Dorset Paws

How much do you engage with your dog on your walks? 🐶🧎‍♀️ Walks shouldn't just be about walking from A to B before going home, with the aim just to give your dog physical exercise 🏃 Instead, it should be about exploring the environment together and having fun together! Have a think, does your dog focus easily on you at home but becomes very selective when you're out on your walks? 🤔 Do you interact with your dog on your walks, excluding recalls away from other dogs/bikes etc. or to put them back on lead at the end? Make yourself as valuable as the environment around them, have fun together 🥰

How much do you vary your dog's dinner? 🍽 Not only are there benefits for your dog's enjoyment (mental enrichment) but also the nutritional benefits 😊 Raw food is an easy way of doing this because its easy to rotate round a variety of meats but they're also commonly mixed with vegetables or fruit. Each meat has also got slightly different textures. However, it can be done with any food! Tonight Aloy's had raw goat, drizzled with a tiny bit of natural honey, alongside beef bone broth, sardines in fresh water and a little bit of flax seeds and bee pollen! (She's also had a small scoop of Millies Wolfheart highland mix kibble but she got these through a training session) 🦴 The little nutritional extras should be varied to ensure they get benefits from each, whilst not risking giving them too much. For example the nutritional benefits of tonight's dinner include: 🐐 Goat meat - high protein, low fat, good for digestion 🐝 Natural honey - vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, plus good for skin 🐄 Bone broth - minerals such as magnesium, calcium and sulphur, so good for the nervous system and heart health 🐟 Sardines - contain omega 3 fatty acids and good for the immune system and metabolism 🥜 Flax seeds - good for gut health, inflammation and the skin 🐝 Bee pollen - good for urinary health, nutrition absorption in the gut and a wide range of vitamins That's just a few of the benefits of these foods! 🥰 Tomorrow night she'll get a completely different variety.

Where does your dog's name come from? 🤔 Aloy's named after the main character from Horizon, a PlayStation game. The name Aloy means 'glorious in battle' in old High German. My husband started playing the game years ago, and I would wind him up by calling the character Alloy 🛞😂 Eventually the name Aloy (Ay-Loy) grew on me and I really liked its unquieness. I've since played the game and really enjoyed it! Although my Aloy is definitely not quite the bad ass from the game 🤣

This evening, Aloy and I went for a bit of training and play time at @pawseidonk9 soft play area 🥳 Something different to provide mental stimulation whilst her paw is still healing! She really enjoyed herself even though she's not feeling 100% and we used it as an excuse to work on some new behaviours and practice some she knows on unstable surfaces 🪼 Thoroughly recommend it especially for new puppy experiences and building confidence in any dog 😁

🤒 How does your dog cope with medical treatment? 🤕 If your dog is a bit of a sensitive soul when it comes to injuries, then doing training before something goes wrong can make the world of difference. Aloy is very uncomfortable letting anyone look at her when something hurts, and if it's somewhere obscure it can be incredibly difficult. However, when it comes to the areas we've done previous training it's MUCH easier 😅 For example she's recently cut her paw pad, because she's used to me inspecting her paw pads all over (including the webbing!) she let me check the cut over properly because she trusted me not to irritate the cut. Today we've done practice of leg and head bandaging, nail trimming and dremmeling, plus pretend ear drops 💦 Consent is important to help your dog trust you. Having a clear way for your dog to tell you to stop helps massively. For head inspection and treatment we use a chin rest. If she lifts her head, I stop ✋️ So maintaining the chin rest tells me she's comfortable enough to continue. Should Aloy ever need ear drops, she will know the process for the treatment so the stress from it will be less (depending on what's wrong) 🥴

