Dogmestix

17/07/2024

I love consulting for this wonderful charity and getting to work with all the fab people in it!

17/07/2024

Today our staff and volunteers had a training session with the wonderful Lisa from Dogmestix. Lisa spoke to the team about dog behaviour, so we can keep growing and give our dogs in care the best start in their forever homes ☺️

07/06/2024

Good morning all. Just a heads up that I will be off work from the 29th June - 8th July. For those of you on current plans that don't have a catch up booked, please let me know if you need to catch up before I go on leave. :-)

30/05/2024

Thanks to ❤️

30/05/2024

24/05/2024

Dog behaviour modification is never about one person 'fixing' a dog. It's about a team of people sharing their expertise to help a dog feel the best version of themselves, and learn how to cope well with certain things they couldn't before. The bulk of the work lies with the dog's own carers of course, but I as a Clinical Animal Behaviourist always advise alongside your vet team to ensure we are not missing any physiological issues that contribute to behaviour. Then we have our wider team of experts who can help enormously with pain and proprioception issues (amongst so many others), and, in some cases, consent based groomers. This week I have to say a huge thank you to (IMO) Hampshire's best Veterinary Physiotherapist, Rachel Quinn Veterinary Physiotherapy, who helps so many of my client's dogs with pain, and also the fabulous APDT - Association of Pet Dog Trainers trainer, Zara from Tammy's Dog Training, who is now doing consent based grooming sessions and has helped some of my client's dogs build confidence in the groomers. It's all of our skills combined that make the best progress, never a one man band!

05/05/2024

Yep!

30/04/2024

In order to focus enough time on my current cases, I am not currently able to take calls about new cases as I do not have availability until July. I'm afraid I'm not able to come back to voicemails at the moment either unless you are an existing customer. Please send an email instead and I will reply as soon as possible. If your case is urgent, please mark your email as URGENT in the subject title and I will endeavour to offer you a 1hour virtual SOS as soon as possible and before I can book you in (usually within a week).

Thanks for your patience!

27/04/2024

Happy World Veterinary Day to all the amazing vets, vet nurses and support teams I work with, who work so insanely hard to give the best care to our animals!

23/04/2024

This beautiful boy is struggling to cope in kennels and needs a foster home asap.

16/04/2024

BE CAREFUL WITH YOUR VERY CUTE PUPPY..

Or they may grow up to be worried about people..

All puppies are adorable but some seem to get much more attention than others. If they have unusual markings, or are a rare breed or look like a teddy bear or are absolutely tiny, they may get even more attention than your average pup.

Your very cute puppy may get loads of attention from people. You may get groups of kids reaching to touch them, people trying to pick them up etc. it may feel like this is great socialisation for them but it may be too much for some puppies.

I see so many clients with gorgeous dogs and their adult dogs have become reactive to people and may bark or snap if people reach out to touch them. There are many reasons this can develop but a significant one is that cute puppies can sometimes get overwhelmed by well meaning strangers when they are tiny.

Some puppies can find all this attention and the 8 million hands trying to stroke them too much and then you risk them being overwhelmed and becoming worried at a young age.

Socialisation, where we help puppies to feel comfortable to all the things will experience as an adult, can actually result in sensitisation. If puppies are sensitised they grow up to be scared of the things you exposed them to, and in adult dogs, this can result in anxiety that comes out as barking, lunging, growing or snapping at people if they find them scary. Puppies absolutely need exposure to lots of nice people of all different ages and types but it needs to be done sensitively and shouldn’t be a free for all. We need to manage socialisation so that it’s fun and feels safe for our puppies.

It’s a really important skill to be able to judge if your puppy is doing okay during socialisation and an even more important skill to know what to do if they aren’t coping.

When you are out with your puppy observe their body language carefully- are they wagging softly and trying to approach the person who wants to say hi to them? Are they able to eat treats and is their body looking soft and relaxed? If they are backing away, yawning, cowering or their tail is tucked then we need to advocate for pup and say ‘sorry they don’t want to say hi right now’

It’s often easier to see pups body language if they are on the ground and not being held by you. If they are being held it can be hard to tell if they are trying to move away and don’t want to be touched.

Be careful how people interact with them- not too many friendly hands reaching out at once, don’t let them get overwhelmed and don’t let people pick them up if they don’t want to be picked up (most puppies would prefer to stay on the ground). Try and make sure people use 1 hand and not 2 to stroke pup (this avoids hands clamping either side of pups face), ask people to stroke for a few seconds and then stop- if pup has had enough and doesn’t ask for more affection we need to respect that and move away. If your puppy has had enough, get them out of the situation and don’t ever worry about offending people- your puppy’s emotional needs come first.

