Canine Needs - Dog Training & Behaviour

11/02/2025

Rex at 6 months modelling for (this is not at all true, it's just a home snap but isn't he cute?! And doesn't he make you want to buy those shoes?!) 😍

24/01/2025

Much of the work we do with our dogs is preparing them for something that may or may not happen.
The dog that is crate trained or muzzle trained will likely always be better off than the dog that isn't.
Do I muzzle train dogs because I think they will bite someone? Nope, I am teaching them what it may be to be a dog in a human society.
Do I crate train dogs to live in 'cages' forever like a tiger in a circus? No, I want them to be as comfortable as they can be at the vets, post op.
It's easier to teach these things to younger dogs as things they are likely to experience in their long, healthy lives but also it's easier for the dogs to accept something introduced correctly by someone they love and trust, instead of having it forced on them by a stranger.
There are a long list of reasons a dog may need to experience wearing a muzzle or being confined to a crate and those reasons are largely beyond your control.

22/01/2025

Just another day at work for the Turkish Kangal!

This remarkable photo, captured by a Turkish photographer, tells the story of a goat giving birth to her baby on a frozen mountain.

In an effort to save the lives of both the goat and her newborn, a young shepherdess from a nearby village carried the mother goat on her shoulders. Meanwhile, her loyal dog stepped in to help, gently carrying the baby goat on its back to ensure its safety.

This heartwarming image stands as a powerful testament to compassion and humanity in its purest form.

16/01/2025

Here is my original mission statement from when I started my business in 2011. I'm posting it here because, joyfully, it has now expired and I realised when doing my new one that I've never shared it here.

Due to a huge team effort of many people in the industry, puppy farming has decreased massively. When I first started my business pet shops were still a thing, I had clients with puppies bought from Harrods and my mission was to prevent puppy farming and all the issues that came with it.

I still focus on Puppy Match, my service that matches people with the right dog and this is to prevent dogs ending up in rescue but I have a bigger mission and I'll be sharing my new mission statement very soon.

09/01/2025

My first ever foster dog Dice, the Australian Kelpie, has died 💔
Little did he know what he would be the start of. He showed me how rewarding it was to foster dogs and he taught me how to let go. I definitely would've kept him if his herding drive hadn't been so strong, to this day I have still not met a dog that needed a flock of sheep more than Dice.
He went to live on a huge farm in Cumbria with my Uncle, his family and all the livestock he could dream of! Dice lived a long happy life 💕🐾

29/12/2024

2024 has been a year of reimagining.

I launched Canine Needs in 2011 when I was just 25 years old. Like most dog professionals, I couldn't care much for humans and mostly just wanted to work with dogs.
When starting a dog business you very quickly learn that it's all about people and the dogs are just the sparkles that make your job more enjoyable, this is found in the quiet moments of understanding, or in the shared silent song of the forest.

I have grown so much in the time I have had my business and my experiences have shaped me into a wiser person. I am so very proud of my 25 year old self and her vision and the business I have built so far. I have worked with thousands of dogs, each dog has 1-10 people that I also work with, each of these dogs and their people have taught me so much about how dog and human behaviour interact with each other that, thanks to the dogs, I have become absolutely fascinated with human behaviour.

We share every intimate detail of our lives with our dogs in the western world. They know more about us than we know about ourselves. Sometimes they are like little furry therapists, on hand whenever you need them. Ask anyone with a close relationship with their dog and they'll tell you that their dog doesn't need to talk to be effective at what they do. They want to talk to us though, they are trying their hardest to talk to us all the time. Part of my job is obviously translating for them but since I've started asking them different questions, what they are trying to tell us is quite truly fascinating and insightful, they are trying to heal us in a way that only they know how.

I can't call it Dog Therapy since that already exists as something else and I'm not a therapist. Canine Coaching though, is new and I'm a coach so I think that works... I have spent the last 3 years studying online courses on life coaching, positive psychology, polyvagal theory and other interesting points, concepts and ideas, along with my 14 years of professional experience and much longer personal experience, I am super excited to officially launch Canine Coaching in 2025. 🎉🐾💖

14/12/2024

You may see service dogs training in malls, or in shops. This is a great tip sheet to let you know the differences legally!

13/12/2024

Did you know that correct puppy socialisation is teaching your dog to IGNORE other dogs?

26/11/2024

Have a nice life Olive, miss you already 🫒🐾💖🥹

14/11/2024

Dogs have one of the most important jobs in the World...
It falls to them to teach the next generation love, kindness and acceptance in a way most adults aren't able to. 💖

31/10/2024

Join us as a Volunteer at The Great British Truffle Festival! 🍄🌳

Do you love the outdoors, fungi, and connecting with nature-minded people? Here’s your chance to support an incredible event that celebrates and protects the natural habitat of the Great British truffle. We’re looking for event volunteers to help bring this festival to life. 🌱

17/09/2024

Grid worthy 😍
Today the puppies are 6 weeks old.
This is a big date for the pups. They are almost fully weaned now as their mum is mostly done, they get told off by her quite a lot now and they're learning fast. Most of all their toileting is now done outside, there was one p**p on the puppy pad last night and a few pees, all daytime toileting is pretty much nailed ✅
If you have bought a puppy from a fantastic breeder they should be housetrained by the time they leave at 8 weeks old.

03/09/2024

This 5 day course in rural Portugal is ideal for anyone that works with or wants to work with dogs in a professional capacity.

For the November course we will have a whole litter of puppies to work with!

31/08/2024

People always ask, how can I take other people's dogs into my home for training or foster a dog and then give them back/re-home them... Don't I get too attached?

Working with other people's dogs is a bit like watching a movie, a mini journey that you go on together. Some dogs you get more attached to than others, they are the really enjoyable movies that you wish you hadn't watched so you could watch them again for the first time.
Some dogs are more difficult, these are the movies that challenge your perceptions on what you think you know and maybe you learn something.

But what I have with my own dog is an intricate novel that has been carefully weaved and crafted over a decade, thousands of days poured into a tapestry, a story that will one day be finished but will live in the library of eternity of bonds that could never be broken. Even if someone tried to translate the novel into a script, then make the movie it still wouldn't capture but a drop of the real thing.

And that's how I do it. My relationship with my dog grounds me and keeps everything in perspective. If I kept every dog I wanted to keep, my precious relationship with my own dog would get more and more diluted with every dog that stayed.

I always say never trust a dog trainer who doesn't have their own dog, this is for many reasons, here is one.

30/08/2024

Since I've started my rewarding new role as a Volunteer for the Blue Cross Pet Loss Support line, I see lots of similarities between people's grief. This one comes through a lot when people talk of their losses 💔

29/08/2024

Why are puppies so cute? No, seriously why though? Feel free to answer your top reason or two in the comments below! 🙏

These pups are now in their Primary Socialisation Period. Stay tuned for their training programme which will be starting next week when they will be 4 weeks old, we'll be starting with toilet training (technically we already started with truffle training and with handling but this will be more specifically developed also) 🐾