Paws-a-Bella

26/08/2024

🐾Happy International Dog Day! 🐾

30/07/2024

Power of reinforcement placement 💪
For me as a dog trainer, the power of where and when I reinforce my dogs is so important when training behaviours. Place training is a perfect example, I build value for the dogs being on the platform and then they are so keen to get on that platform no matter what 😅 Love training these guys 🥰

12/07/2024

As a dog parent, the reality is when you’re working with your dog you will have good and bad days. Some things will work, others won’t, sometimes you will make the wrong decisions, sometimes your dog may just not be in the right frame of mind for the training. But when it comes together and your dog just smashes it, those are the times to remember that it’s all worth it 💪 My youngest, Maple reminds me that dog training is a continuous learn experience and that a small change can make a massive difference to a training session! Thank you to places like which was a great training location 🐶

25/12/2023

06/08/2023

You start doing training with your puppy as soon as they start living with you. It may not be formal training, but your puppy is learning about boundaries and what is expected from them by their human family.

When Maple first arrived my main focus was to build her trust with me and allow her to experience her range of emotions when she was exposed to novel situations. It was important for me to show her that yes your reaction to something is valid but you have me for support and guidance. Every puppy I have trained and supported has taught me something and it’s important to recognise what approach will work for your puppy or dog 🐶

10/07/2023

🐥 Paws-a-Bella is exciting to announce the launch of their Animal Training Workshop. The first workshop is being run on 27th August 2023. Due to the nature of the Workshop, it is being held outside with limited spaces. For more information or to book on the workshop please contact via email [email protected] or visit www.paws-a-bella.com and complete the online contact us form.🐑

22/04/2023

The Paws-a-Bella team just love puzzle games 😍 They help teach such important life skills and great for providing cognitive enrichment 🐶

08/04/2023

Meet the Paws-a-Bella Team! Say hi to Chloe, Buffy & Maple the American Cocker Spaniels 😍

04/03/2023

The Paws-a-Bella Team are on TikTok! 🐶

03/02/2023

The Paws-a-Bella Team are running into the weekend with a whistle recall 🐶 🥰

21/01/2023

Say hello 👋 to Maple, the newest recruit to the Paws-a-Bella Team 🥰

17/01/2023

The end.

I could end this post with just the image, but as always, we need some context.

When I say 'emotions drive behaviour', I mean this completely. The reason your dog behaves is because of their emotions. Their desires. Their wants.

It is easy to render a dog's behaviour into a series of binary choices. They do this, to get that. They do this, to avoid that. We could do that with our behaviour too. If it were that simple, psychologists would be out of a job!

In reality, all the issues you're facing with your dog are to do with their emotional state.

When they spot another dog, they feel a surge of fear. Their body enters into a flight or fight state. They can't cope, and need a release - a strong reaction.

When they're walking down the street, scanning for cars, they are anxious. They are concerned a car is going to whizz round the corner. Their body is already on guard, ready to react.

When they bound up to someone and leap into their arms, it's because they're excited. Their arousal has spiked, and they cannot physically cope, so they release it in a burst of energy.

Emotions are not logical. They cannot fit into a neat little box. Your dog is an individual, and their emotional responses drive them to behave in the ways that they do.

So, how do we deal with this? How do we help our dogs cope with these strong emotions?

Each dog is an individual. But one concept is universal - safety.

A safe dog knows enough skills to move out of the way of another dog if unsure. A safe dog has enough positive street walks to know he'll be okay near cars. A safe dog who has been taught to think in arousal still expresses themselves happily, just with a little less carnage.

Safety can be taught. Safety can be created. But it can never be forced.

We need to meet our dogs needs. If we do? We attain our Ideal Dog.

P.S - I'm going live tonight at 7pm to discuss Reactive Roamers, a brand new workshop series in Dorset designed to make you and your dog feel safe in real-life scenarios. If you're interested, tune in here and I'll give you loads more details.

19/10/2022

The power of social learning, this mum and daughter team learning together 🥰

15/10/2022

Had some very special teachers today, some had feathers and the others had wool 🥰 The power of reward based training!

26/07/2022

The way we feel changes our behaviour. If we are scared, we might scream or get angry.

Yet we humans have much more opportunity to control our environment than our dogs do.

We have more opportunities to take a step back and manage our emotional responses.

Our dogs often feel at the mercy of the environment, so that they will be at the mercy of their emotional responses.

By being aware of how dogs feel when they are defensive or frantic, we can identify the reason for their emotional responses and step up to protect them from whatever in the environment is triggering them.

By being aware of our dog's emotions, we can give them the space they need and teach them how to deal with things at a safe distance.

