Lucky’s Paws

Resource GuardingIs a HUGE issue but one that is increasingly more common. Here are a few things you can implement to prevent/work through instances of guarding but it’s one of those behaviours that if you see any signs of it, reach out to a suitably experienced trainer/behaviourist to help with a proven track record of overcoming such an issue.#dogtraining #dogtrainingthoughts #dogrecalltraining #reactivity #dogreactivity #huddersfield #dogbehaviourtraining #dog #doglover #dogsofinstagram #resourceguarding #leave #drop #management #training

This Is EVERYTHING 👏👏

This Is EVERYTHING 👏👏 Fay DREADED walks with Harlow. With every reaction, her confidence took a knock and walks became more and more unenjoyable… UNTIL…. Two days ago! Harlow’s owner Nathan has been putting the work in with Harlow and our final session two days ago was all around implementing everything we have done with Fay. We know Harlow can do it, it was just a matter of Fay believing she could do it too! This was a video from their walk yesterday following that session. I feel like this is the first day of their new chapter together and I am absolutely here for it. Well. Blooming. Done! ❤️ #dogtraining #dogtrainingthoughts #dogrecalltraining #reactivity #dogreactivity #huddersfield #dogbehaviourtraining #dog #doglover #dogsofinstagram #relationship #confidence

Leave 🛑 Does your dog truly know leave?

Teaching your dog this is a MUST. But most people take a GIANT leap from getting their dog to leave a treat on the floor when in a sit to shouting it when the dog is chasing a squirrel or lunging for a doner kebab somebody dropped in your local village on a boozy Friday night. Teaching a solid leave command is made up of 3 key points: 1. Management! What does this look like? Preventing your dog from doing the behaviour you don’t want them to. Whether that be using a muzzle, using a lead all the way to ensuring the dog doesn’t have access to counter surfing when you are not there. Every time your dog gets to eat/chase that thing you don’t want them to, it reinforces the behaviour and therefore, they are more likely to do it again. 2. Training! Jumping steps and asking too much too soon is the biggest mistake I see people make. When your dog leaves that piece of food you placed carefully on the ground it is not the same as those real life situations where your dog dives into a bush and comes out with a dirty tissue in their mouth, despite shouting leave multiple times. Start by building that solid leave command in a controlled environment and when ready, build in more challenging scenarios. There are so many variables you can control here to make the training easier/harder. Those include but are not limited to the value of the item they are leaving (start low), the value of the reward (start high), how close you allow them to get to the item (start further away) and how far they are away from you (start close to you). Manipulating these variables will allow you to push the training bit by bit, not moving on until you’ve seen consistent success at that level. Side note: Shouting leave 5 times does not mean your dog knows leave. They’re likely complying because of the tone of your voice, NOT the command itself. Following first time in a normal tone is your goal. 3. Reps! Do the above… over… and over… and over again. Build in difficulty, different loc

Unwanted, Rehearsed Behaviours….There are lots of them! Barking, jumping up, picking up rubbish, stealing, counter surfing, mouthing, pulling on the lead, running up to people/dogs when off lead… the list goes on.The more these behaviours happen and the dog receives a positive outcome, the more they are repeated; like Dexter and his barking!So many books and Internet pages tell you to ignore these behaviours. In fact, I would say every single house I go to where the dog jumps up or barks at people the owners tell guests to ignore the dog. Low and behold that behaviour is still there, stronger than ever. Whether you or the guest “says hello” or not, the dog is still getting enjoyment from performing the behaviour.So what do we do? The answer is multi fold! This is specifically focused on barking.PREVENT- the behaviour happening in the first place. If you know people are coming round, put your dog on a lead beforehand and give them an alternative behaviour such as a bed command.MANAGE - the behaviour if you don’t have time to do the training. Put your dog in a crate/ another room/ behind a baby gate and give them something to do or ask someone to remove them from the situation completely.TRAIN - the behaviour and more importantly the emotion you want instead. Know that if you allow a positive outcome from a negative behaviour it will reinforce it. Giving your dog an alternative job and waiting for them to calm down before allowing the positive outcome, will reinforce the thing you want.REINFORCE - positively what you want to see. Your dog is being quiet and calm? Give them a treat, let them say hello, let them get out of the carINTERRUPT - what you don’t want to see. If you can see your dog is loading/fixating and about to perform the negative behaviour, turn into them, create space and re approach when appropriate (just one way to deal with this).BOOK - in with a trainer to work through this sooner rather than later. It will only get worse. They’re not

