Cooperative care
Let’s talk about Cooperative care…
Cooperative care involves training your dog to tolerate husbandry procedures and handling, while also being an active and willing participant in these procedures 🤝
Cooperative care is something I have found to be so important, and something I am so grateful I instigated throughout puppyhood. It is something we put in place in every puppy school so that our dogs grow to be tolerant to our handling, and happy to be messed with should they need to be.
You can practice cooperative care by:
💅 clicking your fingernails on their nails (a way to practice clipping them without the clippers)
👂 lifting their ears or using the appropriate tool to clean them
🦷 gently lifting their jowls and opening their mouth
🦶 looking at their paws, touching their paws and in between their toes
🐕 touching their tail and lifting it gently
🐖 feeling under the belly and gently massaging their stomach area
🐶 gently rubbing the scruff of their neck and all around the face
👀 gently pulling their eyelid down and looking at their eyes
You can reward your dog/puppy for all of these things as when you first begin it will probably feel a little invasive to them if you have never done it before, but as time goes on they become happy with it and used to it.
Why practice cooperative care?
👨⚕️ vet visits
🤕 injuries
👁️ eye drops
💅 nail clipping
🦟 tick removal
➕ and so many other reasons
I have been very thankful these past few weeks that I practiced these techniques throughout Tilly’s puppyhood and have continued to do so weekly.
Here you can see I am finishing off replacing her bandage on her foot that she had surgery on, she’s lying there letting me. She’s not trying to wiggle away and she’s not being held or restrained in any way.
She is showing a couple of signs that she’s not fully comfortable with it as I’m sure it is sore when I’m messing with it! She licks her lips a few times, her
Check ins
How do you know that your dog is engaged with you both on and off lead?
One of the easiest ways is if your dog does a
✨ check in ✨
Checking in is a really easy thing to continue with once you have gained it, and rewarded it!
Here you can see Tilly is checking in with me every few paces, while off lead. If you listen I’m not saying anything, we’re purely just walking. Sometimes I may reinforce her with a ‘good girl’ marker word to let her know she is going well and should keep doing that behaviour.
Other times I might reward on an infrequent basis, just to keep up the enthusiasm and value of a check in 🙌
When I say infrequently, I may reward the 3rd time she checks in, then the 12th, then the 2nd, then the 5th, then the 3rd and so on. Basically she won’t ever know when to expect the treat but that’s what keeps her wanting to do it.
Think of it like a raffle, you could buy a £1 ticket and win a £500 TV. You’ll always enter, or at least think about entering just in case you do win. The infrequent treat rewards work in the same way! The dog will always enter if they know that at some point there will be a benefit 😁
Have you noticed your dog checking in? 👀🤔
Every walk we play ‘go sniff’. ‘Go sniff’ is, as the cue suggests, a cue for sniffing 🐽
By having sniffing on a cue she knows that she will get to go and do it, but it’s a little more when I ask than randomly stopping every few steps. I find by having it on a cue it allows us to have a smoother and less interrupted walk; we no longer stop to sniff every little nook and cranny. Don’t get me wrong though, if there is fox or badger 💩 then that definitely needs the good sniffs 🤣
I mentioned that sniffing is self-soothing…what do I mean by that? 13 seconds of sniffing produces serotonin and can reduce arousal, stress and adrenaline. This leads to a happier and more attentive dog 😁
How do we put sniffing on cue?
1️⃣ Head out on your walk as normal
2️⃣ Break up some food such as pâté or use their morning kibble
3️⃣ Let your dog know you have a few pieces of food by letting them sniff your hand
4️⃣ Say ‘go sniff’ and throw the pieces into some longer grass
5️⃣ Allow your dog plenty of chance to find all the pieces
6️⃣ Once they look back at you, or walk back towards you, continue your walk
7️⃣ Repeat steps 2 to 6 infrequently but often
For step 7 - infrequently but often means you might do it after two minutes of walking, then five minutes, then seven, then three, then two, then six…and so on!
If you have a go at playing ‘go sniff’ with your dog then feel free to drop a video below ⬇️ or tag us in it 🫶
Leave it
Tonight’s video is of Tilly demonstrating her ‘leave it’ cue.
I have found this cue to be really important. I don’t know about anyone else but I can be quite clumsy. It’s been a godsend for when some hot food has fallen on the floor and I don’t want her to burn herself, also for food she can’t actually have too.
‘Leave it’ has been something we have worked on since she was a young pup, and I have found consistency and repetition has been my best friend with making it a strong cue.
Even if it is something cold that drops on the floor that she can eat, I ask her to ‘leave it’, wait a few seconds and then say ‘take it’.
