also came to me with no bite inhabition since he was an only puppy so he bite all the time. It was a lot of work for a 19 year old college student with her first dog.
I don’t know how else to phrase this. But my dogs are and have always been amazing. And anyone suggesting otherwise can honestly back off! This post has nothing to do with that. I do hope it helps some of you feel better. And if it doesn’t I am sorry.

12/03/2023

The crying out method is not recommended for dogs or babies. It leads to learned helplessness.
Your dog and your baby simply learn that no amount of crying, barking or whining will help so they just give up. Sometimes they will develop other symptoms, but most of the time they just stop making noise, but continue to feel the anxiety that made them cry, whine or bark in the first place. Now they just feel that anxiety and stress quietly.

12/01/2023

Dogs are not spiteful or do things we don’t like.
Shoes smell like you so dogs often sleep near them or grab them. When they get bored shoes are near it is an easy object to start chewing on.
But shoes also make lovely chew toys in general.

11/30/2023

Flooding

Often times when we are training we hear just go to the park and eventually they will get used to dogs.
In humans we call it exposure therapy. But even with exposure therapy it is done slowly or at least should be.

Flooding causes dogs to become overwhelmed and shut down. The opposite of what we are trying to achieve. We want a dog who associates scary things with happy things. Not scary things with learned helplessness.

11/28/2023

We have a HUGE but SMALL favor to ask ❤️

On our business page Gentle Paws Animal Services:
✨ Go to the 3 little dots … on the side of page
✨ Hit “Invite Friends”
✨ Select "Invite All"
✨ Done

You just SUCCESSFULLY supported our businesses for $0.00 and less than 30 seconds of your time 🙏

Thank you for supporting small and local businesses 🥰

** Copied but wanted to share as this is an amazing way to help us small business owners for free.

We highly encourage our small business friends to copy this and use it! This is to support the small business, we all need the help!!! **

11/27/2023

I have gained a few more followers recently. So I figured I would introduce myself.

My name is Tabea I am a certified separation anxiety trainer, I am a certified dog behaviour consultant, and certified dog trainer. I love helping people build a strong relationship with their dogs. I share my home with two companions. Priest and Prudence, who my whole world revolves around when I am not working. And I love to do continuing education.

Address

Halifax, NS

Telephone

+19023052550

Website

http://www.gentlepaws.ca/

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No experience needed!

Separation anxiety is not going to go away when you do manners training, or what people would consider conventional training. Separation anxiety needs to be worked on differently. There also isn’t any amount of manners training you could have done to prevent separation anxiety. Separation anxiety is a complex behaviour issue, that needs to be addressed in carefully.

Hopefully this answers some of your questions. If you have any questions please reach out!

Many of my clients tell me they are responsible for their dogs separation anxiety. They spent too much time with them or let them sleep on the bed with them. There is no evidence that any of those things cause separation anxiety. There is no science that say what exactly causes it. But there is science that shows us what doesn’t. Keep loving those dogs, letting them sleep on your bed, and hanging out with you.

Love doing research and will admit when I am wrong!

Your natural gate is not the same as your dog. Which causes them to often be a head of you. The harness does not cause your dog to pull. Dogs can learn to walk on a harness just as easily as on a collar and you wont cause any long term damage to their trachea when your dog is wearing a harness vs a collar. The same way my tall friend isn’t a bad person for walking faster than me.

Sometimes 6 feet is not enough. And there is nothing wrong with that. My preference for personal space is more than 6 feet and as a general rule that is excepted and my wishes are considered. And if there is a place where that’s not possible, I generally won’t go. Same with some dogs, but they don’t always have the ability to tell you, this party isn’t their scene. Learn to read your dog’s body language and the be ready to advocate for your dogs need and right for personal space.

Stop making statements that make other dog handlers feel bad or guilty!! What works for your dog may not work for anyone else’s dog. Dogs are not one size fits all.

Your vocabulary when you speak or think about your dog is really important. We want a relationship with our dog. Not a dictatorship. Or at least I want a relationship not a dictatorship.

Paystations are a great way for you to set your training up for success. They make it easy to remember to do some training and with treats near by you don’t have to search for any equipment to do the training.

Stop making success impossible for your dog! Start small, make training fun. Set up your environment so your dog can be successful! Making it too difficult for your dog just means they will become frustrated and stop trying.

There are no guarantees in dog training.