Positive 4 Paws Dog Training

31/07/2024

No, so not fair…..

We need to reshape the thought in society in the demand for the perfect, obedient dog.

Us humans are far from perfect, so why is so much pressure put onto our dogs? 🤔🤔

The first priority when embarking on the journey of raising a puppy/dog should be to learn how to understand their body language/communication, to understand their emotions & support associated behaviours, to understand & ensure their basic needs are met & to consider their genetics/breed specific traits to ensure we work with their natural instincts not against them.

30/07/2024

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WHAT THE F?

Recognising stress responses in dogs.

Fight or flight are well known reactions to fear or stress, but these other “F” words are also important to understand and be aware of as they may not always be so obvious.

Freeze, Fawn, Fidget or Fool around are also responses to stress or fear and are also commonly seen in people.

Some dogs may have a genetic predisposition to one type of response while some react based on previous experience - what has worked for them before or what hasn’t. Some dogs have different reactions depending on the specific context.

Recognising and taking note of situations or circumstances where these responses are seen is important in understanding how our dogs are feeling.

When we recognise a fear or a stress response, we are able to intervene and advocate for our dogs.

29/07/2024

🥵🥵🐶 How hot is too hot? 🐶🥵🥵

Heatstroke can kill - it doesn’t just happen out on walks, it can happen in your garden.

Keep your dogs cool, safe & out of the heat!

🐾 Provide cool, shaded areas of your home
🐾 Always provide fresh drinking water
🐾 Freeze, filled Kongs for a cooling frozen treat
🐾 Provide cool mats to settle on whilst being supervised (ensure your dog does not chew these)
🐾 Fill up a paddling pool or use a sprinkler for your dog to enjoy in a shaded area of your garden
🐾 DO NOT walk/exercise your dog in high temperatures
🐾 Avoid car travel

‼️Know the signs of heatstroke ‼️

Panting heavily
Drooling excessively
Appears lethargic, drowsy or uncoordinated
Vomiting
Collapsing
Diarrhoea

🥵What to do if you suspect heatstroke🥵

Emergency first aid for dogs with heatstroke:

For the best chance of survival, dogs suffering from heatstroke urgently need to have their body temperature lowered, but this needs to be done gradually or they can go into shock.

If your dog has collapsed, or is struggling to breathe, call your vet immediately & seek veterinary assistance.

In milder cases & under the guidance of your vet, follow these steps to start lowering your dog's temperature: Cooling measures can also be followed whilst travelling to your vet.

🐾Move your dog to a shaded and cool area.
🐾Place your dog in the breeze of a fan, or in an air conditioned room/car.
🐾Immediately start pouring small amounts of room temperature (not cold) water onto your dog's body (cold water may cause shock).
🐾Lie them on a cold wet towel or cooling mat. DO NOT place a towel or cooling jacket over them as this can raise their temperature.
🐾Allow the dog to drink small amounts of room temperature water.

Seek further treatment & professional advice from your Vet.

23/07/2024

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I NEED TO FEEL SAFE!

Like all living creatures, including us, dogs just want to feel safe – it’s a basic survival need.

When we think about feeling safe it’s natural to just think about not being harmed or being in danger, but it’s not just about physical safety - feeling emotionally or psychologically safe is just as important.

While physical safety may be obvious and simpler to address, emotional safety is far more complex and not always easy to recognise or identify.

The same applies to our dogs – they are sentient beings whose behaviour is triggered and driven by emotions.

So many behaviour problems that we see in dogs stem from the brain saying– “this is not safe!”

A dog that lunges and barks or behaves aggressively with another dog or person is probably doing so because they feel unsafe. They are trying to make the scary thing go away.

A dog that is guarding resources is doing so because they are afraid that the resource will be taken away – they don’t feel safe when another animal or person approaches that resource.

A dog that is reacting to fireworks or thunderstorms or other noises is doing so because they don’t feel safe. The same can be said for separation distress – the feelings of panic when left alone – “I am not safe!”.

Some dogs may never get over a specific fear, but doing all we can to help dogs feel safe in our world is one of the most important gifts we can give them.

Our first responsibility should not be about training, obedience or trying to change behaviour, but to focus first and foremost on building trust, self-confidence, resilience, creating a safe and secure base and being the person that our dogs can rely on and trust.

In the words of Dr. Gabor Maté - "Feeling safe is the treatment and creating safety is the work".