We can teach them that they have choices.

When a dog feels safe and heard, they will act calmly.

We can't create steady behaviour in a dog who doesn't feel safe and calm.

And we certainly can't ethically change behaviour without knowing the reason it exists.

05/04/2022

YOUR DOG MAY NEED FRIENDS, BUT NOT RANDOM INTERACTIONS

You probably know that dogs are social animals. For dogs, social engagement is an extremely powerful motivator and will often be prioritised over food and sleep. The benefit of social behaviour for dogs is well supported by research, intraspecies play has been indicated to support with motor development, social development, and seems to make them feel happy (Sommerville et al., 2017). We also know that dogs that have been isolated from the mother and siblings at an earlier age are more likely to display social deficits, and similarly, pups taken from their mum too early are at greater risk of behavioural problems in the future (Dietz et al., 2018).

So given these benefits, you might assume we should be aiming for as many social interactions as possible. Sadly, things are not quite so simple. It has also been identified that dogs that visiting the dog park resulted in an increase of the stress hormone cortisol for most dogs (Carrier et al., 2014). Similarly, dogs showing hunched or low posture while at the dog park were more likely to show increased cortisol levels (Carrier et al., 2014). Even more concerningly, 98% of the dogs examined showed at least one stress related behaviour while at the park.

This is not such good news as it indicates that many dogs are not having the best time while at the park, which really defeats the purpose of going. It also means, interacting with lots of unknown dogs every day is actually quite a stressful experience. While being able to manage in a trickier social situation is an important skill, we cannot count this as pleasure time or enrichment. Increased cortisol levels are also associated with an increase in amygdala activity (the fear centre in the brain), which means dogs may also be more reactive whilst cortisol levels return to baseline (van Stegeren et al., 2007).

What is normal social interaction for the dog?

If we turn to studies of free ranging dogs, we can see that dogs are often observed to live within social groups which will share resources and territory (Font, 1987), sometimes forage socially (Majumder et al., 2013), and often choose to sleep in close proximity to each other (Bódizs et al., 2020). Dogs outside of social groups tend to avoid each other, and when they do interact, these interactions are commonly agonistic (Pal, 1998).

This means while dogs enjoy social interaction, this is primarily amongst their own social group. It can involve play, but also calmer activities such as foraging and sleeping. There is little evidence for any benefit of social interaction with unknown dogs, and it may be stressful for them because they have evolved to expect interactions with unknown dogs to be agonistic.

This raises questions about the sort of social interaction we provide for our dogs. If we want to meet our dogs’ social needs from an evolutionary perspective, we need to think about how to set up regular friendships for dogs to enable them to form social groups. This may be in the form of multiple dogs in the same household, or a dog from another household that your dog sees regularly.

The content of time spent together is also important. Social time should not just be based on play, but also encourage social sleep, foraging, grooming, and exploring. All of these are hard to achieve with unknown dogs met on walks. However, having a regular friend means dogs can spend time sharing a territory and exploring new locations together.

We also know social time with regular companions can have a great effect on improving dogs’ confidence. Cimarelli et al. (2021) found that dogs with stronger affiliations were more confident when faced with stressors, this is known as social buffering. This was an effect found in dogs that had been in stable social groups, which again indicates the quality of relationships is key to the social buffering effect.

Finally, remember this does not apply to all dogs. Some dogs are not social. This might be due to bad experiences in the past, a lack of socialisation opportunities, or just preference. It is fine for dogs to choose not to be social. There are lots of other great ways you can enrich your dog’s life.

But if you do have a social dog, make sure they have a regular companion. Local Facebook groups can be a great place to start. Interactions need to be set up appropriately and body language needs to be monitored to ensure the dogs are safe and enjoying themselves (a dog trainer can help with this). And once you have found your dog a friend, make sure you keep it up as the long-term benefits are incredible.

Full references available on our website. https://animalbehaviourkent.co.uk/our-blog/f/your-dog-may-need-friends-but-not-random-interactions

15/05/2021

We are soooo excited to officially share our handout on the Stages of Training. Thank you Doggie Drawings by Lili Chin for bringing this to life! This handout is used for clients to follow their dog's training progress!
It goes through all the stages of learning:
1. Acquisition (get the behavior)
2. Fluency (add the cue)
3. Generalization (proof the behavior)
4. Maintenance (maintain the behavior)

Edit to clarify:
1. This is FREE for you to use/make copies of for clients, but not the edit.
2. “As taught by Jean Donaldson” refers to Push, Stick, Drop

Thanks for all the support! 🐾💙🐾