Unconditional Dog Training

20/02/2024

I got to meet this beautiful girl again this morning! She was a tiny puppy when I first met her and now she’s still definitely a puppy, just not so tiny 😂 what a beautiful girl. We worked on trying to increase her engagement with her owners when out & about, some strategies to help her ignore people as she’s super friendly and also we chatted about shortening her ‘walks’ and thinking of them more as short but frequent outings with the focus on engaging her brain and trying to get her to rehearse the habits that we want.

19/02/2024

This lady is now 11 months old!! What a journey it’s been, the relationship between her and Dexter continues to be challenging but she is super clever, has fab work ethic and a great little personality. She’s definitely tested me and she makes me tear my hair out at times but what a little dog she’s turning into 🥰

18/02/2024

A fabulous blog about the idea of a daily walk with your gundog breed or gundog cross - don’t forget cockerpoos and labradoodles will have these instincts too!!

What does your gundog do on a walk? Do they stay relatively close while having a relaxing sniff? Or do they make a beeline to the horizon as soon as they are off lead, enjoy chasing wildlife and become too engrossed in hunting to hear you?

There is a great deal of debate, conflict and confusion around whether to let your dog run free, off lead in the countryside, irrespective of whether it is a family pet or a working gundog.

For many owners of gundog breeds, a walk in the countryside is not just a simple stroll but a complex interaction of instinct, training, and environment.
The challenges gundogs present owners are due to their innate instincts and genetics.

The countryside, with its wide-open spaces and abundance of wildlife and smells, is a natural trigger for the hunting desires of our gundogs.

If you struggle with your daily dog walks, in this month's blog we’ll explore the role of what makes it so challenging for gundog owners, what we mean by going “self-employed”, and the difference between ‘going for a walk’ and ‘going hunting’ in the same stimulating environment.

To read the article in full head to https://gundogtrainersacademy.co.uk/blogs/news/can-i-take-my-gundog-on-a-walk

📸 Photo credit Alice Loder Photography

16/02/2024

When you’ve been working on something with your dogs for a while there comes a point where you need to get out of your comfort zone to ensure your training continues to improve! With Saffi at the moment I’m attempting to take her places where I know she might have interactions with other dogs. Up until now I’ve taught her that dogs are none of their business unless I’ve said so but she’s had some very poor experiences recently with offlead unwelcome dogs approaching her and interacting quite rudely. This means that if a dog gets close she loses her head a little. So I’m working on her ability to be calm and close but also disengage and come with me. I’m also trying to so things like go to coffee shops/sitting on benches and taking in views and generally just doing nothing to help her patience but also help her to understand that just because I’m not very interesting it doesn’t mean she gets to bog off and get overly excited with everyone!! So if you’ve got to a point in your training where you’ve stopped seeing much improvement, try getting out of your comfort zone a little and stretching you and your dog a little!

12/02/2024

I met this lovely boy for a session this morning! Actually this session was very much about giving the owner confidence about her ability and the engagement she has with her dog! We just made a few tweaks to how she helps him manage interactions with other dogs but that was it really! What a lovely boy.

11/02/2024

FAIR DOES NOT MEAN EQUAL! As a multi dog household it might surprise you that my dogs are not treated equally - because they have very different needs and levels of training! Just because one dog gets something doesn’t mean the other gets the same! Saffi is an adolescent dog and whilst she’s doing well she’s not that reliable in certain situations and I know some experiences will be too much for her. She also has less ‘freedom’ in general. Dexter is 2.5 and needs a lot less ‘training’ even though he loves it! And I can trust him to be offlead without any concern. So today we went to as a family and I wanted to enjoy my family time. Dexter came along because I can relax with my children when he’s around, Saffi stayed at home. Saffi had a big exciting training session on the Moss before we left, she’d had about 45 mins with me so I knew her needs were met. But if she had come along, I would have been way more distracted from my family as she requires a lot more input and to be honest I would have got frustrated which is not something Saffi needs. Plus Dexter loved his walk without his sister 🥰