My first puppy as an adult was my northern inuit Elsa, pictured here. She had striking facial markings and was an unusual breed so people were magnetised to her. Kids would surround her and hands would constantly reach out to touch her wherever we went. I probably oversocialised her and she was most likely overwhelmed by too many friendly people looking back, she was much more sensitive than I first realised. She grew up to not love new people much (she absolutely adored all dogs) and her extensive socialisation may have been part of the reason why.

I never ever made the same mistake again with all the puppies I’ve had since and I advise my clients to tailor the socialisation experience to their own pup. Some confident puppies lap up all the exposure to people you can give them and don’t find any of it overwhelming and some more sensitive puppies need a much more controlled and careful socialisation. If you aren’t sure what your puppy needs, getting professional help before any issues develop can be a good idea to get you off on the right track from the start.

If you’re now in the position of having an adult dog who reacts to people and you think it may be as they were overwhelmed as a puppy, don’t blame yourself. It can be hard to judge and we all do the best we can at the time. There are often many factors that contribute including genetic traits, pain and ill health and very early experiences too. Getting professional help can help sensitive adults to feel happier around people too.

Laura McAuliffe 2024, Dog Communication

14/04/2024

Many of the cases I see as a behaviourist can be emotionally challenging for all involved. It’s this kind of feedback that makes it all worth while and makes me love my job! ❤️

10/04/2024

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/7oNXSpb3J1Jeb9AE/?mibextid=WC7FNe

01/04/2024

Sharing for a friend who runs this company, they have some lovely work if you are looking for pet portraits at all.

Pup-ai Bespoke Art for Dogs creates ai generated art masterpieces of dogs. Our art is Individually made by artist Jai Sol to celebrate the life, personality & spirit of dogs. We offer the art as prints and framed prints.

27/03/2024

Hi all!

I'm extremely proud to be on the faculty team for this wonderful organisation. Please have a look at their Canine Body language FREE course. Understanding your dog's body language is in my opinion the most important foundation of any behaviour plan and the best knowledge you will ever get of how to improve your relationship with your dog!

Enjoy!

So this year we put together a completely FREE course discussing canine body language. It's available for anyone to watch (not just professionals) so if you're interested or know someone that might be (your clients included) please do sign up and share far and wide💚
https://pact-course.thinkific.com/courses/PACTtastercourse

25/03/2024

This is so so important to consider with every dog!

‘My dog is naughty/bad/untrainable/dominant/stupid’

I hear this most weeks on intake forms. Usually I get pretty excited to see these cos I know I’m gonna get to change a dog and owners life!

So often we write our dogs off as any adjective that fits the above and honestly, I’m yet to meet a dog who fits any of those adjectives (and I have worked with 10k plus dogs over the ten years I’ve been doing this!). I do however week in week out meet dogs with health issues that contribute to their slow progress in terms of training. Did you know dogs don’t show pain or discomfort how we do? We often think ‘oh he isn’t limping or yelping so he is fine’.

Please read the examples below ⬇️

🐾 A huntaway cross who I work with who bit his owner. Reluctant to have his feet cleaned, got spicy over any intense handling, had periods of seeming insanity and relentless barking and being unable to calm down. Huntaways are vocal dogs… but…

Turns out he had hip dysplasia. This dog didn’t limp. He wasn’t lame in any way. He chased his ball and sprinted and jumped and had no issues physically on the surface however under that behaviour was pain.

🐾 A French bulldog. Resource guarding to the extreme. Bit his owners while resource guarding the knot pattern in their wooden floor. Also bombed around without a worry in the world and had no outward signs of pain.

Turns out he had a severe spinal condition causing intermittent excruciating pain.

🐾 A young spaniel owned by a very good friend who was having confidence issues. She would ‘tap out’ of training on the regular and my friend went from ‘this is my ticket dog who will represent my country’ to ‘is this even possible?’

Dog had hormonal issues and likely spikes of hormones left right and centre. A carefully timed spay and she is now grade 6 in agility.

🐾 A friends Border Collie. Owned by a very experienced and talented agility handler and trainer. Regularly ‘checked out’ of training sessions, seemed to not be able to learn things that were moderately straightforward. Described by other trainers as ‘oh she is just a border collie it’s what they are like’.

Turns out she is mostly deaf.

🐾 A black Labrador. Always social and friendly and attended brilliant puppy classes and adolescent classes. Had the best start training wise you can imagine. He started showing some intermittent aggression to his owners in the home and aggression to other dogs out and about.

Turns out he had bilateral elbow dysplasia.

🐾 Young German Shepherd. Always energetic and silly in her behaviour but suddenly got worse. Excessive zoomies, inability to settle, increased reactivity to other dogs, reluctant to get in the car, obsessive destruction at home.

