Barton Paws to Doors

23/08/2024

Meet Vernon and Phil, approx. 16 week old brothers who came to us after being found in a garden fending for themselves. These babies have never lived in a home environment before now or with humans and are learning all about the everyday noises of home environment, human touch and that it is actually very nice to have a home to call your own!

These lovely boys were initially very wary in their foster home, Phil spent a few days hiding under the sofa whilst within 24 hours Vernon was out letting his foster mum fuss him and developed THE MOST amazing purr!

Vernon is now a very fussy boy, slightly wary of loud noises and sudden movements but will come running when his foster mum comes in to the room and roll straight on to his back for tummy rubs – all whilst purring away and being a gorgeous little man. We think in time he will be a lap cat and is already showing lots of ‘cuddle monster’ signs. Phil is still nervous but will let his foster mum stroke him (on his terms) and has started to purr too, he loves the side of his head being rubbed and being tickled under his chin, his new owner will just need to be aware that he just needs a little more time than Vernon to trust you.

These gorgeous boys will be best suited to a quiet home with older, calm children and no dogs. They could potentially live with other cats with very careful introductions but we would prefer them to be the only pets given that everything is new for them at the minute. Their new home will need to be patient and put no expectations on the boys, letting them do everything at their own pace. They will make amazing fur babies and deserve to learn all about home comforts and live the life they were meant to!

The boys are very chilled out, they love lounging on the cat tree, rubbing round your legs, playing with their teaser toy and chasing balls around the ball track! They are clean in their litter tray 99% of the time, however are still learning. Their new owner will need to be ok with this.

They enjoy wet and dry food and will go to their new home having their first vaccinations, microchips and being neutered. They will then need to return to our vets in Swadlincote or Tamworth in 3-4 weeks time for their second vaccinations.

An adoption donation of £180 for the boys applies, please apply through our website (link in bio).

17/07/2024

Has anyone got a worming tablet for a cat that they have spare / not using - for a stray cat I'm helping please? 🐾

09/05/2024

🐾 On the 10th of June, it will be law to have your cats microchipped…🐾

Any owned cat over 20 weeks of age will be required, by law to have a microchip. So whether your cat is indoor only, allowed to roam the outdoors, old or young, they will need a microchip!🫣

We will be hosting a microchipping service on the 18th of May for just £10 per animal to help those that still need their feline friends microchipping. We now only have a few slots left so contact us as soon as possible if you want an appointment.

05/04/2024

Now our hens lay small eggs anyway; but what is going on with this one? Dirty muddy finger for size! 😂

29/03/2024

Happy Easter, don't forget to keep the chocolate away from the dogs! 🐾🐾

24/12/2023

Merry Christmas to all of our wonderful pooches / kitties and hoomans! We have had a fabulous year walking and caring for all of our best pals. Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas break; and here's to 2024!!!! 🎄🐾🥂

11/11/2023

19/08/2023

****UPDATE: We’ve now received confirmation that she was in fact his cat, she’s 2 years old🥺🥺. She is safe with us now and will go on to find a loving home****

Today, a “delightful” man came in with this poor girl, insisting we must take her otherwise he’ll be finding a field to dump her. 😠

We were stressed as currently we had no room and so when we had tried to question the man he became flustered & hostile and ended up slamming the carrier with the cat inside!!! to the floor, running out of our door and telling the driver of his car to drive fast… if he had given us chance we would have discussed options to help him and arrange for the cat to come in when there had next been space and done everything possible in that moment to help. Sadly, the only details we got was the car’s registration.

The only thing he said about the cat was he had been feeding it & his kids had been bringing her in the house.. she’s supposedly a “stray” and though we’re not convinced if you think she might be yours please get in touch.

When we say we have no space we really don’t have any space… we don’t have a secret bank of space and ultimately staff either have to take animals home or we have to set up temporary accommodation which is less than adequate for such situations!! While we want to help, we are not simply at people’s disposal because you no longer want your animal🤦‍♀️, please bare with us if you need help as we will try our best to do so!🥺

We’re disheartened for this lady, but she will go on to find a home where she’ll never be disposable again! 💔

23/07/2023

**pending vet check and potential adopter found**
Is anyone looking to rehome a kitten. Approx 4 months old, male. Friendly. Needs a loving home. Genuine reason for posting. ask for more details if anyone knows of anyone looking to rehome. 🐾

23/07/2023

07/07/2023

Please remember to check your dogs over after walks in grass. It's time of year that they can get stuck in! Please check regularly. 🐾 I🐾

4624 likes, 65 comments. “Grass seeds are everywhere and coming to a pooch near you! Bertie is exactly the wrong colour, perfect to camouflage this scourge of Summer. Check your dog after every walk, that five minutes will save you time and money, and your canine companion a lot of discomfort. ...