In my words (as it pertains to dogs) – It is our responsibility to put in the work to enable our dogs to feel safe and when they feel safe, this will be part of the treatment or the solution to the problem.

16/07/2024

TRAFFIC LIGHTS AND REACTIVITY

Before trying to work on improving reactivity, consider what colour your dog’s emotional state is in.

The belief or expectation that by continually exposing reactive dogs to triggers will make them get over it, is setting dogs up to fail.

Generally, a dog that is reacting to something does not feel safe – they are in survival mode – a mode where learning and appropriate responses simply cannot take place.

Neurotransmitters like adrenaline and cortisol flood the brain causing automatic responses intended for survival. This red zone is certainly not the time or the place to try to change behaviour.

We need to start working with a brain that is calm, relaxed, focused and feels safe – the green zone, where learning can take place.

A calm nervous system is essential to learn a new way to respond.

To recognise which colour an emotional state is, we need to become more adept at recognising and interpreting our dog’s body language.

Being aware of body language enables us to intervene before our dogs’ emotions – the “traffic light” changes colour.

Always start in the green zone, this is where we can really help our dogs to learn strategies to cope with triggers.

Keep working in the green - reinforcing, proofing and building confidence.

Once behaviours are established in the green, we can try moving into the amber zone by allowing our dogs to notice and be aware of distractions, but at a sufficient distance where they still feel safe and are able to focus. This is where we can make distractions or triggers feel far less threatening.

Stay out of the red as much as you can. Avoiding this is not always possible – life happens / the unexpected happens and we have no control over this.

In this case get as much distance as possible between your dog and the trigger.

We can’t teach our dogs to feel safe, but we can help them feel safe by managing the environment, taking small achievable steps, being aware of body language and intervening when their emotional traffic light is about to change colour.

06/07/2024

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Dog Bite Awareness

Report videos like this, educate yourself and your children on respecting dogs, giving them space and reading body language.

➡️ Animal videos on social media can be cute, but veterinary and behaviour professionals regularly see some that are described as adorable when in fact they fill us with anxiety to see!

➡️Reading a dogs body language can be difficult, but it's important to teach all the family how to pick up signs of a stressed, upset or agitated dog, especially children. Dogs usually tell us MANY times before they bite but often in a very subtle way.

➡️Everyone has their bad days, and we must not push our canine companions to the brink of their patience by failing to recognise telltale signs that the situation they are in makes them uncomfortable.

➡️Every dog is individual, some climb the ladder of communication/reaction (see picture in comments) quickly, others will be telling us for a LONG time that they are unhappy and are uncomfortable with the situation before they are pushed to react.

➡️ Veterinary professionals come across many people who tells us the dog has bitten without any warning, but the likelihood is (although not in every case) that the dog was telling us and we just didnt know how to listen and we know it can be very hard, which is why we want to educate.

Association of Pet Behaviour Counsellors - APBC stated:

➡️Dog behaviour expert Dr Carri Westgarth, from the University of Liverpool, said: "It is important to remember that any dog can bite regardless of how well you know the dog, and most bites will occur in the owner's home.

"...We should ensure that we give dogs their own safe space to be alone, give them plenty of exercise and mental stimulation, and when your dog wants to be left alone - leave them be.

"Dog bites to children can be very severe so ensure that you observe children and dogs closely and intervene when necessary.

"Dogs do not want to bite you, it is a last resort response for them, so watch out for any warning signs of them being uncomfortable in a situation and remove yourselves, or them, from it."

Every dog is individual but some signs are:

➡️Licking lips?
➡️Yawning?
➡️Whale eye?
➡️Frozen?
➡️Crouching?
➡️Tense?
➡️Rolling on back?
➡️Ears back?
➡️Panting?
➡️Turning away?

It may save a life, a child or the dogs!

Listen to our Podcast on how to recognise the signs a dog is uncomfortable and may be about to bite
Dog Bites - Is It All A Big Misunderstanding?⬇️
https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/veterinary-voices/episodes/Dog-Bites---Is-It-All-A-Big-Misunderstanding-e2g0766/a-aavthnv

01/07/2024

So often when we see the popular 'trainers' on social media, they are talking about how to 'fix problems' with your dog, about how to 'fix' their bad behaviour.

When a caregiver is struggling with an aspect of life with their dog the idea of fixing that problem can seem tempting. Particularly as these trainers are usually promising quick results.