Turns out she had an infection in her va**na that was causing discomfort and exacerbating all those teenage behaviours to the point of being unmanageable.

🐾 My own dog! My NSDTR started missing his dog walk contact early last year. I was tearing my hair out trying to fix it.

Turns out he had a minor iliopsoas strain and some physio fixed the issue for us.

———————————

All these dogs have one thing in common. They are not stupid or untrainable or naughty or dominant. They are uncomfortable and that is triggering extreme behaviour fallout.

None of the above issues would be resolveable with training. All of the issues will be resolveable with training ONLY when the pain is resolved. Some of them will have drastic improvement from the moment the pain or discomfort is managed!

If your behaviourist or trainer doesn’t immediately advise a veterinary visit if any aggression, excessive ‘naughtiness’ or strange behaviour is present, walk away immediately. Even if you think your dog is fine, visit the vets. Ask for a thorough examination and push for a proper evaluation of your dog from nose to tail and potentially blood tests too. If you’re still not sure, get a second opinion.

You cannot train the pain or discomfort out of your dog. Address THIS first and foremost.

29/12/2023

Happiest news ever. Pebbles has got a home and won’t be put to sleep under the archaic new breed ban.

All the trips to the Isle of Wight in December paid off!

Such a relief for everyone involved in her care. Such a privilege to work with a team that devoted themselves to her over the last few months and gave her the best chance of success. I’m so happy they won’t have to spend the New Year celebrations in agony over loosing her. Still so sad for those other rescue staff that will have to go through this for the dogs who weren’t as lucky as Pebbles.

Thanks so much for sharing!

🚨 Christmas Miracle! 🎉😍

We are beyond pleased to say Pebbles has been reserved and is pending going home! 🙏🏼

This wouldn't have happened without all of your support with sharing, commenting, tagging, spreading the word and chatting with friends and family. 🥰

Thank you for everyone's unbelievable efforts! ❤️

16/12/2023

Please share share share! I’ve been over to the Isle of Wight a few times this month working with this beautiful girlie. She’s had a tough start and really deserves a dedicated home now!

14/12/2023

😂

09/12/2023

This morning I lost my little Penny dog. She had heart disease and problems with her liver that indicated serious disease and she would have suffered if we hadn’t acted. She was originally a Bulgarian street dog being fostered by a local dog walker and terrified of humans when I first met her. I thought I knew it all and said she’d be no trouble with us. We had many struggles and tears and she taught me more about dog behaviour than any other could. Our relationship was so strong once I’d learn to read her and keep her feeling safe. She was amazing in so many ways and such a clever little soul. She went from running away from
humans to having a solid friendship group that felt priveledged to be accepted by her. It was her that got me to do my degrees and so many other courses on dog behaviour.

I truly believe that all the ‘obedience’ that people strive for really doesn’t matter half as much as we think as long as underlying emotions are content. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying let your dogs run wild. But the moments of cheekiness and clever wit that this little lady had should have been cherished and laughed with so much more given that her time here was only 12years or so. We had many struggles with dog and human reactivity but she learned to be a happy dog (especially when her joint pain was managed properly).

My 3 year old dog tries to take me to the pet shop every day now on our walks, and now I think now why the hell not, if that’s what you love and want to do in your short life il go with it. If I had my time with Penny again and known how fast it was going to go, I’d have done what she wanted every day too.

Thankyou to Whiteley Village Vets, especially their two new vets this time. She had a really peaceful passing and I’m very grateful to the team there for making it so comfortable for us all!

06/12/2023

Early arrival at the beautiful Isle of Wight to see a lovely XL bully and a young collie who is struggling to be touched.

I love coming over here.

27/11/2023

Some of our dogs don't make it through our training programme due to medical, health, or behavioural needs. They are still amazing dogs, but better suited to being a loving pet than in a working career.

We are currently looking for homes with experienced dog owners for complex dogs with more challenging behaviours & health needs. Those special people need to be able to welcome a dog into their home, committing to providing the care and training they need to live their best life. These dogs will require an adult-only home and a steady routine.

Along with transforming the lives of our partners, the welfare and comfort of our dogs is an absolute priority. That's why we want to ensure we find these dogs the best possible forever home to go to.

If you are interested in adopting one of our amazing dogs, then please email [email protected] or visit caninepartners.org.uk/rehome to submit an enquiry.

24/11/2023

Huge thanks to Kathy Murphy .brains for the abundance of neuroscience learning from your amazing CPD sessions. So many wow factors in all of them including this one!

18/11/2023

16/11/2023

Behaviour modification should involve a holistic, individual dog centered approach that addresses the route course of the problem, often with some fun training thrown in to help build skills that complement the plan.