The Dotty Behaviourist

Chester smashing his loose lead and reactivity training last week! Previously his owner would have been dragged across this field and if he saw another dog in the distance he would lunge and bark in frustration. Fast forward a few sessions and he's doing amazingly! He's still a work in progress but he's come on leaps and bounds from when we first met him! Well done Chester and his owners 🙌🏻 #thedottybehaviourist #positivereinforcement #dogreactivity #forcefreetraining #beasnackleadernotapackleader #looseleadwalking

Great session with Grom this morning working on desensitising her to the muzzle. We're working on muzzle training so we can safely introduce her to dogs and for veterinary handling. Grom is a rescue so we have little history for her. She gets very frustrated around other dogs which presents itself as lunging, barking and growling. We plan on muzzle training her so we can safely introduce her to other dogs eventually and to keep her safe if an off lead dog were to approach her on a walk. Keep up the great work guys! #thedottybehaviourist #gsd #positivereinforcement #muzzletraining #themuzzlemovement #shaping #dogreactivity #dogtraining #dogbehaviour #behaviourmodification

Training walk yesterday for this handsome boy 💙 #thedottybehaviourist #positivereinforcement #staffy #dogtrainer #goodboy #cheltenhamdogtrainer

Gunner smashing is loose lead walking on his training walk last week. Absolutely no harsh corrections to stop him pulling, a simple slow stop and encouraging him back to where I'd like him. Nice and positive, just how we like it! #thedottybehaviourist #positivereinforcement #looseleadwalking #dogbehaviour #dogtrainer #solotrainingwalks

Let's talk about sniffing and why it's so important for your dog! On Merlin's training walk the other day, we were working on loose lead walking, recall and calm behaviour around dogs. He's only young so can get tired and distracted easily. This is where sniff breaks come in, he naturally took his time sniffing in the middle of our session so I let him! It's so important to let our dogs sniff and decompress whenever they fancy, it helps to lower arousal levels and gives them a chance to reset while training. I often get clients that mention their dog sniffs EVERYTHING and no matter what they do, they're constantly having to pull them away. My answer to this; let them sniff! Dogs will sniff to gain information about the world around them, decompress from a stressful situation, reset during training or use it as a way to manage their anxiety as a displacement behaviour. It is important to remember that sniffing has a function and ultimately it's a GOOD behaviour! We can use it as a training tool to help decompress from stressful events by teaching a "find it" cue or use scent work. So remember, let them sniff! #thedottybehaviourist #dogbehaviour #sniffing #letthemsniff #functionofbehaviour

Here's Jet on his first solo training walk the other week 🫶🏻 He's only 6 months old and is learning how to walk on a loose lead. Being a puppy he gets distracted easily so we use a high rate of reinforcement to keep him focused as well as plenty of sniff breaks. He did really well and we can't wait to see him again soon! #thedottybehaviourist #positivereinforcement #looseleadwalking #learning #dobermanpuppy #cheltenhamdogbehaviourist #cheltenhamdogtrainer

A wholesome success story on a Sunday for you all! If you've been following us for a while you'll know we've been working with Luna and her owner for quite some time. Luna is a rescue with limited history and we were initially working on her reactivity towards dogs with the hope of introducing her to another family dog in the future. We learnt that Luna doesn't know how to interact with other dogs and is very quick to go over threshold and become frustrated. After a few attempts at introducing the family members dog, we decided to try and change Luna's expectations of other dogs. Previously, because she's a frustrated greeter, meets have been quick to go to off lead. However, Luna lacks the social skills to read other dogs and struggles to regulate herself during play. Introducing super Dot. We decided to use Dot as a calm older role model and reset Luna's expectations around other dogs. We started with several parallel walks on lead to show Luna that she doesn't get to be off lead with other dogs straight away and we positively reinforced calm behaviour around Dottie. Over the last 6 weeks under our gold behaviour package, we've slowly built up to being off lead in the owners garden as this is the goal for the family members dog. As you can see it went amazingly, when we first met Luna there's no way she would be able to be off lead around another dog unmuzzled due to her frustration. She was still a little overzealous at points but is still learning to read Dottie's body language and did SO well! We will be catching up with Luna and her owner in a few weeks! #thedottybehaviourist #dogbehavourist #dogtrainer #dogbehaviour #dogsocialskills #reactivedog #positivereinforcement #goldbehaviourpackage

The fabulous Ali the dally smashing her training. Ali rushes forward to the door when visitors come to the home. There is a baby gate in place but she will then become frustrated, resulting in barking and snarling A.K.A barrier frustration. By breaking down her training into small manageable steps and then chaining them together we have been able to use the sound of someone knocking on the door as a cue for heading to her station and remaining there while her owner answers the door. Ali still has something to say about it, obviously! #sassypants. But this is a huge improvement from her rushing forward to visitors. Keep up the great work guys 🫶🏻 #thedottybehaviourist #stationtraining #visitortraining #barrierfrustration #chainingbehaviors #positivereinforcement #behaviourmodification #dogbehaviour #dogtrainer

On Friday we also caught up with Nugget and his owner who absolutely smashed his first loose lead walking session. His focus was much hard to maintain whilst near long grass but it's a great start! With consistency and time I'm sure he will pick it up in no time at all. Watch this space! #thedottybehaviourist #positivereinforcement #looseleadwalking #behaviourpackage

On today's episode of dog training.. Today we caught up with Luna again for another dog walk with Dottie. We slightly adjusted our greeting plan to help prevent Luna getting frustrated and she did really well. In fact she was more interested in saying hello to me than she was to Dot! We worked on reinforcing calm behaviour around Dottie by letting Luna interact freely and marking calm behaviour and they even tried to have a spontaneous little play on lead. Luna did get a little frustrated due to the lead but she recovered quickly and continued to walk shoulder to shoulder. Very well done Luna! We look forward to next week's session! #thedottybehaviourist #frustratedgreeter #calmrolemodel #positivereinforcement #behaviourmodification #teamworkmakesthedreamwork