When we look at what they are actually doing with the dogs, a lot of the time it involves tools and punishment. And yes, it seems to work very quickly (although quite often there is a lot of what is going on hidden or not shown) as the behaviour stops.

The difficulty starts to come when we look at the dog in that situation with an educated eye. We will see signs of stress like lip licking, yawning, the white of the eyes showing. The dogs are often leaning away from the trainer, trying to create some space. All of these things tell us that the dog is stressed and uncomfortable and really wants to get away from this person.

The other difficulty is that using tools and punishment doesn't teach the dog what they should be doing, only stops them doing the unwanted behaviour. This is known as behaviour suppression and, while it appears to work for a while, it can lead to a whole new set of problems later. The cause of the behaviour has not been addressed, any issues that the dog has which were triggering that behaviour are still there. All of that means that the behaviour is most likely to come back, or that the dog will have a degree of 'fallout' where things can get much worse because they are still struggling.

A good and ethical trainer or behaviourist will take the time to find out what is causing the behaviour and consider the best way to move forward. This might involve referring the dog to their vet for a health check. It could be simply setting up the situation so we can show the dog a more appropriate form of behaviour for that situation. It might involve a careful programme of behaviour modification to help the dog feel better about a situation. It could be managing the situation so that the dog does not feel the need to show the problematic behaviour. And many other options, none of which are considering fixing the dog, and none involving discomfort, pain, or fear.

For the sake of your dog and the relationship you have (and want to have) with them, if a potential trainer of behaviourist promises they will fix your dog, walk away. It's not worth the risk to your dog and the bond you share with them.

25/06/2024

🥵 Better to be safe than sorry 🥵 is definitely my motto!!

Dogs won’t die from missing a walk in hot temperatures, they can die from heatstroke 🥵🐾

Would you go for a hike or run in a fur coat in hot weather…. NO!! So why would anyone expect their dogs to do it? 🤯

There is lots of misinformation circulating on how to treat heat stroke, so here is the best advice from veterinary professionals.

Better still stay safe & cool 😎🐾

21/06/2024

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When your dog comes to you for comfort, go ahead and comfort them. Use calm, quiet voices and gentle touch to help them settle and feel more secure with you. It won't make the fear worse, but it will help them to understand that you are a safe place and that they can rely on you to help them to feel better.

19/06/2024

The best things in life really are free!! 🐾🥰

We can teach our dogs lots of skills, tricks, behaviours etc but when your 9 year old gets up for a snuggle beside you & pops a paw on your knee as if to say “ I love you, Mum” …. that’s something that’s not been taught it’s just grown through endless trust, safety & me working like a little maid to make sure my guys are happy in every way possible 🥰

These moments really are the cutest… pop your cutest pics in the comments below of the moments you love most with your dogs 🐾🐾

18/06/2024

⭐️ Great Relationships ⭐️- the importance of a healthy relationship with your dog is one of the first topics we cover on our training programmes.

Think of your relationship with your dog as a bank account 💰💰💰- you need to build & grow as many healthy, positive pay ins as you can & limit the withdrawals.

Relationship deposits & withdrawals play a huge part in the success of your dogs learning & skill building 🐶🐾

www.positive4pawsdogtraining.co.uk

17/06/2024

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Small dogs can have a really tough time of it. Because they are small they are not always respected and listened to as much as larger breeds. Because they are small enough to be easily manhandled, the same amount of time is not always put into their training and ensuring that they are comfortable with what is going on around them.

Is it then any wonder that they become scared and vocal about their fear and wish to be left alone?

For more see a link to an article in the comments.

16/06/2024

🐾Happy Father’s Day to all great Dog Dads out there🐾

14/06/2024

🐶🐶 ONLY 1 PLACE LEFT 🐶🐶

🐶 Give Your Puppy A Positive Start To Learning 🐶

We are now enrolling for our June “Positive Puppy Course” held in Warsop, Mansfield.

Classes led by a Certified Pro Dog Trainer & Puppy Training Specialist.

Courses run for 5 weeks and our small, friendly training groups support you to teach your puppy
essential life skills right from the very beginning - confidence, smart socialisation, calmness, focus & engagement, value in proximity (loose lead walking & recall), listening skills, disengagement from distractions, plus much more - all through the power of proven, positive reward, games based training.

The course is designed for puppies aged 3-6months (fully vaccinated).

