Hudson's Hounds Dog Walking & Pet Services

02/04/2025

All in a days work ♥️

19/03/2025

Its eve!
Tomorrow we celebrate day, a movement dedicated to raising awareness for anxious, nervous, and reactive dogs. By recognising yellow as a sign that a dog needs space, we can create a more understanding and inclusive world for both dogs and their owners.
It has been fantastic to connect with pet professionals, trainers, pet brands, and businesses—both big and small—who are supporting this initiative. Normalising the use of yellow in training environments, workplaces, and public spaces helps reduce stigma and gives dog owners the confidence to advocate for their pets.
The response from the industry has been incredible. Trainers are incorporating yellow awareness into their teaching, brands are helping spread the message, and businesses are using their platforms to educate their communities. This collective effort is making a real difference, ensuring that more people understand and respect what yellow means.
If you’re a pet professional, brand, or company looking to support day, I’d love for you to get involved. Whether it’s sharing the message, displaying materials, or encouraging awareness within your network, every action helps make the world a safer place for anxious dogs.
Let’s work together to ensure that everyone knows what yellow means.

18/03/2025

WHEN TRAINING WON’T WORK

There is a common misconception that reactivity, anxiety or fear related behaviour can be “fixed” through training alone.

Barking, lunging, reactivity, aggression, constant hypervigilance - as though danger is waiting behind every corner, hiding or cowering away at the slightest trigger or sometimes shutting down completely are all signs of a nervous system that’s in overdrive and is unregulated.

This behaviour is not a training issue - it’s not bad behaviour, disobedience, stubbornness or some other type of negative label, - it’s a nervous system issue.

Although dogs and people have remarkably similar social and emotional brains, this doesn’t mean that dogs are able to think like we do, or have the words or means to process what is causing their stress or trauma.

When stress is not released, it remains stuck, keeping the nervous system in overdrive or in survival mode.

When a dog or a person is stuck in this state, the brain isn’t able to learn new things or learn to behave in a different way.

This is why trying to “train away” anxiety, fear or reactive type behaviour does not work. We first have to work on the nervous system.

Here are some links related to this subject that provide more information on how to help dogs that are struggling -

How to identify and remove triggers that keep a dog stuck in a cycle of stress and anxiety - Annie Phenix
https://phenix-dogs-canine-behavior-experts-llc.kit.com/7-steps

Creating a healing environment - podcast by Dr Laura Donaldson
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dr-laura-donaldson-compliance-is-not-cooperation/id1708279785?i=1000693042973

Trauma Informed Dog Training – Book by Sally Gutteridge
https://www.amazon.com/Trauma-Informed-Dog-Training-Professionals/dp/B0DS4T1W8M

What does it mean to be Trauma Informed - Dr Laura Donaldson
https://www.icbdogs.com/product-page/laura-donaldson-what-does-it-mean-to-be-trauma-informed

Ace Free Work – helps the nervous system relax, reset and rebalance
https://www.allpetseducationandtraining.com.au/ace-free-work.html

17/03/2025

Walking with worried dogs can make walks hard, emotional and even scary. It's important to remember that even when a dog lunges forward, they are just trying to stay safe. We can help you to understand your dog and learn howe to make walks better, just drop us a line below.

10/03/2025

09/03/2025

Why I will never use a retractable leash.

The thin rope-like cord of the retractable leash can cause severe burns, deep cuts, entanglement or strangulation . It can even cause amputation to limbs and fingers of both humans and pets. If the cord portion of the leash is grabbed while it is being pulled, the chance of injuries increases greatly.

That plastic handle is extremely hard to hold on to even if only a medium sized dog hits the end of the leash full tilt. If you do manage to hold on, the cord is held inside by plastic components that could easily break under stress.

A retractable leash is not so much a leash as it is a length of thin cord wound around a spring-loaded device housed inside a plastic handle. The handles of most retractable leashes are designed to fit comfortably in a human hand. A button on the handle controls how much of the cord is extended.

Retractable leashes are popular primarily because they aren't as confining as regular leashes, allowing dogs more freedom to sniff and poke around on walks. But unfortunately, there are many downsides to this type of leash.

The length of retractable leashes, some of which can extend up to 26 feet, allows dogs to get far enough away from their humans that a situation can quickly turn dangerous. A dog on a retractable leash is often able to run into the middle of the street, for example, or make uninvited contact with other dogs or people.

In the above scenario, or one in which your pet is being approached by an aggressive dog, it is nearly impossible to get control of the situation if the need arises. It's much easier to regain control of – or protect -- a dog at the end of a six-foot standard flat leash than it is if he's 20 or so feet away at the end of what amounts to a thin string.

The thin cord of a retractable leash can break – especially when a powerful dog is on the other end of it. If a strong, good-sized dog takes off at full speed, the cord can snap. Not only can that put the dog and whatever he may be chasing in danger, but also the cord can snap back and injure the human at the other end.

If a dog walker gets tangled up in the cord of a retractable leash, or grabs it in an attempt to reel in their dog, it can result in burns, cuts, and even amputation. In addition, many people have been pulled right off their feet by a dog that reaches the end of the leash and keeps going. This can result in bruises, "road rash," broken bones, and worse.

