Charnwood Dog School

12/12/2024

Clever Ziggy is working hard to focus around his mum when he gets excited by dogs 😇. He's preparing for the arrival of a little human, so mum doesn't get pulled! Absolutely dream team, such a devoted guardian ! Well done both!

12/12/2024

A lovely gundog session with Molly today. We are working on building value into retrieving. ❤️👏

12/12/2024

We had our first home visit with Storm today. We also met her ‘sisters’ too.

She loves her training sessions! 🥰👏

12/12/2024

It was lovely to see little Buddy back today after we picked up on an injury! He had lost his enthusiasm for retrieving which was not like him. He’s back and looking good! We have just started recapping on foundations again.

11/12/2024

We finished the day with a session with lovely Emmett. A little bit of heelwork and lots of retrieving in the woods. We finished off on the bales! 👏❤️

11/12/2024

Bruno was with us today working on recall away from distractions. We had the bolting rabbit out today! Well done beautiful boy! 🥰👌

11/12/2024

We met little Indy for the first time today. He’s a bold, busy adolescent! We looked at some focus, loose lead walking and heelwork along with the beginnings of some gundog work. Well done. 👏

11/12/2024

Rula started us off today. Marked, memory and blinds in the woods along with stop whistle and directional work. What a busy start! ❤️👏

11/12/2024

After a lot of work, we're finally starting to see the results! Beautiful walking on the lead by this stunning boy! So proud of his guardian 👏 !!!
# 🐶🐶

11/12/2024

Understanding the difference between training ( learning skils) and behaviour (changing the emotional state of mind).

10/12/2024

🐾 🐾 🐾

Start the new year by changing the way your dog behaves on the lead!

Dog to dog Reactivity class!

Perfect class for you if your dog is lunging and barking at other dogs on walks!!!!

Please contact us directly for more information and suitability.
Mandatory 121 pre-course , dogs need to be comfortable around people. If your dog is human reactive, please contact us to discuss further arrangements.

10/12/2024

We finished off the day with Lucy. Working on her marked and memory retrieves and the start of her directional casting too. 👏❤️

10/12/2024

Well done Cassie! Lots of marked, blind and split retrieves in the woods today, oh and some retrieving off the remote dummy launcher too! 🥰👏

10/12/2024

It was our first time meeting Larry this morning. Oh what a lovely pup he is. Beautiful and a really lovely temperament. He’s a fast learner too.

We are going to have lots of fun learning Larry! 👌❤️

10/12/2024

Lots of retrieving with Molly this morning. Loads of directional work and she was awesome! 👏

10/12/2024

Dotty started us off this morning with some lovely hunting and retrieving in the woods. Lots of stop to shot. What a team! Great work! 👏👌

09/12/2024

Debunking another myth!

🐰🐰🐰🐰 Let's 'rabbit' about furry ears (and other furry bits of animal you might consider feeding to your dog) 🐰🐰🐰🐰

Following on from a great chat all about fibre with a client today, it's a good time to revisit the oft cited myth that rabbit ears are effective (de)wormers......

TLDR; they aren't 🫣

🐇👂'Ear, 'ear 👂🐇

Can I whisper something to you? 🤫

*hairy ears (or other hairy body parts of animals) are NOT effective de-wormers for your dog* 🙈

I see this being advertised and advised a lot and it worries me as parasitic worms are capable of causing significant health and welfare issues if not appropriately managed - and feeding hairy ears are not appropriate management methods! 🐰

If furry things were effective dewormers, wild and free-living scavengers and carnivores would not have the parasite burdens we know they can have 🦊🦝🦡🦅

What these chews are however, are tasty (for some dogs) additions to our dogs' daily diet and can provide enrichment and a source of animal-derived fibre that may support gut health. Their effectiveness at 'trapping' worms and microscopic worm eggs in the gut....no robust evidence at all 🪱🔬

(And honestly.... just because you never see worms or eggs, that doesn't mean they aren't there!)🫣

If you want to control parasites;
🪱poo pick regularly and keep housing areas clean - many parasites are transmitted in 💩

🪱ensure good overall health for your dog through diet, exercise, management and care

🪱use a service to know what is ACTUALLY going on

🪱treat based on need and seek veterinary advice on local issues relating to management, parasite species concerns and possible resistance problems - these differ based on geographical location, climate, vector species and a whole host of other variables!

Keep hairy ears as tasty treats (but also source carefully....remember these are by-products of animal production systems and not all are as high welfare as we might like to think 🐰)

If you want to learn about dietary animal-derived fibre, have a look at

Depauw S, Hesta M, Whitehouse-Tedd K, Vanhaecke L, Verbrugghe A, Janssens GP. Animal fibre: the forgotten nutrient in strict carnivores? First insights in the cheetah. J Anim Physiol Anim Nutr (Berl). 2013 Feb;97(1):146-54. doi: 10.1111/j.1439-0396.2011.01252.x. Epub 2011 Nov 10. PMID: 22074361. 🐆

08/12/2024

The weather nearly stopped us but we started a new Gundog Club Grade 2 course this afternoon.
We started our sit whistle exercise, whistle cues and how we teach them, building value in a target and looked at a couple of retrieves.
Lovely group! 👏❤️