K-9 Balance Training & Behaviour

09/10/2023

http://www.k9balancetraining.com/reviews.html

K-9 BALANCE TRAINING & BEHAVIOUR

15/09/2023

Said a heartfelt farewell to Hunter today as he left to begin his new life with his wonderful new mum in Salisbury and Scotland. A real goofy boy who loves life, cuddles and the sound of his own voice 🥰🤣❤️❤️❤️❤️

08/08/2023

02/08/2023

Play time for the crew yesterday ❤️🐕🐾

14/06/2023

Always get your dog vet checked if they begin to show new behaviours, or if a behaviour is causing disruption to their or your daily life. Some pain is invisible! 🥰

Important Post!

Pain is a very complicated issue. It can vary in type, severity, and it can wax and wane. Unfortunately, animals can’t directly tell us they are in pain, and it won’t always be obvious.

As Clinical Animal Behaviourists, we are trained to always consider pain as a possible explanation for the cause of a behaviour issue or as a contributing factor. 🐕‍🦺

Out of the last 14 cases we have seen. We have suspected pain in 10 cases. Most of these have now been confirmed, either by a positive response to an analgesia trial prescribed by the referring Vet and/or confirmation of a medical diagnosis by the Vet upon further investigations (the rest are currently undergoing one of these routes). Generalising this, that is about 70% of the cases we see which end up being related to pain in some way 🤯. These 10 cases include a diverse range of problems ranging from aggressive behaviour towards people and/or dogs as well as noise sensitivities. However, in our caseload history, and in the clinical behaviour literature, it is well documented that pain can be involved in all sorts of behavioural difficulties, including but not limited to, separation problems, repetitive behaviours, various fears and phobias, and even hyper-activity!

These dogs were not overtly lame, limping, yelping or necessarily reluctant to exercise. The vast majority of these dogs were 'getting on' in life quite well other than the presenting behaviour problem. For example, most were running, playing fetch, jumping up onto sofas etc. However, once a thorough behaviour history has been taken, it can be apparent to us that we cannot exclude that pain is involved or that we have behavioural evidence that it might be present. To a Clinical Animal Behaviourist, 'pain' is considered to be a behavioural diagnosis (because it can explain a behaviour issue - we are not making a medical diagnosis, which we are not trained to do), but it is of course vitally important we work with a Vet for their medical expertise to guide investigations and hopefully identify what medical problem might be causing the pain.

This is one of the vital reasons why all clinical behaviourists like us work on vet referral and have a close working relationship with the referring vet 👨‍⚕️. This ensures that the vets medical expertise can be combined with our behavioural expertise resulting in the best possible care for the dogs we see. 👍

We are of course sometimes wrong, but we'd rather be wrong after trying, rather than missing it, and a dog living in chronic pain.

16/05/2023

15/05/2023

Another day, more fun 🥰
Shotteswell Secure Dog Walking Fields this time - new pond to play in to get some real swimming in + woodland + dummies/ balls + run free + best of all, Forrest learned to swim properly 🎉🐕🎾🍃💦

14/05/2023

Another wonderful outing to Ettington on Friday evening. Max fell in the pond 🙄 Fable learned the wind could deliver floating rings so no need to get wet 🙄 and the others just had a blast. Beautiful bluebells topped it off! Love this place!
Sue 🥰

14/05/2023

Another evening swimming practice at Ettington, and after 2 YEARS - Fable finally went in 🎉🎉May have mistook the long reeds as solid ground 🤦🏼‍♀️ but gave it plenty more goes, with a final swim through the rushes. Such a clever boy. Too busy encouraging to take photos.
Poor Hunter has discovered he doesn’t yet know how to swim, so waited until Sue went in for the dummy and finally gained his confidence to get it himself 🤣 Even Max got a bit wet in the reeds too🎉
Clever boys today 🥰
Thanks Sue for the extra wet effort today ❤️🤣

29/04/2023

Shock collar ban coming for UK!! 2024 🎉

In a historic moment for animal welfare, we’re welcoming news today that the Government is completely banning the use of remote controlled electric shock collars in England, as of 1 February 2024, following our ten year campaign. To find out more, visit thekennelclub.org.uk/shockcollarsbanned

21/04/2023

Hi All 👋🏻
We are looking for volunteers of owners and their yellow labradors, available on any or all of the next 4 Sunday mornings (10:30am). Your dogs must be very calm, or at the very least able to ignore other dogs, please.
We are working with this young man in an attempt to improve his emotional response to yellow labs, having been attacked by one previously. No direct contact at all, as will be working at a distance from you and your dogs.
Any offers to help welcome. Please message us directly on our page, to state which date/s you are able to help.
Many thanks,
Nicole 🙏🏻🫶🏻

19/04/2023

Another day of fun in the sun with the tribe

19/04/2023

Exercise in the sunshine, confidence building, new skills, following directional cues, learning from each other, and having fun! That’s what it’s all about!
❤️☀️🐕🐶🧠🐾

17/04/2023

What a day today was 😂🤪😴🤣

17/04/2023

One photo to sum up an entire day 🤣🤣

17/03/2023

21/01/2023

To all of my clients:
My apologies for any delay in my response over the next week or so; I have been in a car accident this week, and am need time to mend.

I will return to doggy-duty asap (preferably when I can stand up straight and see clearly 👀), as I miss my lessons already.

In the meantime, please contact by email/ message as I am rambling more than usual at the moment - I know, who thought it possible? 🤣🙄🤦🏼‍♀️ But, it’s true!

- I will try to reply when possible.

Best wishes to all ###

05/01/2023

Taking a break but not enough room on the sofa so young Rodney thought outside the box 🤦🏼‍♀️🙄🤣🥰

15/12/2022

Poppy, Forrest, Maya & Sam 🥰

11/12/2022

Lead work in the snow for Poppy today 🌨️
What a clever girl.

This video explains a little about things to work on with reactive dogs BEFORE you put them near what makes them reactive (triggers).
You always start at the easiest distraction/ trigger and work up to the hardest - in this case, other dogs.

11/12/2022

Hunter is very excited that it’s snowing this morning 🥰🎉❄️

01/12/2022

Can’t believe I forgot to announce the arrival of the rather large, ‘Hunter’ - the most handsome GSD X Belgian Malinois, 22mths old and an absolute ⭐️.
He is here, from Leeds, to find a new home due to no fault of his own 😢

01/12/2022

How is one supposed to get anything done during naptime, if naptime pins you down? 🥰🤔🤣🐾

28/11/2022

A few places left for the puppy class beginning 7th December

13/11/2022

Building a return with an object…
Using his natural instincts to hunt to my advantage. First go in the woods with his favourite ball - what a little star ⭐️

13/11/2022

He didn’t do a bad job for his first time trying this in the woods (and with his favourite ball, too). Such a clever boy.

13/11/2022

This young man has a tendency to guard his stolen objects/ people/ balls/ anything really…so this is just a snapshot of his standard go-to behaviour before the work begins 🫣🐾🤣

08/11/2022

Max is helping me research this morning 🙄🤣🥰

15/10/2022

Full day of behavioural work with a bosnian rescue yesterday. This poor girl is terrified of humans, hasn’t left the house since April and runs in endless circles in the garden, when not hiding in the house.
After some successful scent work in the garden, and an hour’s gradual effort, she let me sit this close to her 🥰🐾
Still not ready to take offered treats but no escape behaviour when I placed them down beside her 🎉