It’s at the point now where if I drop something on the floor in or out of the house she leaves it naturally until I either pick it up or tell her she can have it 🐶
Touch
When I teach a recall workshop I often show the class how to train a ‘touch’ cue. ‘Touch’ is something that I love to use as an alternative form of recall - here you can see Tilly ploughing up the hill to get that ‘touch’ on my hand 🖐️
For a dog who is often sniffing and pleasing herself on her walks, this has been a brilliant cue to have in my back pocket. Although she loves sniffing, she also adores training and the enthusiasm for her training can really be seen in the speed she is approaching me 🏎️💨
Training needs to be fun for both owner and dog, otherwise neither of you will want to bother with it. Teaching out of the box cues, like ‘touch’, really adds that fun factor, and in turn keeps you both motivated and engaged in your training goals 😄
Have you ever thought about training ‘touch’?
If you would like to learn how to train the ‘touch’ cue, let me know and I might make a video of it! 🎥
Loose Lead Walking
I often tell my clients that their lead should have a ‘smile’ in it and this usually gets me a confused look 😅
Here is an unedited training video, which I randomly took whilst waiting for my tea to cook! But I thought that it really shows what I mean by a ‘smile’ in the lead, as well as a couple of other things.
You can clearly see that as Tilly is walking next to me she is walking on a loose lead, and because I’m allowing her freedom with the length of the lead, naturally a loop has occurred in the excess of the lead - this is the ‘smile’ I’m on about 😊
At the end of the day, your dog doesn’t want to be pulled on the lead anymore than you do. But we can make that conscious decision from the get go, whereas our dogs are classically conditioned to realise that the loose lead is the way forward.
You can see that I reward Tilly at random points in the training to just reinforce that she is offering exactly what I would like, and therefore I am encouraging more of this behaviour through positive reinforcement 🥰
This video depicts a really good little stint of loose lead walking, but believe it or not, this is Tilly only 60% of the time. The other 40% is currently led by a hormone-driven adolescent girl, who sometimes forgets that there’s someone on the other end of the lead and takes off after a rather interesting scent 😄
As a trainer, I’ll always be completely honest with my clients. I’m never going to act as though my dog is perfect (because at the end of the day there isn’t a perfect dog) - and you’ll never be judged for any issues you have with your own dog either ☺️
Retrieving the dummy
A clip of my lovely girl in action 🥰
Here she is:
- staying in her wait position while I lay out the dummy
- marking where I have thrown the dummy
- going to retrieve on my cue
- delivering the dummy to my hand
- setting herself back up in her waiting position 😁
She’s such a clever and biddable girl, she has a passion for the job that can’t be taught and a want to please that is unmatched 🤩
Physio exercises
After visiting the physio we have been equipped with exercises specifically for Tilly to carry out at home 🏋️
Here she is demonstrating one that we will go over daily to improve her shoulder strength on her weaker side while also maintaining the existing strength on her stronger side 💪
With Tilly being very active I think it is important to get her checked and work on things to ensure she is the best she can be physically, as well as an overall happy and fulfilled girl 🥰
Eight
An example of one of the 6 exercises we will be covering on the 9th of May during our tricks introduction!
Tilly starting learning this trick on Sunday, and we had our second session today - here are her attempts at the end of that session. Can you believe the progress after only two sessions?!
If you listen👂 I say the word 'eight' as my cue word (as in figure of 8), why do you think I don't say 'weave'?
Also, note the hand cues and gestures, since it is such a new cue to her, she needs those little extra prompts!
Stay
Fancy having a stay so good that you have to check the video is still playing?! 🤣 A stay where you don’t have to back away repeating the cue, or reminding them midway through? A stay where they only break it when you give the release cue?
Stay is something we cover in all puppy classes and doggy boot camps!
It is also something we can use in a variety of one to one sessions 😊
Emergency stop
Did you know that the emergency stop is something you could learn in the 6 week puppy school?
There may also be an adult 4 week boot camp coming soon…and the emergency stop may just be on the list of things to learn 👀😆
Why bother teaching the emergency stop? It is a vital skill for your dog to master. You can keep your dog out of the path of runners, cyclists and with busy roads. But also to stop them in their tracks whenever you deem necessary ✋
Bloopers
Bloopers from todays training video…we all have off days and it’s important to remember that though our dogs are highly intelligent, they are not robots 🤖 and I can make mistakes in my cues as I’m only human.
Now the ‘finish’ command is something Tilly has known for quite some time now. Here you can see she’s really not sure what I’m asking her. She initially tries to go for the centre/middle position, but that’s not what I’ve asked. I don’t get frustrated, I just reset and try again. Again, she’s still not sure so I lower the criteria of what I’m asking, I lure her into position, mark with a ‘yes’ and reward. I then ask her again and she does it straight away.
By reassessing the criteria of what I’m asking and thinking about my 3 Ds (duration, distraction and distance) I could come up with a solution to her confusion instead of getting frustrated or upset with her. Perhaps the environment was too distracting, so by taking it back to basics I am setting her up for success 😊
Is there anything else you can spot as to what I have done wrong?
