Coxhill Behaviour Services

08/02/2025

This is Honeys sister someone out there must be looking for a gorgeous pup

31/01/2025

Sniff work does not have to be complicated!

This was a quick session with Apollo while I ate my breakfast.

Benefits include-

Mental stimulation: Scent work helps dogs use their problem-solving skills.

Physical stimulation: Scent work is a great way to get your dog moving.

Confidence building: Scent work can help shy dogs build confidence.

Improved relationship: Scent work can strengthen the bond between you and your dog.

26/01/2025

I am pleased to announce the agenda for The Reactive Dog Seminar, hosted by ourselves with guest speaker and trauma expert Jessie Sams.

9.45 Registration
10.00Causes of Reactive Behaviour
10.45 Trauma
11.30 coffee break
11.45 Choice/Agency and Nutrition.
12.30 Lunch
13.00 Case study including how to help reactive dogs and muzzling.
14.00 close

23/01/2025

All in a day's work! Improving the welfare of our pigs so that when they are moved they will just walk across touching the target rather than needing to be herded with pig boards.

22/01/2025

When is it time to say goodbye?

This is such an emotional subject which many of us have been through at some point during our time as dog or other animal parents.

We all hope that our dogs will pass away peacefully in their sleep but in reality we are often left with the heart breaking decision to have them put to sleep.

I am a firm believer that your dog will let you know when the time is right.

Are they tired? No longer excited? Stopped eating? Dropping weight? Drinking more than normal? Showing signs of pain which you can no longer manage?

These are often signs I would expect to see, however many dogs get dementia. This can come on slowly or take effect quickly.

When do we know its time with dogs suffering with this? This is where I am at.

My old spaniel Albert, has very quick onset of dementia. Everytime I question his quality of life, he then has a mad 5 minutes or is Albert again. But then I see the confusion when he can't get straight out the backdoor, how scared he is of noises now, the licking in corners of the carpet and the staring into space. Do the good times still out weigh the bad?

For me I have set myself a time frame to monitor the good and the bad times, if the bad does outweigh the good I know it will be time to say goodbye.

Always remember that letting them go with dignity is the last thing you can do for your dog, do not leave it too late as your dog may start to suffer. Often as humans, we can leave it too late as we want as much time as possible with our dogs, but we must think of the dogs first.

15/01/2025

The next Reactive Workshop is 8th February at 2pm- this is now open for booking.

This will be the last one until April as much I have my 40th birthday and Duncan is running a 40 mile Ultra!

Use the usual booking link to book.

05/01/2025

🤩🎉Exciting News🤩🎉

We are offering all delegates for the seminar access to recordings after the event.

We are also offering recording tickets to those who are further away and unable to make the day. These will be £20.

03/01/2025

You will hear me talk about the importance of sleep ALOT.

This is Herbie, as the largest dog in the house he usually lies on the doggie sofa, however one of the other dogs kept taking it and he had decided to sleep on the stairs.

I bought him a new bed and this is him within an hour of us having it!

Sleeping like a baby!

02/01/2025

The countdown is now on to our Reactive Dog Seminar.

We will spend some of the afternoon session going through a case study looking at the reasons behind the reactive behaviour seen as well as the strategies put in place to help. In fact after 18 months this dog has managed to come off behavioural support meds!

I am very excited to share this dogs journey with you.

24/12/2024

Jaw Strength

Now as much as I love a bullie breed of any type, I do want to point out the strength they have in their jaws.

We have Tommy, a Collie cross English Bull Terrier (don't ask!🤦‍♀️) and yesterday I gave them some lovely raw lamb bones as a treat.

Tommy had the thickest one and by the time I had given the rest theirs, he had practically finished his...now this was a hefty bone which he had completely chomped through. I had some smaller bits left over, so I let him have one of those as well...again that went in minutes.

As much as these dogs are amazing and have lovely temperaments, we do need to remember the strength they have and what they were bred for.

16/12/2024

In this week's classes we added a station in our confidence circuit with all different textures for the dogs to sniff around.

We also focused on 'Click to Calm' to have the dogs relax around one another. Although we do not use clickers as there are too many things which sound the same for example the clip of a harness, a door or the kettle. Also the Click of the clicker maybe too much for your reactive nervous dog.

All dogs and guardians did really well.

12/12/2024

This is a little too close to us.

Please, however much your child has a "bond" with your dog, don't leave them alone together. You are putting two lives at risk by doing so.

Although details have not been released about what happened it's important all dog owners take responsibility for thier dogs and be responsible owners.

You never know if the dog is having a bad day and something which they are usually fine with is a trigger. The dog might be in pain even just from an ear infection and cause it to react. There are so many factors. Question everything but never the dog. The dog is trying to communicate something to us, we need to learn to listen.

Sadly, another beautiful sole has lost its life.

An eight-month-old girl has been airlifted to hospital in a serious condition after being attacked by an XL Bully dog.

09/12/2024

Sleep 💤💤💤

How are you after two or three nights of broken sleep?

Do you think emotionally you will be happy?

Do you think you can make clear decisions easily and will be able to deal with problems that arise?

Or perhaps you are like me and you find that you become more frustrated easily. You lack tolerance and may be grumpy and quick to snap?

When asking a dog to do something or you are training with your dog, how can they be expected to think clearly, to comprehend the task and to deliver what is being asked of them if they are not getting enough sleep?

Not only is a lack of sleep going to have an effect on a dog’s health, but it will also affect their emotional state and behaviour too.

Dog trainers & behaviourists will often see cases where a dog is so busy that they cannot relax or switch off.

With some dogs, when they do fall asleep, they awake easily upon minute movements from their owner or sounds that may be heard. We see dogs that watch everything and anything that passes by the window setting them off into a frenzy.

All of this causes the dog to be hyper-alert and hyper-vigilant which naturally causes and increases anxiety and stress.

Nearly all behavioural cases can see some improvement in their behaviour when we increase the dogs sleep. This is common practice for dog trainers and behaviourists to increase sleep and sleep quality in a dogs training plan.

Sleep or a lack of sleep affects so many aspects. We know as a rule that sleep deprivation can be detrimental to our own health. When we are looking at our health, we know that there are serious medical issues that are associated with chronic lack of sleep, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart attack, heart failure and stroke just to name a few.

Did you know that puppies need on average 18-20 hours of sleep a day and adult dogs need on average 12 to 14 hours of sleep!!!

Join our Reactive Dog Seminar to see how you can help your dog with sleep.

03/12/2024

Trigger Stacking...something we avoid!

We were away racing this weekend and on Sundsy afternoon we took Herbie around the village for a walk...now this is usually a quiet little place...hardly see anyone!

As we were coming to the end of the walk we saw someone walking thier dog, this was fine Herbies "fuel tank" wasn't full...followed by a lady gardening and then another lady and her dog. This was enough to fill and over flow his tank leading him to react.

Luckily, we have a great bond so he relaxed and we went past two other people no problem.

The after effects of trigger stacking though where evident...he slept all the way home, that night and was still sleepy in the morning.

We will cover this in our Seminar! Which is going to be a really interactive day!

02/12/2024

🎉🎉🎉OFFER ALERT🎉🎉🎉

If you book or have already booked a space on the Reactive Workshop for the 14th December...for the next 24 hours if you book the Reactive Seminar you will pay £30 instead of £40!

24/11/2024

We are attending the When Dogs Bite Conference by Animal Behaviour Kent this weekend...having a fantastic time so far and we will be tweaking our Reactive Dog Classes!

19/11/2024

Our Herbie is Mr October in The Muzzel Movement Calendar!