Coby was also in for a Meet and Greet today.
She's a sweet old lady that likes to be kept clean and comfortable ☺️
Our grooming environment is easily adaptable to help meet the individual grooming needs of all dogs, including older dogs like Coby that may have limited mobility due to age.
Being in the grooming environment and experiencing new things can be a little worrying for dogs who are unfamiliar with it. This leads to a build up of nervous energy, which is a completely natural response to a stressful event.
Nervous energy in dogs can look like: pacing, whining, barking, yawning, panting, shake-offs, pinned ears and lip licking.
So, what do we do with this nervous energy? Well, the best way to help get rid of it is by burning it off with a little bit of exercise – ideally, cardiovascular exercise, but any movement can be beneficial.
In this short clip, you can watch us starting to work with brushing and taking breaks to release a bit of energy. Buzz was also completely free to opt-out by moving away (which he did a couple of times) and we stopped for a sniff break in the garden.
When we started, we were just asking Buzz to stand and wait, but he became a little frustrated which led to barking, jumping and humping 😅 It also led to an unwillingness to take part. So, we stopped and took a different approach. After each moment of brushing, he was asked to do a trick that he knew really well and enjoyed doing, adding a little fun and movement.
Now, this is a super short clip for social media and Buzz is still very new to the grooming environment so we’re not aiming for perfect, we’re aiming for improvement. During a 10 minute session we progressed from 1 short brush stroke in one go to several long brush strokes in one go. The beginning is always messy, and throughout these 10 minutes he still showed the odd random bit of displacement behaviour, but it was much less than when he was asked to stand still.
Buzz can be sensitive to touch and is wary about the brush touching him – you can see his skin twitch and move when the brush comes into contact with him.
Bronte was first in today for her first desensitisation session. We're working on building up her brave in the grooming environment.
This was her practising getting in and out of the bath on cue. But we also worked on some consent games, touching areas she finds a little sensitive and generally making being in the salon positive.
She was incredibly brave today and settled into the salon a lot quicker today compared to previous sessions so is already making amazing progress.
We ended the session with a little bit of TTouch and I think she would have stayed there forever 🥰
Practising things at home before bringing them into the salon is super beneficial and helps dogs learn what to do a lot faster.
Me and Ty have been working to prepare him as much as possible for his operation tomorrow.
Here we are working on wearing a soft cone. We have not got as far as I've wanted with this because Ty didn't want to do the training, so we're probably not going to be able to use it. But it is something we can keep working on if there is ever a 'next time'.
But we've also worked on holding his legs tight, moving the hair and skin on his legs and injection training.
Ty is already muzzle trained and wears his muzzle to any appointment where a stranger has to touch him or do anything invasive as he's not keen on strangers.
Cooperative care is a great thing to practice with your dog and can make their lives so much less stressful 🐾
Watch Buzz figuring out if the grooming salon is safe or scary.
Each dog is an individual and they all process new environments differently. Some dogs are incredibly confident and go barreling into a new environment without a care in the world, while other dogs just need a little time to assess it all first.
Sniffing helped Buzz to gather really important information about the environment. He would have been able to smell all of the previous visitors and would have got a huge blast of smell as I opened the door for him (dog noses are incredible).
Did you notice that when Buzz sniffed me I did not interact with him? At this moment in time, Buzz was information gathering. He was not coming to say hello, nor would he have wanted me to interrupt his sniffing with me touching him - he doesn't know me.
Buzz did decide to enter the salon after a few minutes of sniffing. He also did come over to greet me and this was when I gave him a fuss.
But what if he didn't come into the salon? What would I have done?
Quite simply, his decision would have been ✨respected✨
Dogs are not forced or pressured into entering the salon. Respecting a dogs decision builds trust. We can then play games to boost their confidence towards doing the scary thing.
Forcing dogs into scary situations can put them into fight/flight mode which could lead to altercations. We do not get to decide what our dogs find scary.
We help dogs become brave here ❤️
Yesterday, Ty got a bath and dry too. I almost forgot what he feels like when he's clean 😆
Here is a short clip of us practising the table protocol. Basically, as long as Ty stays on the table, he is consenting to the groom. He's allowed to leave for breaks whenever he feels he needs one.
Ty used to find the H-bar worrying and wouldn't get on the table if it was there. But yesterday he didn't care at all.
It is also only Ty's 3rd or 4th time with the high velocity dryer and yesterday we managed to dry everywhere other than his ears and lower legs.
