Paw In Hand Pet Services

26/08/2025

Happy International Dog Day - let's celebrate all the woofers 🐾
Here's a selection of the ones I'm privileged enough to work with 🐕

20/03/2025

It's Yellow Dog Day! If you see a dog wearing yellow, or with a yellow sleeve on their lead, they need SPACE, maybe from other dogs, or people, or both. Let's give them the compassion, respect and awareness they deserve. Every dog has different needs and they should be respected.

18/02/2025

Doggy pals!

18/02/2025

It's great to see sociable dogs out and about with their friends!
I always ensure I've gotten to know the individual dogs before walking them as part of a small group.
I try to match them up with similar dog personalities and keep to the same groups, they love going out with their regular pals 🐾

10/01/2025

It's been so crisp and lovely walking in this frosty weather, however it can be too cold for our 4-legged pals... if they don't have thick fur then I make sure they've got a snug coat on!

20/11/2024

Everyone (me included) loves a wintry walk ❄️🐾
The dogs all had some really good sniffs!
Did you know? When it's frosty / snowy, scents are sharper for those fantastic canine noses. Also the air currents move differently in lower temperatures, making the scent particles move in different ways! So on a crisp winter day, dogs love to sniff, sniff, sniff!

31/10/2024

Happy Howl-O-Ween from these Trick-or-treaters 🐾🎃

02/04/2024

Yesterday marked 6 WHOLE YEARS of Paw In Hand 🥳🥳
Thanks so much to clients past and present, and of course all the amazing dogs (and other animals) who've made this possible 🐾

31/01/2024

It can sometimes feel like force-free trainers are fighting a losing battle which can be disheartening. But we have to keep advocating, for both the welfare of the dogs and to promote actual scientific fact!

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/jiRRpR7wpinh1kKR/

Given the statement that was read out on a morning TV show here in the UK, it's time to share this one again. As well as the red flag for ill-informed people of 'positive only', the statement trotted out the old misunderstanding that all we do is toss cheese at a dog when they do something right and ignore everything else.

Successful force free training involves SO much more than that. It needs a deep understanding of learning theory. Of what the dog's welfare needs are and how to make sure they are met. How to manage situations so that the dogs don't carry out the undesired behaviours and perhaps get an internal reward for doing them. How to train other behaviours the dog can do in that situation that will be rewarded so that the undesirable behaviour is no longer the best choice for them in that situation.

The factors involved in getting force free training right are too many for me to list on the image, but these are the things that a good force free trainer is doing every time they are working with a dog and their humans. It's so much more than just lobbing food at a dog.