I love doing a snuffles on a walk with my girls and especially on social walks with the puppys as it's nice practice for pups to share and snuffle food around another dog who is polite and friendly around food like Lilly. It also always helps to calm the pups down, especially at the end or start of a wall where they might be getting a bit over excited.
Food is one of the biggest things that dogs will resource guard, especially around other dogs. So, I like to give pups this opportunity to feel safe and relaxed with another dog around food, and it's always such a nice bonding experience for Lilly at the pup!
#puppytraining #dogtraining #dogtrainer #socialisationtraining #socialisation #puppysocialisation #puppy
Lilly has been super busy lately with all her puppy socialisation walks! We had a lovely walk with Russell dauchshund 🤍🩶🖤🤎
#dauchshundpuppy #dauchshund #puppysocialisation #puppysocialization #socialisationtraining #puppytraining #dogtraining
Just some more proof that harnesses aren't magical equipment that create unstoppable pulling and that you don't need to use prong collars or slip leads to teach a dog to not pull 👍 I wanted to keep the music out so you guys can actually hear what's going on but I'm curious as to how well this reel will do without any music 😂
#dogtraining #dogtrainer #dogtrainingadvice #dogwalkingadvice #dogtrainingtips #dogharness #positivedogtraining #positivedogtrainer #balanceddogtraining
There is generally one of two reasons a dog will be pulling - over stimulation or lack of focus and 9 time out of ten it's a bit of both. There are obviously other reasons why a dog pulls, but I am saying that in general, these are the most common reasons.
Learning that dogs mostly pull out of stress was a game changer for us. It made me rethink my dog walks, and rather than getting frustrated about my dog pulling, it made me think, "Why is my dog stresses?" And "How can I reduce or avoid this stress until my dog can cope better with it?"
When I started thinking like this rather than from an obedience mindset, we progressed faster, further, and easier. So, think about your dog and when and where they pull and see if you can think about WHY they are pulling and tackle that issue rather than the lead pulling - even if they are only 2.5kg 🐾
#dogwalking #dogwalk #dogwalkingadvice
#dogtrainingadvice #dogtraining #dogtrainer #dogtrainingtips #dog #dogs
I apologise for how annoying I am in this video 😂 It was a video I took during covid whilst I was on furlough way before I was dog training and it was just meant to be a cute video of us enjoying a nice summer snack together.
You'll probably ask me now, 'Wait, so you never tell your dogs, no?' And my answer to that is 'Oh, I absolutely do, but never as a punishment and only as a bad form of communication because I'm human. And I think one of the most human things we do during dog training is randomly saying no, however, when I slip up and say no on occasions, I will then use the cue that I actually meant."
At the moment we're walking Luna separately and on shorter walks because she's in season. So, we're on the walk, and Luna goes to walk the long route. I automatically say "No Luna, we're doing the shorter one today." She just tilts her head and looks at me. So I smile and instead I say "Let's go", which is our cue for turning the other way and she does and we resume our walk. If I had just kept saying "No, no, no, no," she probably would have come with me, but she would have been confused, and I would have been frustrated. Instead, I just used our cue, which is much better communication, and because she understood I didn't get frustrated and neither did she.
Looking through old videos and using them as content is cathartic for me, and I feel it can show others that we all start somewhere. I've always said we did a lot wrong with Stitch, so I'm trying to put a positive spin on these videos to use them as lessons for how I am now.
#gsd #germanshepherd #dogtrainingadvice #dogtraining #dogtrainer #dog #dogs
Nora is a client on my puppy package. Her owner sent me this a few days ago to show off how amazing her recall is! Good job, guys! 🥳👏
#puppytraining #puppy #dauschund #puppytrainer #dogtraining #dogtrainer
🐾 Bonus tips 🐾
Puppy pulling your clothes? Try and wear less flappy clothing as this can really over stimulate some pups! I had to stop wearing genie trousers for a couple of weeks when we first got Lilly as she just couldn't get over how fun they were to catch! 😂
When your puppy is teething, it will be soothing for them to chew - try and give them something to help with the pain that they can chew on that's not your hand. A cold flannel normally works great!
I get asked too often if mouthing is normal for puppys or if it's an early sign of aggression or dominance. It's not.
1. Exploration - Pups are learning about the world and everything in it. They do this with their nose, eyes, and mouth. It's how puppies learn about the world and explore. Dogs don't have hands to grab things like us, so they use their mouths, like how a baby might pull your hair when they're learning to grab a puppy might mouth you.
2. Over stimulated - This I would say is the most common reason. When a puppy is over tired or over stimulated, they're likely to have less mouth control, so mouthing might be a bit harder as well. When pups are over tired/stimulated, they generally become more mouthy and easily frustrated - just like a human toddler. This is why it's important that puppies are getting enough sleep
3. Play - This shouldn't come as a surprise that when puppies play, they use their mouths. And they would have spent their time doing this regularly with their litter mates. However, humans don't play bite so we need to teach our pups how to play with us! Which is why when a puppy mouths we don't punish them for it as its a completely natural behaviour. Instead, we can redirect them onto a toy or a chew!