Ty thrives in the grooming environment, but only when consent-based techniques and positive reinforcement are used. Being in control of how much we do and what we do is incredibly important to him because it helps him feel comfortable.
If you come visit us, please excuse our wild gardens 🫣
We have hedgehog babies about which means I've had to stop working on our gardens because I don't know where their nest is and I don't want to disturb them.
We have now found 2 hoglets in our back garden (this one in the video ended up in the care of Little Urchins Hedgehog Rescue because we found him out and about during the daytime) but we have also seen and heard adults in the front garden and can see hedgehog tracks through our front garden grass.
Did you know that hedgehogs are listed as vulnerable on the Red List for Britain's Mammals? Their numbers have declined by around 46% over the last 13 years.
So to help these guys out, the garden will remain wild until the babies are big and chunky as disturbing their nest could make mum abandon them and we want to help these little guys out 🦔🐾
I hope this 55 second clip of Fudges wonderful tail wags and butt wiggles are contagious and help you all have a wonderful weekend 🥰
I couldn't bring myself to shorten this clip down to just him snuffling in the mat, I had to include all of the wiggles.
I think Fudge enjoyed his meet and greet today 😆🐾
The Bucket Game.
The aim of the game: when the dog stops looking at the bucket, we stop what we're doing to them.
Here, me and Summer are having a go at the bucket game.
Summer doesn't like sitting near the dryers and in her first session she stayed a good 1-2 meters away from them.
With the help of a little bit of confidence building and by introducing the bucket game, she was happy to sit just 30cm from them during her most recent groom with me.
This time she showed less calming signals (lip licking, pinned ears, walking away) and got so much more involved. This meant that she was dried much quicker and it was all her choice.
Summer isn't fearful of the grooming environment, she just isn't keen on particular parts and tolerates what's being done. Giving her choice and a little more time means she will start to enjoy parts and actively want to take part.
This is what our salon looks like in 'dog vision'.
Dogs don't have as many colours in their spectrum as we do and part of my course for the Holistic Grooming Academy prompts us dog groomers to look at our salons from a dogs point of view.
As you can see, the brightest thing in the salon is one of our foam mats and some washing up gloves because they're yellow. Because they're pretty bright, I may swap these out for a colour that's not quite so garish.
When Summer came to visit we hung out on the floor.
She has bad back legs and after a short while found sitting up against me much more comfortable than standing.
This gave her more support, made her more comfortable and made her feel safe.
She's a little tired here, but if she wanted to, she could move away and find somewhere else to lay/sit/snooze - letting me know she didn't want to be groomed anymore.
Once she was up for standing again, I went around and tidied her up 😊
Beautiful brave Miley came for a Meet and Greet today.
Did you know: when a dog becomes anxious/stressed/overwhelmed they cannot take food? This is due to their sympathetic nervous system switching them into fight or flight mode and suppressing their appetite.
It took Miley 20 minutes before she felt relaxed enough to explore the salon and take some treats from the different objects scattered around.
Therefore, to help continue building her trust and braveness in the salon, she is now booked in for a short desensitisation session.
I look forward to seeing her progress 🥰
Frankie was a little worried about being near me while I had the dryer in my hand. So I improvised.
Table low with the dryers sat on them pointing out. While I flicked treats about for Frankie to walk around and collect.
This kept his mind busy, his nose sniffing and still dried his coat.
Forcing Frankie to be dried while being restrained to the table would have created negative emotions with grooming and would have likely caused him to display escape behaviours - increasing the risk of him hurting himself.
He was able to move freely around the room, out of the way of the airflow and come back over by choice (and was obviously rewarded for his bravery).
And honestly, this didn't take any longer than if he stood still in one spot and accepted the dryer.
Dog grooming shouldn't look dramatic. Dog groomers should not be fighting with the dogs in their care aiming for the "perfect" groom.
Behaviour breakdown of a short clip from Seves first session with me.
Subtle behaviour cues are so easy to miss, but at the same time, so obvious once you know what you're looking for.
At the time of filming I noticed Seves diverted gaze, pinned ears and weight shift. It was only after I watched it back that I saw all of the other bits.
After seeing his discomfort, I quickly finished off and rewarded his cooperation.
After this clip he let me continue in short bursts with rewards between before opting out and wandering off to check out a snuffle mat.
Giving our dogs choice is so important.
Seve was amazing and although it doesn't look like much to us, he worked super hard to get to this point.
All the wags from Frankie for some pâté 🥰