Clue: look at my legs🦵 also, where I am stood 👣
Training video
Today’s after work training - luring to get her in the training mood, come from a wait position, another lamb appearance, finish command, followed by what I call link but others might call weave!
Is there anything you notice about the way I ask for commands? Is it just verbal? 🖐️🫳👉
Leave it
I felt like I needed to show a bit more of my own training and decided to take the plunge and do a video (full video to come!).
During the video our little lamb that we feed decided to join in and tested Tilly’s ‘leave it’ command to the max (as she loves to play with them😆).
Excuse the farming clothes and boots, this was quite spontaneous as I had a ‘sod it’ attitude and decided to go for it with the whole videoing thing 😊
STARTING THEM YOUNG & PUPPY PROBLEMS
I wanted to take the time to say how important it is to get going with your pup from day one. Here is Tilly on the 15th of October, I brought her home on the 17th of September.
4 weeks into our relationship, a bond really started to form. Every single day we did something training related, whether this was reaction to name, practicing sit before having her food, or getting to grips with heel work.
Here she is at 12 weeks old showing some great progress in her heel work.
I know myself that I have worked really hard to turn Tilly into the dog she is today, she has always been kind and loving, but I know that putting in the daily work from day dot is what has formed the great young dog she is turning into.
At the end of the day, there are no bad dogs, no naughty dogs…they’re just misunderstood and what they are communicating is being lost in translation.
If your puppy is doing things like digging at the flower plants or ripping the wallpaper off the wall, they are simply expressing natural instincts, it’s just in a way that you don’t deem acceptable…therefore as responsible and caring guardians we need to allow them an appropriate outlet for these natural behaviours.
It is so important to not get frustrated or angry with your puppy, as any raised voices or telling off can have such a detrimental effect on your lifelong relationship. One flared temper can undo the months of building trust.
Rather than telling your puppy off, show them what you’d like them to do instead and reward them for it 🙌
Pacifier vs Amplifier - What are they?
A pacifier is something which you give to your dog that would entice them into self-soothing, for example a pigs ear would be a pacifier as the action of chewing encourages them to relax because it releases serotonin. Now, a pacifier isn’t just something for them to chew, it could be something for them to carry, lie on, shred or even to suckle on.
These behaviours all allow the dog to self-soothe, reducing their state of arousal while self regulating their emotions.
An amplifier is completely the opposite. Squeaky toys, toys that roll, toys they like to destroy, toys brought to be thrown or brought to you to just interact and play with them. An amplifier is what your dog would choose if their arousal states are fairly high, and the toys can leave them just as heightened, or might even spike their arousal levels further.
The thing is…it’s not us as the owners who decide whether the item is amplifying or pacifying, it’s our dog!
Take a look at Tilly here for example, I gave her a hoof from her natural treats box - which in my head was given to her to let her chill out and give me some time to email my colleagues back. But instead she kept bringing it for me to throw it, so she’d chosen for it to be an amplifier instead of a pacifier. She did settle with the hoof, chewing it on the floor, after about of playing fetch with it.
❗️TOP TIP: always have pacifiers readily available, between 8-10 different pacifiers. You can also swap toys around if your dog is easily bored as either daily or weekly it’s as though they’re getting a new toy, when really it’s one that’s been in a cupboard for a week!
Then keep amplifiers less available, they’re things you’d want to pull out to initiate play with your dog. For example Tilly is obsessed with her water dummy, I keep it out of reach and bring it out every day for her lunchtime walk. She knows that on that walk she will get to retrieve her beloved dummy. But
I am a big advocate for natural treats for many reasons, a big one being the fact that they are, as the name suggests, natural! Meaning there are no additives or preservatives. This reason is closely followed by the fact that my girl absolutely loves them, and it gives me five minutes of peace to crack on with my work while her adolescent mind is occupied.
But…why else are these treats so highly recommended? Let’s have a closer look:
🐕 SKIN & COAT CARE - natural treats are high in protein and Omega 3 which both benefit their skin and coat.
👅 DIGESTIBILITY - these treats are highly digestible, which makes them suitable for younger and older dogs.
🪱 DEWORMER - some people believe that natural treats have properties which can help with deworming.
🦴 JOINT CARE - natural treats contain Omega 3, Glucosamine, Chondroitin & Turmeric, these make up a variety of compounds which have been found to assist in symptom management of those with osteoarthritis.
🦷 DENTAL HYGIENE - chewing on natural treats can aid in the removal of plaque helping to prevent any degree of periodontal disease.
🧠 HEALTHY FOR THEIR MIND - longer lasting chews are good for mental stimulation. Chewing allows for endorphins to be released, helping your dog to relax.
What is your dog’s favourite natural treat? Let me know in the comments ⬇️