10/02/2024

Dogs need a lot of sleep! Puppies need even more sleep and so do adolescent dogs! I got a reminder of this fact today when, against my better judgement, I took Saffi out on a walk with Dex this afternoon when I should have left her at home. She’d had a fairly busy day but the main thing was that she’d spent all afternoon chewing. Yes, not physically stimulating but definitely mentally stimulating and she probably hadn’t had enough sleep. I realised about 10mins into my walk that she should have stayed at home but I decided to keep going for Dexter’s benefit. So, how did I realise? Well she was struggling to walk nicely on the lead, her body language was very alert and her movements were erratic. I could tell her head was not in the right place. I made the decision not to let her offlead but let Dex off and she spent a lot of the time lunging at him when he ran past and I could just tell her brain was not in her head. She saw a squirrel which nearly blew her brain although she did disengage from it which was fab. Now, many people would look at her and think that she needed more exercise because she was practically chewing at the bit but it’s just not true, quite the opposite!! And the proof was in the pudding when we got home, she absolutely conked out. Lesson learned!! So if you have a young dog think before you take them out - is their head in the right place for this?

06/02/2024

THE MYTH OF 'PURELY POSITIVE' TRAINING

Yeah, having a puppy has me feeling a bit ranty because I am acutely aware that I want her to be as happy as possible as she learns all the things she needs to learn to live, and work, in the human world.
And we do ask a lot of dogs! We expect them to suppress so many natural behaviours for very little reward. To us, the reward is good food, a rent free place to live, private schooling, and private healthcare... but dogs don't understand those things are the reward for fitting in with the hairless monkeys.

Over the years, my training has changed. I'm what people call a crossover trainer. I wasn't lucky enough to know what I know now when I started out. I'm still not perfect, but I strive to be better understood by my dogs and to avoid the use of force, fear, pain, and intimidation. And I'm a bit sick of the current backlash against methods of training that consider how a dog feels and try to keep a dog as happy as possible.
The attacks come under headlines about 'Purely Positive Trainers' who don't say 'no' and are the cause of all the ill trained dogs out there... but this is rubbish. For a start, the only people using the term 'Purely Positive' are not the gentle trainers. We know we can't only use positive reinforcement! We aim to set exercises up so the dog learns without making mistakes and we can reward their success. Rewards can be food, toy play, free time, and for the advanced dog a 'good dog' and a stroke might be enough. If our dog makes a mistake we don't give the reward, and we set the exercise up again with tweaks so the dog gets it right. We don't ask big questions until the dog really understands our cues (commands, I still use this word... first learning, and all that). We are not permissive! Our dogs learn to greet people with all paws on the floor, they learn auto-leaves, they learn boundaries. There are definitely rules! And most of us say 'No!'. We know dogs can't learn 'not do' things. Their brains can learn 'sit to greet people' but they can't learn 'don't jump up' but we are human and 'No!' is so easy to say. If we say 'No!'to interrupt a behaviour, we need to follow up quickly with 'please do this instead'... then train more of the 'do this instead'. The reward based trainer wouldn't allow their dog to jump at at the oven and burn themselves because to shout 'No!'is negative. They wouldn't allow the dog to learn by getting burned. They won't throw a saucepan at their dog to teach him a lesson either. They will probably shout No! The dog is interrupted and saved from a burn. They then ask the dog to go to bed and give him a treat there. The next days they work hard on a magic mat game so the dog automatically stays there happily while they cook... and if they haven't got time to train that they use a baby gate to prevent accidents.
I try to avoid labels... I don't want to call myself force free, or positive. Certainly not purely positive. I don't want people who have trained differently to stay away, I want them to come and try a different way. If you push me I'd say reward based...
Reward based may not be the fastest method, and it certainly isn't dramatic enough for TV. But it feels nicer to train your dog with success and rewards than to be the do******ix of old skool training!
Rant over...

