Crufts 2024 Heka the naughty nugget on the move in his Junior class where he came in as reserve (4th) he did me proud and to think we only started showing 11 months ago. #crufts2024 #cruftsgundogday2024 #gundog #weimaraner #Bristoldog #rewardbaseddogtraining #looseleashshowing
Just some of the reasons why learning gundog skills can really help you and your dog to have fun and understand each other.
🐾 Have fun
🐾 Strengthen your bond
🐾 Harness your dogs natural ability
🐾 Improve your dogs recall
🐾 Meet your dogs needs
🐾 Help to improve your communication.
🐾 Big and small dogs
🐾 Reward based training
We have a Gundog skills course starting tomorrow evening in Brislington so why not book one of the remaining spaces and have some fun with your dog!
Follow the link to book a space.
https://www.bristoldogschool.co.uk/gundogskills.html
Clair has competed in working tests and worked her dogs in the field for many years. She has created this course to help you and dog your dog to enjoy training and harness your dogs natural ability using only kind reward based methods
*This is a foundation skills course more advanced classes will be held later in the year.
#gundogtraining #gundogskillstraining #gundog #gundogskillsclasses #workingcockerspaniel #gundogs #gundogtrainer #gundogskills #gundogsofinstagram #gundogdummytraining #dummy #gundogdummy #hermanwirehairedpointer #weimaraner #labrador #bristol #bristoldogtraining #bristoldogtrainer #bristoldogtrainingclasses #rewardbasedtraining #rewardbaseddogtraining #rewardbasedgundogtraining #positivereinforcementdogtrainer #positivereinforcementdogtraining #positivereinforcementgundogdogtraining #cockerspaniel
Its that time of year again. I’m hearing of lots of dogs coming down with Kennels cough (canine infectious tracheobronchitis).
Its highly contagious even to vaccinated dogs and could put immune compromised dogs in danger
With this in mind please don’t …
🐾Walk dogs in public
🐾Attend training classes
They probably won’t feel up to much anyway as they’re fighting the infection and to much movement can make the coughing worse.
Do try to minimize the spread and keep your dog warm and as comfortable as possible.
Your Vet will diagnose your dog but when you call to get your appointment tell then what you suspect it is. Most vets will ask you to wait out side of the practice possibly in your car again to minimise cross infection.
Many dogs will get over Kennel cough in their own time in a few weeks with rest and plenty of fluids but your vet may recommend things to sooth the throat such as Manika Honey, cough syrups and they may in some cases prescribe antibiotics.
#kennelcough
#dog
#bristoldog
#bristoldogtrainer
#dogadvice
#Rewardbaseddogtraining
#bristol
#doghealth
#canine infectious tracheobronchitis
A whistle stop tour (pardon the pun) through teaching the stop whistle cue with Molly and her mum @ashesteele. These guys make the best team and Molly has also started working on this with her dad too. Whistles are so clear and provide easy cues for our dogs to follow if they’re conditioned properly. The stop cue is about getting a dogs attention for safety reasons and also providing extra help on a retrieve if its needed. #stop #whistlestop #gundogtraining #gundogtrainer #goldenretriever #bristoldogtraining #bristoldogtrainer #rewardbaseddogtraining #rewardbasedgundogtraining #bristol #bristoldog
A happy new year to all the lovely owners and dogs that we have seen in classes and private sessions in the last twelve months from Clair, Amy, Sarah, Liz and Asha.
We look forward to seeing you in 2024 #happynewyear2024wishes #happynewyears2024 #happynewyear #dog #bristoldogtraining #bristoldogtraininer #bristoldogbehaviour #bristoldogbehaviourist #bristolgundogtrainer #bristolpuppytrainer #bristolpuppyclass #bristolpuppytraining #dogtraining #dogtrainer #dogtrainingtips #dogtrainingadvice #dogtrainersofinstagram #dogtrainers
Can you play tuggy with your gundog? Yes you can it doesn’t make them hard mouthed and can improve your bond and your retrieve. And yes we do let them win and encourage them to come in and keep playing. #weimaraner #bristol #bristoldogbehaviour #gundogtraining #gundogskillsclasses #gundogs #gundogtrainer #gundogskills #retrieve #tugtoy
Are you meeting your dogs breed specific needs?
Yes all dogs have the same basic array of behaviours but some breeds have breed specific behaviours that are strongly expressed.
A simple example of this would be retrievers need to retrieve, collies need to herd and sight hounds need to chase.
Heka is a hunt point retrieve (hpr) breed this means he loves to pick things up carry them around and bring them to me he also loves a good sniff around in the bushes. He is driven to retrieve and he gets paid for doing it if he brings things to me. This has transferred to the post being delivered. He enjoys collecting it and bringing it to me for his reward.
Yes we can do specific types of training and get certain toys to help meet the breed specific needs of our dogs but sometimes we can meet those needs in every day life.