Is your dog reactive to people coming into the home? A lot of people hate to hear the word reactive when describing their dogs, but it shouldn’t be a taboo word. It simply means showing a response to a stimulus. This, most often in my line of work, comes from a place of fear or over excitement. For Rosie, it is fear and uncertainty. Whilst we will be helping Rosie to develop more positive relationships with people, on arrival I needed to be able to have a conversation with her owners about Rosie. Usually I would either meet on a walk or pop Rosie in another room but neither was possible. We couldn’t put her in another room because she has quite severe separation anxiety and it wasn’t possible to do this out on a walk because Rosie‘s behaviour on the lead is also quite erratic and would’ve made it difficult for her owners to concentrate. What did we do? We gave Rosie a little bit of guidance to stop her brain having to think too much about the danger (me). We added a lead to stop her running around and barking which was causing her stress as well as her family, we put her behind her owner on a loose lead, but still allowed line of sight so that we weren’t blocking her vision but we were protecting her space and we gave her a job (which was initially a sit) and rewarded her for doing it. A dog in a state of stress often needs guidance from us to help them make better choices. This allowed us to have a chat and get started with the training in a much calmer state. For those with dogs who react to people coming home, there are a few things you can do to help: - meet outside and go on a walk first - teach the dog an alternative cue such as a bed command and reward them for that - having a lead on your dog to prevent them running towards the person - YOU be the one to reward the dog initially, not the guest. For fearful dogs, they generally don’t want to take food from a stranger but you can make it a much more positive experience by rewarding th

✨ Practice makes perfect ✨

✨ Practice makes perfect ✨ Massive shout out to Emily’s puppy class client for sending in this amazing footage of what “heel” for a puppy under 6 months can look like with consistency 🤩 Not ONLY that but check out his eye contact!! Consistency really is key. Working with puppies can be challenging and we only have a limited window of opportunity before they get bored so we have to keep things simple, rewarding and engaging. We’re not asking for a “perfect heel” over a long distance. But short bursts like these clips are what set the foundations that can be built on over time as your puppy develops ♥️ If you guys keep up with your training you’ll achieve great things…bravo 👏🏼 👏🏼 👏🏼 #puppy #puppyclass #puppttraining #dogtraining #training #doberman #labrador #doberdor #crossbreed #heel #heelwork #puppyheel #eyecontact #client

🐾 Exposure> (over) Socialisation 🐾

Click bait… my bad😁 Socialising your dog is important, we all know that but what I normally see is a lot of OVER socialisation which creates issues in the long run. Allowing your dog to say hello to every dog you see, pull you towards every person to get a fuss, chase birds/squirrels with no longline and no chance of a successful recall is teaching your dog: 🐾 Pulling on the lead= reward whether this is affection from humans, sniffing grass or greeting another dog 🐾 It’s okay to ignore recall, in fact if you ignore the recall you can keep playing or chasing those birds! 🐾 Other people are more rewarding than me, of course you should pull to say hello 🐾 Dogs out on a walk mean you can play with them all whenever you want - even if you don’t know whether the dog is friendly or not A lot of dogs I see in day to day life clearly display frustration based reactivity. Those cute puppy behaviours start to become more problematic the older and stronger the dog becomes. And sadly, many others I see are the opposite; they are fear reactive due to being continually pestered by out of control, off lead dogs. Focusing on exposing your pup to the environment and the things in it will pay dividends in the future. Working on you being highly rewarding to your dog and use greeting other dogs/people as a reward for good behaviour. In this short clip a lady is passing with her two dogs. Dylan is a young pup, he would love to go over and say hello. Emily could allow him to go across, have a play, but… 1. She doesn’t know these dogs, nor did they express any interest in wanting to interact with Dylan 2. Teaching Dylan that looking at the dogs and disengaging to look back at me = reward. 3. Dylan has lots of other opportunities to interact with known dogs, he doesn’t need to say hello to every dog he sees. We of course want a social dog but not one that behaves poorly when not allowed to say hello. In this situation it was more beneficial to Dylan’s