Course Start: Saturday 29th June - 9-10am

Course Price - £85 per puppy

Please contact us for further details & a booking form to secure your place 🐾🐶

If you are interested in classes starting July onwards - please contact us for details.

Canine First Aid Certified
Fully Insured
Sessions held inside & outside

www.positive4pawsdogtraining.co.uk

1to1 Puppy training also available

14/06/2024

🐶🐶 FRIDAY THOUGHT 🐶🐶

13/06/2024

12/06/2024

I really am so lucky to work with some lovely people & their amazing dogs 🐶🐶🐶

Thanks to Shelley & Buddy for their great review… it means so much to receive great feedback 😃

Looking forward to our next 1:1 sessions together! 🐕‍🦺

Keep being a fabulous boy, Buddy 🤩🐾🤩

12/06/2024

A great first 1:1 this morning with 13 month old Miniature Jack Russell, Cookie 🐶🐾

Cookie is a lovely lively girl who can sometimes struggle in certain situations that lead to her:

➡️ Barking
➡️ Worrying about noises/novel distractions
➡️ Worrying when around people she doesn’t know

She smashed her first session 🤩 & we started to teach Cookie & her family some fun new training games to help grow skills in:

🐾 Calmness
🐾 Disengagement
🐾 Confidence & Optimism
🐾 Focus & Engagement
🐾 Enrichment - meeting her needs
🐾 learning how to read her body language & how to understand & support her when she’s giving important information as to how she’s feeling

Well Done Cookie! ⭐️

www.positive4pawsdogtraining.co.uk

11/06/2024

A great 1:1 session this morning with 13week old Dachshund puppy, Dexter 🐶

He really enjoyed learning his new training games & picked them up so quickly! He was having so much fun with his Mum, he didn’t want to stop!! 🤩

Throughout Dexter’s 1:1 puppy programme we will be teaching him essential skills in:

🐾 Focus & Engagement
🐾 Value in Proximity
🐾 Calmness
🐾 Smart Socialisation
🐾 Confidence & Optimism

Well Done Dexter 🤩🤩

10/06/2024

We’ve had a great afternoon of Pet First Aid refresher training provided by Dog Training College - it’s so important to us here at Positive 4 Paws Dog Training to ensure we keep our skills & knowledge up to date🐶🤕🐾






www.positive4pawsdogtraining.co.uk

10/06/2024

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Wanting a behaviour from our dogs to stop is common. Sadly, there are so many 'trainers' who appear on television or have massive social media followings who will advocate using devices and methods that 'will stop it fast'. Let's be honest, as humans we are often results driven, so I can see why these would appeal to people who don't know why these things should not be recommended and used. The reality is that they can make the situation so much worse.

Suppressing a behaviour doesn't mean that the reasons that behaviour happened aren't still there, just that the dog can't do what they feel they need to in that situation. That can lead to increased frustration, stress, fear - depending on what the driver for that behaviour is. Think of it like a pressure cooker, adding more and more pressure, with no way to reduce that pressure. Eventually there comes a point where the pressure is just too much and boom.

If a behaviour is something we can't live with, there are things we can do without suppressing that behaviour. Manage the situation so that the dog is not in a position to practice that behaviour - for example baby gates to stop them jumping up at arriving guests or finding quiet areas to walk if your dog is uncomfortable with other dogs close up. If there is something you would prefer them to do in that situation keep using the management and then, using kind and ethical methods, teach them what you would like them to do instead. If the behaviour is not something that we can simply train an alternative for - a dog who reacts to other dogs around for example - find a behaviour consultant who uses modern and kind methods to help the dog no longer feel the need to use that behaviour.

Behaviour suppression is never the answer.

There are links to a couple of blog posts exploring the topic further in the comments.

06/06/2024

So true!!! Our Dogs are the Dog experts after all!

The least we can do is educate ourselves to understand them ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

05/06/2024

Chewing accomplishes a number of things for a dog.