Does your dog behave differently when around their 'friends' compared to other dogs? 🐶 Emotions are complex things and some (especially young) dogs can struggle to manage how they behave around dogs they know. Aloy is now -normally- able to be sensible around dogs we meet on walks, recalling and not being over the top 🤯 however, she also has two separate 'best friends' that she finds far too exciting and she loses all ability to manage her behaviour. She turns into a chaotic teenager 😂 Breaking down dog relationships is interesting. Tarni the Labrador doesn't have the same crazy energy and often finds Aloys chaotic behaviour a bit much. Recently Aloy went through a month or so of being sensible and calm(ish) around her and we could actually see Tarni getting excited to see her! Unfortunately, we've reverted back to crazy girl 🙄 It means more management is required, including shorter play time together - especially this evening, with their first time swimming together because of the excitement and toys around 💦 As you can see in the video, Aloy quickly loses interest in her own toy (which is Tarni's anyway 🙈) and wants the other one. Tarni doesn't want ant conflict and always gives it up immediately, as Aloy wants to play with her and so will grab it for a game of tug. Yet with her other best friend Gunner, she wouldn't dream of taking absolutely anything off him because his body language is very different and he will snap at her if she's rude. Whilst Tarni is too sweet! Make sure you always consider each dog's emotions when socialising, implement any management necessary and don't be afraid to take calm-down breaks too (which Aloy definitely needs at times!) 😅

Moving between sit, down and stand are simple ways to test your dogs focus and listening skills 👂 Here, I'm working in a different environment, which highlighted a few issues. Firstly, I already knew Aloy has a tendency to predict the next move (very common) and so kept breaking the down. We're working on this by not reinforcing the return to position - an old habit I used to do. Secondly, I obviously practice the motion to stand with her right in front of me too much. Meaning that she thinks the stand position requires her proximity. We'll continue to practice this, but during this session we then worked on impulse control... video yet to come!

Chaos 🔁 Calm Young dogs can sometimes struggle to regulate their excitement levels, but there are simple way to help them. It's so wonderful to watch them run around and play like happy lunatics, but if you're not being vigilant then that can lead to rude, pushy play when they get overwhelmed or tired. Breaking up play for a little scatter feeding or training is a good way to teach them to take those breaks and help to avoid any overwhelm 🥰

5 minutes training makes so much difference, you wouldn't believe it 💕 I know at times it can feel like training is going to be hard work, require all your effort and like you won't see any changes in the session. I've been there, but as soon as I've pushed myself to try just a little bit here and there - firstly, you find you start to enjoy it (and your relationship with your dog blossoms) and secondly soon enough you start seeing progress with each session! 🥰 Go on, make that bit of effort and I promise it'll pay off ❤️

When you both have the same chew, but theres is clearly better 🤦‍♀️ Resource guarding in dogs is normal, they have a rule of proximity means possession. Dogs who experience their owners or other dogs taking things away from them are more likely to show it is extremes. Aloy knows she can't take the chew away from Gunner, not because she cares about upsetting him but because she knows he'll snap at her if she tries ❌️ Gunner experienced resource guarding a lot from another dog when he was young and consequently doesn't trust other dogs around food. Because Aloys always been good at respecting his wishes, he's comfortable that he doesn't need to guard at all and so they can safely have chews together like this. Aloy on the other hand, will let anyone or any dog take anything off her 🤣 but that's her personality and past experience.

Thought I filmed a whole training session 🙃 I stead only got the first 2 minutes 🤦‍♀️ Your training sessions should start easy, with little mental warm ups. It depends on your aims (and your dog!), sometimes it might be a short play session to build enthusiasm or maybe a down stay to build focus 👀 Yesterday Aloy and I played around with a range of things, starting with formal heelwork and then lots of impulse control games 🥰 She did fantastic, of course because the camera wasn't recording 😂

Scentwork is great because you can train it ANYWHERE! 🌍 I almost always have a piece of kong on me and play around with indication or search work when we have a spare few minutes. Today was the first time practicing around distractions and of course we went all in with people, trolleys and cars moving about 🤣 However, she did really well and so I was able to push her even further and began to add physical contact too! Scentwork is so beneficial in so many ways, such as the natural outlet for sniffing, a very calming behaviour. The search itself and then the indication requires focus and brain power 🧠 A good session will lead to a chilled out, content dog 🥰 So very worthwhile!