17/06/2023

Cooling mats have been Jude tested! 🤦🏻‍♀️

27/04/2023

This cat has been hanging around Barton under needwood for quite some time, he is chipped but it's not registered, and he is neutered.
Someone has clearly owned this lad, we are trying to find out if he's missing or has been left behind.
Please share if you're local

09/04/2023

Happy Easter. 🐣🐾

14/03/2023

Today we’re celebrating the news that after years of campaigning by Cats Protection and our supporters, compulsory microchipping of pet cats has been announced and will come into force in June 2024 in England. More microchipped cats means more lost cats potentially reunited with their owners. Thank you for all your support in getting the government to take action! Find out more: www.cats.org.uk/microchipping

13/03/2023

Channel 4’s Dogs Behaviour Badly with Graeme Hall

In the opening driving shots the self proclaimed ‘dog father’ insists that people think he is a maverick. A maverick is someone who is unorthodox in their field - unorthodox meaning untraditional. To the contrary,Graeme Hall is actually quite the opposite of a maverick - instead approaching behaviour science from an incredibly traditional place: pre science-based training and from a time when we didn't have the ability to read dogs or the compassion to give them choices.

Hall’s wisdom is based on the idea that dogs, like wolves, are pack animals and that they have a dominance hierarchy structure, much like wolves except that people are in that structure as well. As such Hall continually explains problems by suggested the owner needs to be Top Dog. David Mech’s book, The Wolf: Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species was the book, in the 80s, that started this. In the 90s thankfully he realised he made a mistake. As technology and advancements in our own ideas allowed us to study dogs more scientifically Mech himself changed his mind. He corrected these ideas in 1999 in his paper Alpha Status, Dominance, and Division of Labor in Wolf Packs. We moved on from this and changed our ideas - realising that dogs are cooperative animals who desire for peace with the humans who they depend upon,

And it isn't just the wisdom that is a step back in time. Poor ignorant wisdom from the 80’s is actually something I can forgive - the thing that I found most disturbing about Dog’s Behaving Badly was the methods. The methods I cannot forgive.

OK - so punishment works. It is one of those things that as trainers who use Least Intrusive minimally aversive methods, don't rush out to tell people. But it does. Often checking and shouting at dogs actually suppresses behaviour far quicker that it would take us to train it out. Ill be honest, Addy the poodle who, on the show, was fearful towards the male in the house - his behaviour would have taken a few weeks at the least, for me to train out. Hall did it in 40 minutes - a quick ‘fix’ indeed. However, what he did in 40 minutes was to identify an animal as scared and then frighten it into a state of learnt helplessness. Then bully the dog for looking at the man he was frightened of. And give the man the confidence to shout at the dog - and his girlfriend - for trying to reassure the dog, for trying to warn the man. If the top dog meme was correct then Addy will be killing the boyfriend in his sleep tonight, more than likely though the biting will return at an ill timed gathering or party and someone other than the boyfriend will suffer the damage from a dog who has been punished out of warning; a dog with no stable relationships from which to seek comfort.

And that got me thinking: surely what he is doing is illegal? I mean it wasn't in Barbara Woodhouse’s day - but surely it is now? To my knowledge the Animal Welfare Act 2006 Section 4(1) under prevention of harm states unnecessary suffering is when a person (in this case Hall) causes an animal to suffer - knowingly or having reasonably to have known. You only have to look at the conformation of a Great Dane to know that continued short, sharp yanks to his head via a head collar will be putting pressure on his thyroid gland and also causing tissue damage. This is, without a doubt, suffering and and harm surely? And surely as one of the “UK’s top dog experts” he has reasonably to have known this would cause this damage. And that isn't even considering the clear psychological welfare issues.

Really - thats the thing about this show that has people (myself included) shouting at the TV and up in arms once again. Its not a funny ‘love to hate him’ type affair with irritating celebrities living and arguing about cleaning in the big brother house. This show has wide implications. It has taken a decade of careful scientific studies and newspapers covering these studies to finally put the likes of confusing pseudo science to bed. When we did Super Dog to rescue Dog it felt exciting to finally be TV training using methods that don't upset the dog - and have channel 4 interested and invested in taking the time. With our knowledge of where dogs stands cognitively and emotionally (yes, they are actually a bit like us - see Gregory Berns FMRI scans and his other studies about love and the canine brain) people are finally realising that training - is just teaching. And that it is about trust and enjoyment and engagement. What Hall is doing is muddying those waters for owners - suggesting dogs are like us when it comes to needing consequence but not like us when it comes to feelings of trust or love. And he fails to recognise that dogs don't have a moral compass. His TED video is frustratingly misquoting science with a poor understanding of basic learning theory. Annoyingly this will not put owners off listening to this fool whose been given a platform. I'm sure we have months of him explaining how it's still ok to bully and shout and check dogs on a lead because it will produce a quick fix. It will cause a huge spike in ignorance-based cruelty and reduce the welfare of many, many dogs in this country. What is most confusing is that the researchers for this show and the Series Producers too decided this was OK - to ignore the science. Perhaps they were brainwashed into believing it was just another point of view or that people would love to hate it and it would be popular via controversy. What they failed to recognise was that this sort of high profile cruelty won’t just effect the poor, poor dogs who have been physically hurt on TV and who have also had their stability, trusted relationships and comfort pulled out from under the, - but this will also have a knock on effect to dog owners nationwide. Winter is coming.

Make sure you’re not ignorant like Greame https://caninescience.online