Dogs have also received terrible injuries as a result of the sudden jerk on their neck that occurs when they run out the leash, including neck wounds, lacerated trachea, and injuries to the spine.

Retractable leashes allow dogs more freedom to pull.

The handles of retractable leashes are bulky and can be easily pulled out of human hands, resulting in a runaway dog.

Along those same lines, many dogs especially fearful ones are terrorized by the sound of a dropped retractable leash handle and may take off running, which is dangerous enough. To make matters worse, the object of the poor dog's fear is then "chasing" her, and if the leash is retracting as she runs, the handle is gaining ground on her and she can't escape it. Even if this scenario ultimately ends without physical harm to the dog (or anyone else), it can create lingering fear in the dog not only of leashes, but also of being walked.

Retractable leashes, like most retractable devices, have a tendency to malfunction over time, either refusing to extend, refusing to retract, or unspooling at will.

Retractable leashes are an especially bad idea for dogs that haven't been trained to walk politely on a regular leash. By their very nature, retractable train dogs to pull while on leash, because they learn that pulling extends the lead.

If your dog is well trained, gentle mannered and smart enough to master a regular leash and a retractable leash without being confused, you could be one of the rare guardians that can walk your dog on any kind of leash without increasing risks to either one of you.

credit: Shane Doss

05/03/2025

🐕Price increase 2025🐕‍🦺

Effective from 10th April, there will be a price increase of £1 for all walks.

I have kept my prices as low as possible however fuel is continually being increased and our insurance has increased by 50%. The last price increase was late 2022.

Since then, everything has risen; insurance, equipment, fuel, vehicle maintenance and professional memberships.

I would like to thank you all for the continued support and hope that everyone understands that I have to do this to make the business viable to enable to continue trading.

Thank you.

🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾

25/02/2025

25/02/2025

THE FOOLISHNESS OF FLOODING

Using flooding as a behaviour modification technique involves exposing a dog to an intense amount of something they fear with the goal of eliminating that fear / anxiety / emotional response.

This approach is often recommended as a quick fix that achieves fast results.

Some examples of how flooding is used –
A dog fearful of water might be forced into a pool and prevented from escaping.

A reactive dog may be forced into a “sit” near other dogs or people and be punished for any signs of reactivity.

A dog afraid of loud noises might be forced to stay in a room while loud sounds play, with no way of escape.

In flooding theory, once a dog stops reacting, the fear has been cured, but at what cost?

Flooding is traumatic and may cause extreme stress, anxiety and even more long-term fear related problems, increasing negative associations.

Flooding often causes learned helplessness - an emotional coping mechanism that may look like a dog is completely “cured”, but in reality, they have shut down, given up, disengaged, become emotionally numb and detached. There is no other choice because no matter how hard they try there is no longer any point in trying to escape or react.

Flooding can destroy the trust our dogs should have in us. Dogs depend on us to advocate for them, protect them and keep them feeling safe from whatever they’re afraid of.

Flooding prioritises achieving quick fixes over emotional wellbeing and a safe and supportive environment.

Using modern, scientific, effective, ethical and humane modification methods like positive reinforcement, counterconditioning or desensitisation is the answer to achieving positive learning experiences, to build trust, relationship, safety and in turn, long lasting behaviour change.

The harm and negative consequences that flooding causes is certainly not worth it.

“In the soil of the quick fix is the seed to a new problem” …. Wayne Muller

12/02/2025

ARE YOU WORTH COMING BACK TO?

I’m often horrified when I watch people trying to get their dogs to come back to them when they call.

They call and call and get increasingly angry and frustrated as their dog keeps ignoring them.

When their dog eventually comes back, or has been chased and "captured” by the now really angry person, they get screamed at, yanked about, or punished in some way for taking so long and not listening.

Why on earth would a dog want to return to someone who does this to them!

The most common reason dogs don’t come back when we call is because it’s not a positive experience.

A new environment is generally far more rewarding, stimulating and exciting than coming back to us.
An exciting scent or seeing something to chase can all override a response to recall.

Make coming back to you well worth it by always making it a rewarding experience and keep practicing this throughout a dog’s life.

Have a little patience if it takes longer than you would like, let your dog finish what they’re doing before calling them, practice in different locations and environments and never reprimand or punish them for coming back.

There is never a guarantee of a perfect recall each and every time, but making it a rewarding experience will greatly improve the rate of success.

10/02/2025

👀Only a few places left for March. Book now to avoid disappointment.🐾

https://www.facebook.com/share/12FHg4KC7oD/?mibextid=wwXIfr

06/02/2025

Lovely to see the sun showing its face 🌞

01/02/2025

Holiday dates for 2025 for your diary.

I will remind clients nearer the time.

30/01/2025

Lovely walk today with this gorgeous lad showing how relaxed he is being transported in our crate.

This crate complies with safely standards and keeps your dog safe. They have room to lay down, at full length and chill.

https://mimsafe.com/uk/product/variocage-single-xxlplus/