Think about the behaviours that your dog expresses and how you harness them positively instead of them being a problem.
#breedspecificbehaviour #gundog #gundogtrainer #bristoldogtraining #bristoldogtrainer #bristoldog #bristol #retriver #retrieve #harnessingnaturalability
Does your dog give you consent?
We don’t command our dogs these days we cue behaviours and we do this with the cooperation and consent of our dogs but how do we know we have consent and readiness to engage?
I teach eye contact as my consent cue if my dog is looking at me they are telling me they focussed snd ready to do what is asked of them, if they are looking elsewhere they’re not ready yet.
Here we see Atum demonstrating a retrieve, he really wants to get that dummy!, he’s looking at me telling me he is ready to go.
Not only does eye contact give consent and readiness for various experiences and behaviours. In gundog terms the focus also has a safety aspect ensuring a dog doesn’t get injured.
Does your dog give consent or cue readiness to engage in a task?
#gundogtraining #gundogskillstraining #gundog #gundogskillsclasses #gundogs #gundogtrainer #gundogskills #gundogsofinstagram #gundogdummytraining #dummy #gundogdummy #retrieve #consent #readytoengage #emgagementtraining #bristol #bristolgundogtrainer #bristolgundog #weimaraner #bristoldogtraining #bristoldogtrainer
Licking
Licking has many functions in dogs.
🐾Gathering information
🐾Bonding affection showing
🐾Pain reduction
🐾Gastric problems
🐾Calming over arousal due to excitement or anxiety
🐾 Reducing energy
We can utilise licking to help our dogs with issues that may manifest in certain behaviours such as jumping, nipping, humping, leash pulling or barking.
🐾Calming excitement
🐾Calming anxiety
🐾Building confidence
🐾Mental enrichment.
🐾Social bonding
Provide your dogs with licking outlets
🐾Lickimats/bowls - come in various shapes and sizes with ridges to make it more complicated to get the paste so it lasts longer.
🐾Kongs. - filled so they can last longer
🐾Chew roots - nobly so the paste fils the ridges
Smear these items with tasty pastes
🐾Peamut butter
🐾Meat paste
🐾Mashed fruit/veg
🐾Cheese paste
All of these can be frozen so they last longer
#licking #socialbonding #dogtraining #dogbehavior #bristoldogtraining #bristoldogtrainer #rewardbaseddogtraining #rewardbaseddogtrainer #bristol #doglickingbehavior #weimaraner #gundog #lickimat
Disengagement recall or recall from distractions.
Do you have issues with recalling your dog away from distractions? Then disengagement training is what you need.
In this video you see one of my dogs going in to chase some birds on the beach. He is then backed up by my other two dogs dogs.
My dogs have been taught to disengage to the sound of their recall cue.
Follow the bellow tips to start building a disengagement recall.
Start with an impulse control activity that incorporates eye contact.
Highly reward the dog when it looks at then away from the distraction, you are working with, towards you.
(Start with a low level distraction)
Once your dog is successfully looking away from the distraction add in your recall cue by using it just before your dog look away towards you.
Gradually increase the distance between you and the distraction remembering to highly reinforce when they turn away and come towards you.
(you can use a long line to help you manage your dogs access to the distraction if you need too).
Proof the behaviour by practicing with lots of different items gradually increasing the distraction level to build a reliable disengagement recall
#disengagement #disengagementtraining #disengagementrecall #dogtraining #dogtrainer #dogtrainingtips #recall #weimaraner #birdchasing #beach #rewardbaseddogtraining #rewardbaseddogtrainer #bristol #bristoldogs
Stufficide
This is an innate behaviour - Part of most dogs predatory model action pattern.
It’s seen most in adolescent dogs who are more driven to express their innate behaviours due to increased hormones.
It can be very calming for them to do this and stopping them could increase frustration and its related unwanted behaviours such as barking and inappropriate item chewing.
Embrace it, don’t get expensive stuffed beds or soft toys instead get the baby safe soft toys from a charity shop or the cheeper toys from discount stores and let them have at it for a bit. You can then pick the stuffing up and re-stuff the toys and stitch them up to use them again and rotate them around. Or you can fill hol-ee balls like the one Heka has here and fill it with sheep fleece, paper, fabric, anything that they can work to pull out, you can also add in the odd treat.
#bristoldog #asolescentdog #adolescent #rewardbaseddogtraining #bristol #dog #dogbehaviour #innatebehavior #stufficide #bristoldogtraining #bristoldogtrainer #bristoldogtrainingclasses #weimaraner #adolescentweimaraner #embracebehaviour
Easy recall challenge
If you want to build a strong recall with the whistle now is the time to give it a go. Use the hash tag #bristoldogrecall to show me your work in progress.