🐾 Enrichment 🐾 Some commonly asked questions at puppy class are… “How do I stop my puppy chewing my things” “How do I tire him out, we’ll go for a long walk and he goes nuts when we’re back inside” I’ve even had a client tell me they’ve been advised not to give their puppy enrichment to rip up/ chew because it will encourage this behaviour with other items in the house you don’t want them to chew! 😱…which is just not true! Young dogs chew! And it will happen regardless. If we can meet that biological need in a safe and controlled way then great! Enrichment looks like the following and some examples: 🐾 Sniffing and foraging - enrichments boxes, scatter feeding, find-it games around the house 🐾 Ripping and licking - lickimats, kongs, boxes, paper 🐾 Chewing and crunching- high value antlers and chews (age appropriate and always check this!) or frozen carrots Providing your puppy things to focus their senses will mentally tire them out and bring their energy down slowly - we need to balance physical exercise with a walk and mental stimulation through training and enrichment. It will not encourage your dog to be destructive inside the home because: 1. Your puppy should never be left unattended and if they are at such a young age they should be in a crate so they can’t chew unwanted items 2. Your focussing that energy into something positive - if you don’t then they’ll likely find something to satisfy their needs anyway (which could be your best slippers) 3. You will give them a start and end cue such as break/okay/go and an “all done” cue These guys absolutely loved exploring all the enrichment we provided for them. Some we’d spent a bit of money on and others we’d just used an old twisted up towel to create a snuffle mat, some cardboard boxes and tubes and a longline all with treats scattered inside! So go grab yourself some enrichment and tag Lucky’s Paws in your videos! It can be as simple or as com

Muzzle training: Part 4 Once your dog is comfortable having the muzzle on inside the home you can move the training to more distracting environments. With Boston I started in a field (his favourite place) just down the road from home, he’s familiar with the area and the field was really quiet which is what you want initially I worked up gradually to walking next to main roads, new walks that are unfamiliar and after all that, that’s when I started implementing the muzzle training in the scary places, like the vets. What I didn’t do is think “right he’s fine with the muzzle on, let’s go to the scary places” because I’d completely set him up for failure. Too many distractions, too many triggers that would ultimately cause him to feel stressed and likely try to pull the muzzle off. Your dog should not be trying to get the muzzle off with his claws, rubbing his face on the floor or standing stiff and uncomfortable. If that’s what is happening we need to take it back a step and make it easier Let me know how you get on and keep your eyes peeled for part 5! 👀 #muzzletraining #muzzle #muzzletraininginprogress #dogmuzzle #dogs #huddersfield #balancedtraining #balanceddogtrainer #dogtrainer #gooddog #dogintraining #september

Muzzle Training: Part 3 Once your dog is successfully putting their nose inside the muzzle on command, keeping it there until they hear the “yes” marker and you’re able to fasten the clip behind your dogs head without issue, you can start adding in short bursts of movement Start with small movements like “sit” “down” and “heel” then you can start recalling your dog across the room etc etc until you can eventually put a lead on and walk around the house with the muzzle on Keep your eyes peeled for part 4 👀 #muzzletraining #muzzle #muzzletrained #dogtrainer #dogtraining #yorkshire #rommierescue #rommie #dogs #huddersfield #balanceddogtraining #balanceddogtrainer #balance #vet #vetchecks

Muzzle Training: Part 2

Muzzle Training: Part 2 Adding the word and fastening the strap are the next steps in your training. Never add the word until your dog is consistently putting their nose into the muzzle. If initially your dog immediately brings their head out of the muzzle as you go to fasten the strap (likely because they’re anticipating food coming from this hand) don’t reach for the strap right away, break it down into chunks: 🐾 Move your hand to the side of your dogs head without touching the dog, mark “yes” if they keep their head inside the muzzle and reward away with food - if they bring their head away verbally correct and try again but further away with your hand this time 🐾 Then you can start to move your hand further and further towards the strap/top of your dogs head until you can reach for the clip and secure it Have a go and let me know in the comments how you get on…stay tuned for part 3 👀 #balanceddogtraining #muzzletrain #muzzle #muzzletraining #muzzletrained #process #dogtraining #gooddog #dogsofinstagram #yorkshire #luckyspaws #huddersfield #dogmuzzle

