Marley & Me 121 Dog Training

14/10/2024

Trauma informed care, training and guardianship is the opportunity to form an even deeper bond with our dogs.

When we meet them with empathy, patience, and love, we’re creating a relationship based on trust and mutual understanding.

For dogs who have experienced fear or abandonment, this bond becomes a powerful source of security. The connection we build becomes a safe place for them to thrive, ensuring that their emotional health is nurtured in the long term.

Learn more about canine trauma here: https://www.sallygutteridge.com/challenge-page/canine-trauma?programId=8721ec84-cac1-4bf2-b95c-b146eee8b48b

01/10/2024

How mindful are you towards your dog?

Take a moment now to:

Look at his face and notice any changes that have previously gone unmentioned.
Catch his eye and smile with him.
Feel the warmth of his familiarity on your fingertips.
Inhale his unique scent, one day you won't be able to.
Ask him how he feels and listen carefully to his answer.
Tell him how much you love him, he knows, but tell him anyway.

Then get on with your day, it's just been greatly improved ..... in a simple moment of mindfulness, with the best friend you will ever have!

30/09/2024

Please help if you can ❤️🐾

13/09/2024

We humans avoid bad feelings for ourselves.
We often feel uncomfortable about bad feelings in another.
It’s one of our poorest qualities.
We should be supporting, holding, helping each other.
We often do the same with dogs.
Some dogs are unlucky enough to be exposed to trainers who don’t believe that dog feelings matter.
Or don’t know what the dog’s feelings are, so make it up.
Misrepresentation.
Misinterpretation.
Dogs deserve their feelings to be understood.
And taken into account.

Dog body language explained? Here you go.. https://amzn.to/4cOahI0

07/09/2024

We love Sally’s Ethics ❤️

In this busy life we often forget to check in with our dogs.
We often just expect them to fit in with and around us.
Yet they are individuals with their own likes and dislikes.
With their own triggers and glimmers.
Part of our job in loving dogs is to consider how they feel.

Read my books and learn more about your dog: https://amzn.to/4dQmxsS

03/09/2024

An ethical dog trainer will explain how your dog is seeing the environment and help them to cope with it better.

An ethical dog trainer will gather information, use rewards, avoid intimidation and never put a nasty collar on your dog to make them do something more convenient.

Get my book and be ethical: https://amzn.to/4gbSBsD

02/09/2024

24/08/2024

Me and my best pal having some quality time together in Devon ❤️

20/08/2024

This fascinates me every year how clever Marley is hunting the ripe blackberries, patiently working his way through the bushes. Lots of enrichment here for my best boy!! 🐾❤️🐾❤️🐾❤️

14/08/2024

11/08/2024

Please please please be sensible in this hot weather!! Your pooches do not need to walk in this heat. Give them plenty of mental enrichment and cool snacks. It is good for your dog to have some rest days anyway,gives them time to decompress, especially if you have a dog with reactivity or anxiety.
Take your pooch for a drive with all the windows down and watch their super nose with all the smells rushing past. We often do this and Marley just loves it 🐾❤️

07/08/2024

Look at this for cuteness overload. This loving boy has just become a big brother. His parents are already setting their canine companions to succeed with our puppy settling in visit. These visits are at home before vaccinations and we can cover anything puppy.
Teething, toileting ,sleep and or in this case how to make an older dog more comfortable with a new addition to the household.

28/07/2024

I am often accused of avoiding training, when I hide my reactive dog behind a tree or a car, as another dog passes, but in reality I am trying to ensure we continue to progress with training. Not every situation or environment is conducive to learning. In order, to ensure training is successful, we need to prevent opportunities for the behaviour to be practiced, between structured sessions to modify the behaviour. If we don't implement management and we allow our dog to go over their coping threshold and display reactive behaviour, it hinders training progress, regardless of how well the sessions are going. It can be a case of one step forwards and three steps back.

Therefore, if a dog is off-lead, if the dog's proximity is too close or the environment is too distracting, I will avoid that dog, block my dog's vision or lead him away with an emergency cue and treat. I will wait until the circumstances and environment are safe and appropriate for training. Doing this, prevents trigger stacking and ensures my dog is beginning to build up a history of positive experiences with other dogs. Other management for reactive behaviour may include:

- Choosing walking environments carefully.
- Avoiding busy times for dog walkers.
- Blocking visuals in the window or door in the home.
- Eliminating stressors where possible.
- Increasing the distance between your dog and others.
- Changing direction or routes to avoid dogs.
- Scatter feeding as a distraction.
- Having breaks from walks.
- Providing enrichment for decompression.

Management comes in many forms and should be used to address a variety of behavioural struggles. It is a necessary part of training and behaviour modification. Its why we call it 'the magic of management.' It is not the avoidance of training but the preservation of progress! - Holly Leake

22/07/2024

Exciting!!! It’s time to come home with your newborn. This is a special time. With all this excitement, let’s consider our family dog. It can be fun to think about introducing our newborn to our dog, of course! But. We actually don’t encourage this at all. This experience of homecoming should be treated like any other time someone new walks in the door to your home.

Where is your dog typically? What are they doing? We would like them to be in a relaxed and peaceful place. For some, this will be easy, and then for others, it’ll be harder and take more practice (if you haven’t been practicing already). Don’t take a chance, prepare in advance!

To be extra safe and prepared, we suggest gradual exposure at a distance. It could even take multiple days, and that’s ok! Including your dog gradually is a great start (you can always use success stations, too!), and always better to be safe. If all is going as planned, we might suggest a quick sniff with your hand/arm between dog and baby. There is no need for a dog to be super close to a newborn.

Dogs can smell from a distance. Also, keep an eye out for your dog’s body language and always use active awake supervision when dog and baby are present in the same space. Remember relationships take time. No need to rush this relationship!

22/07/2024

This is how Marley feels about Monday mornings😂😭😭

18/07/2024

It's sad to see people being told to invade all areas of their dogs life. Let's assume that like us, they want agency, undisturbed rest and that they have the right to manage their meal without strange human interruptions.

17/07/2024

Marley’s Recall Rascals on their workshop. Having an understanding of the what and why makes your dog tick makes a solid recall while creating an extra special bond with their human. 🐾❤️🐾