#dogtraining #puppytraining #puppy #puppymouthing #puppybiting #dogtrainer #puppytrainer #goldendoodlepuppy
1. Safety reasons: So Lilly (spayed) and has always absolutely hated it when dogs try and mount her. It's the only time I have ever seen her snap at a dog. So obviously, because Luna is in season, if an off-lead dog approached her, keeping her away would be a priority. However, I also don't want any dogs redirecting behaviour onto Lilly because she will not have it because it's the one thing she isn't tolerant about and I don't want there to be a fight. I also don't want to put her in that situation. Also, walking them separately just makes it so much easier to prevent an unwanted pregnancy
(Side note: we are only taking Luna around the estate at the moment, but where we live, lots of people just walk their dogs off-lead right by the road with zero control 🙃 but I know their walking times so we obviously avoid them)
2. Behavioural reasons: Luna has become more anxious and stressed since coming into season. Walking the girls solo allows me to train them both seperately in a calmer state to reinforce beneficial behaviours. We did walk them together just before we realised Luna had come into season and I noticed they were both mimicking unwanted behaviours and not relaxing as easily on their walk and strangely had both started barking at objects, people and animals - something that Lilly almost never does and Luna has almost completely stopped doing. Lilly only ever barks at cats and birds when she's over excited. And Luna used to bark at dogs but has massively reduced this and had almost stopped.
So, for them to both start doing this at everything, I realised something was up. When walking them separately, they both have stopped.
3. Shorter & Quieter walks: Lilly still wants nice fairly long walks, whereas Luna is tired mentally much faster and becomes over tired, and we need to walk Luna at quieter points in the day. This way Lilly still gets all her sniffs out, and Luna is not coming home over tired because she went on too long a walk also we can walk at s
Bernie, the goldendoodle, is one of my current puppy package clients! Her owners contacted me before getting Bernie so they could make sure they were doing everything right from the very start, which is amazing!
I love it when clients have me come in from the very very start as it sets everyone up for success! 🙌🐾
#puppy #puppytraining #goldendoodle #dogtraining
Just look how much happier she is in the second video! It's important for your dog to know to heel and when to heel, for safety reasons, of course! However, when just walking around oir neighbourhood and casual walks as long as my dogs leads are a bit loose and therefore not pulling me I don't care if she's at the end of the lead or right by my feet. We all enjoy our walks much more because when the dogs are at their happiest so are we 💚🐾
#dogwalk #dogwalking #dogtrainer #dogtraining #looseleashwalking #looseleadwalking #dogwalks #dog #dogleash #doglead
5 things we did to create this:
1: Creating space & long leads. Lilly went up and said hello but Luna wasn't feeling completely confident, so we hung back and watched. This was such a massive step for Luna. The white retriever is a long-time friend of Lillys, so it does massively help Luna that Lilly is familiar, saying hello to these dogs.
2: Luna was in control. A few times, she felt brave to go over to the dogs but then got nervous and wanted to make space again. This was absolutely fine! We went back and forth A LOT, so she felt in control of the situation.
3: I was constantly there to reassure her. When Luna feels overwhelmed or stressed, if i am standing, she paws and jumps up at my leg (this is actually really common with a lot of dogs). When she does this, I come right down to the floor, and she sits on my lap. This is what she has assigned as her safe zone. I think a large part of this is due to her size as she feels higher up and safer with me. A couple of times when she was feeling braver and greeting the other dog, she wanted to be on my lap while saying hello.
4: I said hello to the dog while allowing Luna space. Something I do once Luna doesn't need me as her safe zone is I give Luna the full distance of the lead while I greet the other dog at the end of their leash. This way, the other dog can't get to Luna, and Luna still has comfortable space, but she can also see me saying hello to the other dog, and it helps the other dog to calm. I don't force luna to come over, and I don't wait for her to come over, I actually move away from the dog if Luna comes over, so she doesn't feel obliged to be close to the dog because of me. After a minute or so of saying hello, I go back to Luna either way.
5: We played. Luna is extremely toy motivated. She loves toys. We have a favourite tuggy toy that comes on walks with us, and it is her reward for ignoring the dogs. I plan on doing a separate and more indept video about this. But while Lilly was with the dog
This was our first dog session. It might look far, but Rocco was already reacting to Lilly in the field from this massive distance. Halving the distance in just one session is an absolutely massive achievement for Rocco.
He used to charge across fields this size over to other dogs and people barking! Now, he is listening to his owners, performing other tasks, and remaining calm and focused! This was our first session where we used a real dog, and he and his owners did absolutely amazing 👏
And of course, Lilly also did a great job of stooging for us 💚🐾
#dogtraining #reactivity #reactivitytraining #dogreactivity #reactivedog #dogtrainer #reactivedogtraining #stoogedog #ethicaldogtraining #dog #dogs