🐾 Muzzle Training: Part 1 🐾 Every dog should be muzzle trained. Not because every dog needs a muzzle- some dogs are absolutely fine at vets, groomers etc but there might be that “what if” situation you can’t predict where a muzzle is necessary… Also, why not? Muzzle training should be a fun and positive training exercise for you and your dog. Allows you to teach them another new command AND could come in useful at some point in their lives. What if your dog has an accident and is in extreme pain, in such a panicked state your dog won’t let anyone near and tries to bite? What if your dog is at the groomers and they make the decision to muzzle as a safety precaution for their staff? What if you’re away on holiday and your dog sustains a minor injury in the kennel? They will likely muzzle your dog to examine the wound. What if? What if? What if? You don’t want to have to wrestle your dog into a muzzle, especially when they’re distressed or in pain. So why not muzzle train your dog and make the entire experience that little bit more comfortable? Using the muzzle shouldn’t just be in situations you need it, practice at home, in the garden, for brief moments on a walk, visit the vets and practice using it in the waiting area. I want the muzzle to be super positive- muzzle means treats, muzzle means affection, muzzle means we’re going for a walk so that when you do need to use in a negative situation - I.e at the vets you’ve done so much positive training and preparation it’s not a battle getting it on and your dog is trying to claw it off This will be a series from start to finish on how to muzzle train your dog and we will be releasing them over the coming weeks and adding to a highlight 😊 #relationshipbaseddogtraining #dogtrainer #dogtraining #trainersofinstagram #yorkshire #huddersfield #muzzletraining #muzzleyourdog #muzzletrained #muzzle #dogmuzzle #happydog

🐾 Come train with us 🐾 Pack walks are open to 1-1 Lucky’s Paws clients who are ready to train in more distracting environments. These walks aim to set you up for success, you’ll make new friends, gain confidence and challenge yourself around more distractions and triggers All the dogs in this reel are or were previously reactive. Regardless of where they are at with their dog, the owners know this is an every day job that you have to work at and there’s no quick fix but it’s 100% worth all the blood, sweat and tears to get you to this point. Learning how to navigate through life with a reactive dog, how to deal with those triggers should they come along while being surrounded by supportive, like-minded dog owners without judgement is the best feeling! You’ll be supported at your lows and congratulated at your highs and encouraged throughout your journey no matter what So…what are you waiting for? Book in for 1-1 sessions and come train with us ♥️ #dogtrainer #balancedtraining #packwalk #dogwalks #friends #balanceddogtrainer #huddersfield #greenheadpark #trainyourdog #training #trainwithus #dogbreeds #thursday #dogs #dogsofyorkshire #yorkshire #dogsofinstagram

👀 Eye Contact 👀 How can I get more NATURAL eye contact from my dog!? 🤫 There are a few ways you can do this… 🐾 Wait it out! In low distraction environments (like the home or garden initially) simply wait for your dog to offer eye contact. For known commands such as “sit” or “down”, instead of treating when they offer the command, wait until they offer eye contact before rewarding. You can use this same idea in other situations that result in a reward including; ✅Meal times - wait for eye contact before releasing to eat. ✅Threshold work - When leaving the house, wait for eye contact before releasing across a threshold ✅Toy play - Before moving into toy play wait for eye contact before release. Starting to get the idea? 🤩 🐾 Once your dog understands that offering natural eye contact is super rewarding you can start to change up the position you wait for them to offer it in as well as the environment they offer it in. Have your dog in a “sit” at your side in the “heel” position. Every time your dog looks into your eyes mark it and reward. Then start adding in movement and rewarding from the hand closest to your dog when they offer eye contact. Do this outside on your walks, slowly increasing the environmental distractions. 🐾 For those dogs who really struggle with this, you can start with this game. With a treat in either hand, imagine that you’re making a triangle out of your head and your hands- your head is the top of the triangle and yours hands are the bottom two corners. The likeliness here is that your dog is going to fixate on the treat, jump up, paw at your legs, bark in an attempt to figure out how they get the food. As soon as your dog looks away from the food and into your eyes immediately mark (with your positive marker reward “yes” or “good boy/girl”) and reward with either piece of food in your hand. Repeat, repeat, repeat and you will find your dog gets quicker and instantly starts to offer