Top tips to help you
Manage the behaviour with the use of a long line on walks
Condition your whistle cue- multiple whistle pips
Reward check ins - every time your dog looks at you praise and reward them
Pick a reward that is something your dog loves that can be food, toys or praise.
Start in a low distraction setting in your house and/or garden then go to other places start with quieter places so that you build your distraction level slowly. This means your dog will be more successful.
Increase your distractions over time
#dogrecalltraining #bristoldogtrainer #dogtrainer #gundog #distractions #bristol #recall #bristoldogs #whistletraining #whistlerecall #whistlerecalltraining #dogrecall #dogtraining #petdogtraining #petdogtrainer #recallchallenge #bristoldogrecall
Not the most stylish swimming but there is massive progress.
As you know we have been going to seimming lessons at our local hydrotherapy centre @chapelfarmrehab and we had the pool out in the garden during the hot spell and all the dogs enjoyed a splash and a swim. Well this is Hekas first wild swim and he was amazing!
He’s clearly taking his lead from Atum, who is a very strong and experienced swimmer, going out beside him to fetch the dimmies. He then gets his own turn and boom he’s off. It’s such a shame we don’t have lovely places like this in Bristol.
Sadly Ma’at just didn’t feel brave enough to attempt a swim she was clearly very excited hence her screaming and splashing around but she just isn’t the biggest fan of swimming. #swimming #swimmingdogs #bristoldogs #weimaraners #gundogs #cornwall #learningtoswim
Check out this super flying recall from Ernie the Beagle x spaniel. He and his owners have been working so hard on his recall and leash walking. So we have started in increase the distractions by going to more interesting places with more dogs. Here we are at a blustery Ashton court - playing recall and leash on/off games. He smashed it!
The Oh sh*t moment is when your dogs are out in front of you and you change direction, you may or may not verbally cue them.
It teaches your dogs to keep an eye on you because you may change direction at any time.
Oh sh*t she’s going that way now!
You can create value in this by doing treat scatters or hiding toys for them to find or you can pair this with your recall to help this improve by having your dogs come in to you praising and rewarding them when they get to you or you can use it to help with a direction change and reward with the opportunity to run out and sniff again.
We desire this attention to our movements and body language in our working breeds. For them the reward is the opportunity to run and sniff/hunt but any breed of dog can start to pay attention and respond to your movements.
#weimerarner
#Gundog
#ohsh*tmoment
#bristoldogs
#bristoldogtrainer
#bristoldogtraining
#Bristol
#dogrecall
#Rewardbaseddogtraining
It’s another scorcher today so what can we do to keep our dogs cool?
These things can also be sensory confidence building activists for the dog or puppy.
Here we see Poncho the German Shepherd puppy learning about water in a paddling pool. He’s playing and having fun while keeping cool.
What others things can we do to keep our dogs cool in the heat?
Elderly, ill or brachycephalic breeds with squat noses should be kept out of the heat as much as possible as it can have a very fast detrimental affect on their health.
Ideally keeping all breeds of dog cool and not letting them over heat is always the best course of action.
You can keep your dog cool by taking them swimming or giving them a paddling pool with food or toy treats to entice them in, you can wet their coats with cool water or you can purchase cooling mats for them to lay on or just a wet towel can help, and likewise you can purchase cooling coats for your dog to wear, they act in the same way as the dog panting as the water in the coat evaporates the heat is radiated away from the body, these can carry on cooling for quite some time if you give your dog plenty of places to lay in shade with a cool breeze.
You can also make cooling treats frozen carrots or stuffed frozen Kong toys, ice cubes filled with treats, vegetables or fruits are also a nice treat as well as helping to keep your dog cool.
Exercising your dog at cooler times of the day is also a good idea, the early hours of the morning are generally the coolest time of the day, but also during the late evening. It is always best to avoid walking them in the heat of the day, also remember that the pavement is very hot to walk on, we don’t tend to notice this because we wear shoes, but place the back of your hand on the pavement for 5 seconds and you will soon feel the heat, radiating from it, this can burn the pads of your dogs paws and cause them to blister painfully.
if you do take your dog out in the heat of the day many wor
Heka and I have had a go at some impulse control with the use of the placeboard and adding in a fetch cue.
Adding in impulse control can remove the fun of retrieving for dogs especially young dogs so we need to be careful not to over do things with them.
The placeboard is already a valuable place for Heka because he gets rewarded when he sits on it so he wants to head back to it. Heka has also learned the hold cue gets him rewarded after I take the dummy from him.
These separate behaviours can be chained together to create a controlled retrieve.
#gundogtraining #gundogskillstraining #gundog #gundogskillsclasses #gundogs #gundogtrainer #gundogskills #gundogsofinstagram #gundogdummytraining #dummy #gundogdummy #weimaraner #weimaranerpuppy #gundogretrieve #foundationgundogtraining #puppyretrieve #bristol #bristolgundogtrainer #bristolgundogtraining #rewardbasedgundogtraining
