By 11am we were boiling 🥵
The Juniors are all the same, much as if expect for their age. Pulling in the lead or lunging, recall is effective only with no distraction, desperate to meet every dog and selective hearing!!!
Pretty standard for this age group and they are all big dogs do we have a lot of work to do.
By the end of the first session we had them all settled around each other, walking on loose leads most of the time and in a much better place to start listening and learning.
Can’t wait for next week.
Still pretty grey for the Puppy plus gang but they are all really switched on and straight into playtime with owners. We are still working with a short attention span at this age so we keep the playtime short and effective.
FIREWORKS 🧨
Back in May I posted about getting ready for fireworks (see below post) It’s at that time of year that I ask everyone to get their dogs ready for Fireworks. 🎇
Starting early gives you plenty of time to desensitise the dog to the noise. Counter conditioning to teach your dog that fireworks are fun is a much better strategy than drugging them up and hiding them away. By providing their favourite type of enrichment while the bangs are happening makes fireworks a positive experience and reduces everyone’s stress. Just this week I read about a dog who was spooked on a walk by fireworks and bolted with a tragic outcome, it’s August so the owner would not have been expecting to hear them.
This is your sign to take action NOW!
If your dog was okay with fireworks last year or you’ve just welcomed a new dog or puppy into the home since last year it’s important to start with the training now. Start the process below to make sure you have another fear free year.
For those of you whose dogs react to crow scarers the same applies to you. Before you know it they will be back in your life and you need to start with desensitising now.
🎆 🐕 🎇 🐶
I’ve not gone mad and I know it’s only May!
Every year people contact me in October to ask for help with fireworks. At that late stage all we can do is offer herbal calmers and advice. However now, 6 months ahead, I can give you lots of practical advice to get prepared and beat the firework stress.
Sound aversion training your dog to accept the noise of fireworks can eliminate or dramatically reduce their fear of fireworks (or other noises such as traffic/thunderstorms).
The dogs trust have free downloads to help desensitise your dogs. All you need to do is set up the following routine and follow it daily.
💥 Have a safe space set up, this can be their crate/bed.
💥 Get their favourite chews out or a toy they love to play with.
💥 Start playing the noise o
A lesson at Jesmond Dene today working on helping the owners of a reactive dog work in busier environments. The apprentice is helping today too 🌟
Love hearing feedback from clients who have seen a big transformation in their dogs. 🥰 Hi Susan,
Just wanted to let you know that Rusty is doing so well off lead! He stays near us or waits for us most of the time and the ball is working really well as an emergency recall. We can let him off even around other dogs so he gets off lead (or dropped lead) walks almost every other day now. And even I let him off when I walk him on my own, which would have stressed me out so much a few months ago.
It’s so lovely to see him enjoying himself and having a good run. And I think it helped his behaviour in the house too.
Thank you so much for your help! It made such a difference and now we can all enjoy the walks.
It’s not the best video but I thought I share it with you.
New Puppy Classes available to book.
The puppy plus class were working on quick turns this morning. This exercise can help to distract your dog from something in front of you, another playful dog in this case.
What recall looks like with a teenager!! Bronn knows exactly what I want him to do but he’s having a bit too much fun to actually do it 🙄
In Junior class we try to focus on giving the dogs a job and making walks fun. We strive to make the owners more exciting than other dogs, birds, people etc.
This Junior class has been brilliant at it and can all work off lead around each other with no issue.
What started as an excitable and quite reactive group of Juniors is now a lovely calm bunch. We’ve worked lots on giving the dogs a ‘job’ and encouraging more playtime and exploration with their owners
A lesson ‘on location’ this afternoon. This lovely boy has suddenly discovered the joy of cats and the fun following their scent can be!! 🙀 This isn’t a behaviour his owner wants and especially as it’s only in built up areas. We worked today on changing his perception of what happens in his ‘trigger’ areas. He already loves a ‘find it’s game so we added this in along with some new scent work skills to get him working for his owner instead of going self employed!
He would have normally been in the gardens nearby at this point so it was a really positive first session. Particularly as the wind was making his searching a lot harder.
First day of puppy class for these lovelies.
I’m off for the Easter weekend & will be back on Wednesday 3 April.
Have a great weekend 🐣
Look out of the hazards your dug could be exposed to.
Well done to the 9am puppy class for completing 6 weeks of training. Even with the wind outside they all settled great at the end of the session 👏
Beautiful morning for loose lead walking practice with the puppies.
A glimpse of blue skies and sunshine made a great morning for social walks and lessons.
This afternoon was a home visit to a multi dog household.
Being in a multi dog household means training can be overwhelming, especially when all the dogs have different personalities and issues.
In a home visit with several dogs I will look at all of the individual dogs issues first then look at how they impact the group and the additional problems that only arise when the group are together.
It makes the training a little more complex but we break it down into chunks.
Working with just one dog at a time with the problematic behaviours until all individuals can work independently with all of their problems solved.
Then we move onto adding another dog into the mix until we can have a harmonious group all living and working together.
Teaching one dog on their own means that both you and your dog can fully focus on the training without the distraction of housemates. When they are all individually in a better place bringing them back together to train is so much easier and enjoyable.
GInGin doing what she does best, nailing every exercise we do in Activity class.
Week of the the scent work class today, all spaniels & 1 visla which means they will grasp this activity really quickly!
Rosie did a scent course last year but was so nervous she wouldn’t even walk near the search area or boxes.
Today you could see such a change in her confidence and she doves straight in. Her owners have worked really hard with her & she is proof of how beneficial training can be. 🥰
More chilly weather & icy wind didn’t stop playtime around each other and sit and stay practice for the Puppy plus gang.