🐾 House Lines 🐾 📣One of my top recommendations when training a dog inside the home, particularly puppies, is to use a house line. Often, when I attend my 1-1 sessions we need to put a lead on the dog. This could be to support teaching a “place” command, practicing threshold work, working through door reactivity, toilet training, resource guarding or even a solid “leave it” command There are so many times during the training process you will need a lead on your dog in order to do the homework between sessions but what happens when you take that lead off once the session is over? What happens when you take the lead off and your puppy pinches your best pair of slippers and you end up having a really fun game of chase around the living room…? The chasing can make the item more valuable and as the dog gets older you can see that annoying little habit turn into something a lot more problematic; resource guarding. House lines are great! They prevent frustration on your part as the owner and stop your dog developing learned, unwanted behaviours that are unknowingly reinforced with lots of attention (your dog doesn’t care if it’s negative attention) 🐾 If your dog doesn’t listen to the “place” command when someone knocks at the door, you can pick up the line and guide them over with ease 🐾 If your puppy tries to run off with an item, guide them into your space with the house line and work through your “leave it” training- no chasing, no frustration, no excitement 🐾 When toilet training, a house line allows you to easily guide your dog outside to the toilet to stop accidents inside There are so many ways to use a house line- I always recommend for puppies to wear a house line until the unwanted behaviours stop I.e toileting inside, chewing and pinching items around the house: House lines don’t have to be bulky, heavy or even that long! A thin, nylon lead roughly 2-3m long will be just fine- remember you’re not using it

How training your dog can impact others 🐾 A short story… A lady approached my clients last week at Greenhead Park and congratulated them on having such well behaved, happy dogs that are under control 🤩 The lady went on to explain she has quite a severe phobia of dogs but loves to stroll around Greenhead Park… She’s been told she should avoid the park if she’s fearful of dogs, that if dogs jump up at her or approach off lead that they’re just being friendly 🙄 This absolutely breaks my heart that an older lady, minding her own business, enjoying her walk feels like she’s in the wrong for not wanting off lead dogs approaching her. We also have to remember guys for a lot of people, especially older people that might live alone, a relaxing walk around the park is their chance to get out and speak to people. We should all be able to enjoy public spaces safely. I’m so incredibly proud of my clients and can’t thank them enough for being responsible dog owners, respecting others and making this lady feel comfortable around dogs Well done guys you and your dogs are an absolute credit to Lucky’s Paws ♥️ #dogtrainer #dogtrainersofinstagram #balancedtraining #balanceddogtrainer #springerspaniel #sprockerspaniel #cockerspaniel #spaniel #proud #client #huddersfield #yorkshire #dogsofinstagram #dogs #happydogs #workingbreeds

Coco ❤️ While in Romania, not only did I wanted to assess existing Lucky’s dogs and potential new dogs so that we can be as confident as possible when matching dogs to home, as well as spending time with the more nervous dogs we have looking for homes. Coco is one of those. ❤️ She is by no means the most nervous dog there, far from it, but she doesn’t openly accept affection, she is unsure and hand shy, avoiding human contact where she can. This can sadly be off putting to adopters as it can seem like nervous dogs are never going to be able to trust people or happily accept affection, but this video proves that with the right approach, even in just 2 hours, huge strides can be made. I can tell that with time and training, Coco is going to be such a love bug ❤️ There are some dogs this would take a lot longer with, but with Coco, I knew we could make lots of progress in a short space of time. With other dogs, I had to start behind fencing or stay at the earlier stages for longer. With some, the first few days was simply dropping treats in their pens every time I passed. The idea with Coco was to make as many of the steps as comfortable as possible for her. Using lots of retreating, working within or just at her limit and slowly building difficulty as she became more content in my company. Giving Coco the opportunity to move away or give consent to interact teaches her that I am a safe person. That all parts of our interaction are positive and that our interactions aren’t forced. Replicating this over more sessions and with more people strengthens that further. Just offering a nervous dog treats doesn’t work. Building lots of patterns, lots of predictability and adding in bursts of enrichment will help Coco to build her trust in me. That trust can then be used in other areas of her development. Coco is SO ready to go home. She is so ready to be someone’s best friend. For anyone successful in adopting Coco, I will be happy to offer sessi