05/02/2024

Today I added border collie to my ‘must have one day in my life’ list (I already knew this to be honest) what a beautiful boy he is. Hopefully he and his owner went away with some strategies to help with his general engagement with his owner which will in turn help with us concerns with other dogs!

28/01/2024

The different dogs I saw this week!! For a range of reasons from dog reactivity to general house manners, pulling on lead and recall. I just have a few slots left in Feb before I stop working to have a baby so get in touch if you want to work with me! I will be taking some time off once baby comes and from then I’m going to change things up a little bit with my little business and start offering walk & trains where I come in, take your dog out for a training walk and feedback to you what I’ve done!

26/01/2024

I had a lovely session with this beautiful lady this morning. We worked on strategies to help her settle in the house, to help with her lead manners and some brain games to help get her working.

23/01/2024

I had a lovely session with this handsome boy this morning! He and his owner are now armed with some strategies to hopefully help him feel more confident around other dogs as at the moment he gets worried! It was a very rainy session so he was very happy when we came back inside 😂

22/01/2024

Adolescence……I thought I’d do a follow up post from my previous one as I spoke about how I’m managing Saffi as she’s hit a particularly adolescent period. Well, at the moment Saffi is not getting that much ‘free time’ when out and about! This may sound mean but she’s not showing me that she has the skills to make good choices during her free time! She mostly wants to hunt. This is fine, she is a working cocker after all and it’s my responsibility to make sure she’s satisfying her needs from her breeding. BUT she hunts ON CUE and WITH ME (as much as i can!) in between she’s either occupied with me (playing/training), on lead or walking to heel. She’s having individual training walks with me every other day and on the other day I take both dogs but they take turns at being off lead for short periods and they are rarely off together. Why is this? Because I don’t want her to rehearse habits I don’t want in the future - like buggering off hunting on her own as that kind of territory gets dangerous! Or just constantly chasing and annoying Dexter and getting further away from me as a result. So if you have an adolescent dog, it is ok to manage what they’re allowed to do. For me, the more they rehearse something the more it will become a habit so it’s really important at this stage to spot when an unwanted behaviour is creeping in and manage it straight away before it becomes a habit!

19/01/2024

PAVEMENT GRIT & LOW TEMPERATURES

🥶 GRIT SALT - Below is an example of what pavement grit can do to your dogs paw pads. Where possible you should avoid walking your dog on gritted paths, not only can the grit damage the paw pads but when your dog licks their paws after a walk and ingests the grit salt - this can potentially be very toxic for them. Always wash your dogs paws off after a walk if they have been near gritted surfaces.

🥶 MINUS TEMPERATURES - I have had to move a few training days etc this week for pups/smaller dogs due to the minus temperatures, puppies and smaller breeds are more susceptible to the cold and being out for the best part of the entire day wouldn’t be advisable or fair for them. I refuse to risk any dog in my care for the sake of ££ or because the owner insists the dog goes, this is ultimately my decision at the end of the day and something I pride myself upon is ensuring all dogs welfare is paramount.

*photo is not mine - just an example*

18/01/2024

This lady is 10 months old today! Can you believe it!! Many would think that’s old and she should be perfectly trained by now. Well no, that’s not the case 😂 she is very much a work in progress and still challenges me every day! I think it’s important to say that even as a dog trainer she has been really hard work at times and she continues to throw things up everyday! She is very much an adolescent which can mean the odd bit of selective hearing, and perhaps forgetting previous training. She needs a lot of patience and compassion just now! And I have gone back to basics a few times with her! Just now we are going back to basics with retrieving for example as she’s started to play keep away, especially when Dexter is with me! So if you have an adolescent dog I know what you’re going through right now but keep at it, they will come through the other side!!

12/01/2024

A good friend of mine has taken the hard decision to rehome her lovely cat Boo. I can advocate for this cat 100%. I’d take her if I was allowed!! Get in touch if you know of anyone interested. She lives with another cat currently.

12/01/2024

I have had a 1-2-1 session postponed THIS SUNDAY 14th if anyone is interested! PM me if interested 😊🐶