For young dogs, it's a way to explore & learn about the world or to relieve pain & discomfort that might be caused by the eruption of new teeth 🦷

For older dogs, it's nature's way of keeping jaws strong and teeth clean 🪥

Chewing is also a great boredom buster which can help to promote calmness & relieve anxiety 😴

When our four-legged friends chew on something, hormones like dopamine and serotonin (which are responsible for happiness and joy) are released 😃

So make sure you provide plenty of healthy opportunities for your dog to enjoy this much needed, natural activity 🐶

Choose safe, age appropriate toys/healthy chews for your puppy/dog to chew on & ensure suitability for their individual style of chewing 🦴

Keep things that aren’t safe or suitable to chew out of sight!! 👞

www.positive4pawsdogtraining.co.uk

04/06/2024

Our popular “Positive Puppy Courses” start your puppy’s leaning experiences the positive way!🐶

We’re much more than a sit, down, stay, leave - We will support you to teach your puppy essential skills that grow great behaviours through a proven training program, all whilst growing strong relationships & having fun 🤩

Contact us today to start your puppy’s learning the “Positive 4 Paws Way”, we can’t wait to meet you 🐾

Courses led by a Certified Pro Dog Trainer & Puppy Training Specialist, Fully Insured, DBS checked & Canine First Aid Certified.

www.positive4pawsdogtraining.co.uk

04/06/2024

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This is something that those of us who work as trainers or behaviour consultants encounter a lot. A client will come to us because there is a behaviour or group of behaviours that they want to stop happening.

This is fine for some behaviours. Destructive chewing can result in injury to the dog, either damage to their teeth or, in some cases, swallowing inedible items that can cause an emergency and require surgery. Chasing cars out on a walk could result in a dog managing to get into the road and run over. Pulling on the lead can make walks difficult and potentially painful for dog and human (particularly dangerous for dogs walking using collars around then neck as there are many delicate and important structures in their throats just as in ours).

The essential first step in working with any behaviour is to think about why it may be happening.

Is the dog chewing because they are young and teething? Give them something appropriate to chew and redirect them to that if they start to chew something else.

Are they destroying things when they are left home alone? They could have separation related issues, in which case it's important to work with a qualified and experienced force free trainer to reduce their anxiety.

Are they given enough opportunities to chew on a regular basis? Chewing is a natural behaviour (as is digging) and it's vital we give them plenty of opportunities to carry out natural behaviours.

Are they chasing cars because they are scared? Or is it because they are a breed that reacts to fast moving objects, like herding dogs, sight hounds, or terriers? In each case here, working with a force free trainer will help, as will finding out activities we can do with our dogs to let them chase appropriate items or control movement as they have been bred to do.

Pulling on the lead is perhaps one of the simplest (and most common) of issues and one very simple reason it happens is that dogs generally move faster than humans, and they need to be taught to match our pace. Switch to a harness to keep their neck safe and reward them when they are in the right position. Again, working with a force free trainer is a great idea as they can show the best way to mark and reward when the dog is in position and how to keep the lead loose.

Another thing that helps greatly with this is to use a longer lead and let them have more length to explore when it is safe to do so, so they can sniff and investigate their surroundings - sniffing is another natural behaviour and probably the one that is easiest for us to let them do, as we can simply let them sniff while we are out walking together.

For any behaviour that humans can find problematic before anything else we need to understand why it is happening and, if it is a natural behaviour, our responsibility as caregiver to make sure our dogs are able to do these.

31/05/2024

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How many times do we see someone say not to comfort a scared dog because it will reinforce their fear? This is an incredibly damaging myth, and one that will not help your scared dog at all.

Fear is an emotion, not a behaviour, and it cannot be reinforced in the same way as a behaviour can. That's not to say that how we respond can't have an effect on the dog's fear - it's important to sound and remain calm and soothing - but emotions cannot be reinforced simply by offering comfort to the scared dog.

Behaviours that we reinforce to encourage them and make them more likely to happen are the result of a conscious choice by the dog. That is how positive reinforcement works - the choice to do a particular thing results in something good, something the dog likes or wants. That could be an extrinsic reward like treats, fuss, or a toy, or an intrinsic internal reward such as being able to carry out a natural behaviour that is self-rewarding for the dog.

Emotions like fear are not based on conscious decisions. Fear is not something the dog chooses to feel. Something has triggered the dog's survival instinct, their survival mechanism, and the dog's body and brain leap into action to protect the dog from this thing.

It doesn't matter if the thing the dog is scared of is a real threat or not - for the dog it is perceived as a threat and it's important for us to help them, whether that is getting them more distance from what has scared them, or providing comfort and attempting to help them to feel safer if more distance is not possible (for example fireworks, thunder, or gunshots) or we can't see what is triggering the response.

A scared dog is not being silly or trying to be awkward. They are scared and in survival mode. They need empathy and understanding, and it's up to us to provide those for them.

27/05/2024

🐾 Happy Bank Holiday Monday Everyone 🐾