🐾 Barney session 2 🐾 One of Barneys owners main behaviour concerns was his reactivity out on a walk towards people and dogs due to a buildup of frustration. During session 1 we covered the basics and how to break his fixation in low distraction environments, to set him up for success early on. Session 2 is where we increase the difficulty. You might notice in some of these clips the small signals of Barney “loading”. This is when his “I’m just looking at the other dog” becomes more of a stare, his ears prick forward and he stops panting then his tail wags even faster as the excitement/frustration builds. The reason session 2 can look a bit clumsy (and it’s to be expected) is because at the start of the session, owners will struggle due to the increased level of difficulty which includes: 🐾 Moving into a more distracting environment 🐾 Adding in neutral dogs that won’t react but will act as triggers to work through 🐾 Owners are just learning for the first time how to deal with different situations, how to prevent a reaction but also how to work through them. This includes counteracting everything their brain is telling them to do, such as tense up on the lead, speak to their dog excessively or distract with treats. It’s important that I let Barney’s owners make the decisions on when to reward, when to turn and when to create space. I’ll assist to a point but this is how owners learn by taking control and just practicing over and over … I want Barney to display the behaviours he usually would so that I can identify to his owners the small signals they need to look out for. The goal is for them to be so confident and so aware of what he’s “about” to do that they can take action before it escalates to a reaction! Session 3 is going to be amazing I just know it from how committed and hard-working these guys are #dogtraining #balancedtraining #dogs #yorkshire #dogsofinstagram #instapup #lab #labrador #labs #blackla

Secure Fields & Their Benefits The majority of the training I do with clients is out in public spaces to prepare people and their dogs for the real world. But secure fields are absolutely amazing for so many reasons; here are a few: ✅Decompression days-sometimes it’s good for both human and dogs to have a day where you know you won’t come across any triggers. Secure fields are a great way to spend them. ✅ Recall practice – are you considering ditching the long line but want to check if your dog can recall consistently in an open but safe space. A great first place to start this would be in a secure field. You can then even invite friends/ friends with dogs when ready for more distraction work. Or simply being able to let your dog have a good run without the panic of them running off. ✅ Practising other commands you are working on outside, but without the distractions you might find in a public space. ✅Catch up with friends-without being on constant high alert - if you have a reactive dog and your reactive dog has good relationships with a selection of known dogs, it’s a nice place where they can interact safely without the worry of another dog approaching. Or, you could just meet a friend with a takeout coffee in a stress free environment. ✅ meet and greets with foster dogs and potential adopters (this has worked so well for us @luckys_legacy_rescue ) There are so many benefits to secure fields and they are relatively inexpensive for what they offer in return. My reason for using a secure field last month was because my back was so bad that walking the dogs just wasn’t possible as I could barely move, but Jack was away for a few days and I needed to exercise the dogs. Made life so easy as I could park right next to the field. I would love to hear any reasons you guys use a secure fields. My two absolute favourites are Happy Meadows Dog Parks(where these videos were taken) and Marsden Mutts #securefield #dogtraining #reactivedog #recall #saf

♥️ Progress>Perfection ♥️ The dog training industry can be a really toxic environment, and social media in general gives people a sense of entitlement that they can cast out unscrupulous criticism behind the safety of their screen…often without having all the information. People can be so cruel. Luckily, I get to see the other side of that every single day. A growing community where you’re championed every day by like minded people. Your unwavering support towards each other in the group chats is something to be admired! It’s human nature to focus on the negatives when it comes to your training but don’t forget the wins and know that it’s the failures that make for a better dog owner in the long run. Learning from my own mistakes has been the best thing I could have done for my dogs. As long as you’re striving for progress, that’s all I can ask…perfection comes later 😉 #dogtrainer #balancedtraining #bekind #gooddog #progress #progressoverperfection #perfection #perfect #happy #bekindtoyourself #kind #dogs #packwalk #luckyspaws #huddersfield #support #dogsofinstagram