PAWS IN UNITY - Dog Training

22/11/2024

A fun filled snow day with my Walk & Trains 🐾❄️

Rolo, Ruby, Rowan & Chester 🥰

22/11/2024

Slowly thawing out after a day of Walk & Trains. Thank god for dryrobe keeping me nice and toasty 🥰

21/11/2024

Do you speak dog?

Assessing body language and learning to understand your dogs emotions are a vital part of dog guardianship.

Here’s a little run down of some body language signals to help you.

Whale eye - Whale eye is when a dog shows the whites of its eyes out of context. Whale eye can often be seen paired with stiffness in the face or body along with ears back, it’s a clear signal your dog isn’t happy about something.

Hackles up - Hackles are the hairs along your dogs neck and back. When your dogs hackles show this can mean they are anxious or unsure.

Lip licking - Lip licking is usually considered a submissive gesture meant to prevent aggression from escalating, it can still be a sign that a dog is stressed and uncomfortable with a situation.

Tail wagging - A tail wag doesn’t always mean a happy/friendly dog. A happy dog will have a loose tail wag, whilst a dog that is aggressive may have a high, stiff, tail wag. A nervous dog that doesn’t want to be approached may wag it’s tail, it will often be low or tucked with the end of the tail wagging slightly. It’s important to consider the breed of dog when assessing tail wags as many breeds are different.

This is just a very small percentage of body language signals to be aware of. If you need help assessing your dogs body language please send us a video, we would be happy to help. 🐶

21/11/2024

I did a thing 😁

I’m now officially a DTC Canine Reactivity Specialist!!

Working with reactivity cases is not new to me, however, furthering my education and ensuring I stay up to date with my practices is extremely important.

One of my main focuses for becoming a dog trainer, was to help reactive dogs navigate our world more confidently. I want to help owners understand the why around reactivity. Having real life experiences with reactivity I can honestly put myself in my clients shoes, understanding exactly what they are going through and the emotions that we as reactive dog owners experience.

Here to remind you that your reactive dog is a good dog 🐶💛

20/11/2024

New year, New you?

Let us help you with your New Year’s resolution with your dog. You’ll hit the year running with this incredible two week package.

Focusing on reactivity, confidence building, lead walking or recall.

Week one 👇

1hr 121 session
X1 Walk & Train
WhatsApp support

Week two 👇

X1 Walk & Train
1hr 121 session
WhatsApp support for an extra week

All this for just £99

📍Covering Bolsover & surrounding areas

Offer ends January the 31st 2025 with limited availability.

Must be used in the month of January or February 2025

Digital vouchers available for Christmas or Birthday gifts 🎁🎉

20/11/2024

Huge pate order !!

Rabbit
Chicken
Lamb
Turkey

And a couple of new flavours to try 👇

Wild boar
Goat
Ostrich

£4.50 a roll or three for £12

Can bring to your session or Hoopers class 😋

20/11/2024

We humans are creatures who tend to make a lot of comparisons. We compare different factors of our lives to those of other people – whether that’s how much money we make, the clothes we wear, the cars we drive, and so on.

When it comes to our dogs, we have more of a tendency to compare them to the dogs we have known before and expect them to behave in the same (or a very similar way). This expectation is usually dashed, and we find people saying things like, ‘My last dog wouldn’t do that,’ or something similar.

Every dog is an individual and will all have their little differences and quirks. Dogs of the same breed will behave differently, even if related. The breed I live with is the Border Collie and over the years between sharing my home and work with them and working with others I have encountered quite a few! Every single one of them has been different, even when closely related.

I have had a mother and daughter who were complete opposites in personality. One very independent and not bothered much about people, while the other wanted to climb in your pocket and have all the fuss available from anyone in the area.

Many of the dogs I have known were keen to work, as is generally expected with herding dogs, and then there was the one who, when presented with sheep, took himself back to the house to play with a ball.

The dog who shows his excitement by standing by the back door and doing a silent little pre-walk dance, and the one who shouts her head off at full volume as soon as she thinks something exciting is happening (although this is calming as she moves through adolescence!)

Every dog is affected by the combination of their genetics (nature) and the things they have experienced (nurture), which means that even siblings will be different – each one will receive a slightly different mixture of the genes from their parents, and their experience of life will differ slightly. Occasionally we see a story of people who plan to have a much-loved dog cloned, but even then, with identical genes, the experiences will never be identical so their personality may well be different.

For me, the differences are something to be celebrated. I have loved each one of my dogs very much despite (and, if I’m honest, sometimes because of) their differences and quirks. Every different dog brings us something new and finds their own places in our hearts so, even though they may present different challenges to us in their care and stewardship, they all teach us something and make us better dog people.

19/11/2024

Loose lead walking hack 🐕‍🦺

If you are in the process of teaching your dog to walk on a loose lead you need to ditch the straight lines.

Keeping your dog guessing will create more engagement and in return more reward opportunities.

Reward placement is critical. I like to reward behind, at my feet, or my side. (Never infront)

When teaching a loose lead we need to stick to the criteria. The more our dog practices pulling, the more ingrained that behaviour will become.

If you want to give your dog a brake from the training, head out in the car where you can allow them off lead freedom such as a secure field.

Speak less. Thats right, stop giving your dog 100s of cues that they don’t understand. Instead, capture the behaviour you want by marking and rewarding. You can add a cue later if you wish, however, it’s not actually necessary.

Don’t forget loose lead walking is about a loose lead, we don’t need to have our dogs stuck to our side, just a loose lead will do 🥰⭐️

19/11/2024

19/11/2024

Hoopers classes are now full!! Looking forward to seeing you all on the 24th

19/11/2024

Share your snow day pics with us ❄️☃️🌨️

18/11/2024

January diary is officially open if you’d like to book a 121 for January I’d advise doing it before Christmas 😁

17/11/2024

We’d love to know what other animals you all have?

Our home resembles a mini farm, we have six chickens, two Guinea pigs and of course our four crazy collies. I’m sure there is room for a goat or two 😄🫣

🐶🐈🐰🐹🐴🐐🦆🐥🐠🐑🦙🦎🐓🐾

17/11/2024

Meet Bailey & Fergie 🖤💛

Today the boys and their family worked really hard tackling some triggers in the home (mainly the doorbell/knocking on the door) Both dogs quickly got into our counter conditioning work, so much so I was able to nip to the van and come back in without any barking, I’m told for Bailey this has been a struggle for years. 🤩👏

It’s been a pleasure working with Bailey, Fergie and their family today, I’m looking forward to supporting them even more in the future 🐾⭐️