Katie's Canines Devon

30/11/2025

Little Buddy passed his level 1 assessment today 🤩 Buddy has grown so much in confidence around new people since he started trailing it is wonderful to watch!

29/11/2025

Congratulations to new boy brân for passing his level 1 assessment 🥰 dealing with an unexpected distraction of two loose farm dogs too! Well done team 💚🐾

26/11/2025

You suck 🙃

23/11/2025

I spent this Sunday topping up my first aid skills! This is a full day and in person course, with lots of hands on practical elements. Canine first aid is invaluable and potentially life saving for any canine professionals or owners too. In the 10 years I have spent working professionally with dogs I have had to provide first aid multiple times, and knowing how to do it safely and effectively is essential.

Thanks to Dog First aid for providing such a great course & Jordan for funding the course.

08/11/2025

How exciting for Scarborough! 🔥🐾🐕‍🦺

06/11/2025

🥳 You asked we answered - Find the keys online course! 🥳

Link in the comments!

🐾 Get started with scentwork with 0 expensive equipment.
🐾 Mentally exhausting and easy to play at home or out and about.
🐾 Powerful tool for building confidence in anxious dogs. Use in times of stress / fear to turn on the brains " seeking system" the antidote to the fear response.
🐾 Find any lost item.

Link below to learn more :

31/10/2025

How to cope when your reactive/ anxious dog has a bad day!

From someone who has had to work on this a lot!

As a trainer, I was always great at coaching others through bad days, but didn't have the same skills for myself.

When you love a dog, and pour so much effort into them, it is difficult when they react negatively, unexpectedly or worse than before.

It's easy to blame yourself, or compare yourself to others.

The thing about comparing yourself, is that no dog online is the same as yours. They don't have the same experiences, feelings, traumas or personalities. What works for some won't work for others, even if they have similar struggles.

If you made a mistake You only know what you know, you can't expect yourself to know everything all the time, and the best thing to do is see it as an opportunity to learn.

These are the steps I take after a stressful event with my spicy dogs 💚

29/10/2025

Something I wrote 5 years ago that I very much still stand by today!

Does a 'bad' dog mean a bad owner ?

Nope!

Your dogs behaviour is based on a whole host of factors : Their genetics, working drives, mums health/happiness during pregnancy, the birth, the attentiveness of the mother, the environment of the birth, the size of the litter, the experiences in the first three weeks... just to name a few which occur before you even go and choose them. A traumatic birth can often result in reactive puppies. Lack of handling in the first few days often results in dogs who struggle to deal with stress. Genetic tendancies can give rise to a dog that resource guards without learning to...

Yes owners have a responsibility to pick a good breeder, research the breed and then adequately socialise and train their new dog. But what if, like most, you have no idea how. What if you adopt an older dog? What if you do everything right, and then your dog suffers an attack, trauma or health condition which effects their behaviour? What if you do everything right, but your dog is genetically predisposed to certain behaviors/ fears.

I've met so many puppies, watched them grow with the best care, with experienced owners, and seen them develop problems despite this.

So no, a dogs behaviour does not indicate your ability as a dog owner, or as a human being. What does, is how you manage it.

Your dog doesn't have to want to play with other dogs, but you do have to keep them on lead and/or muzzle them if they show aggression. Your dog doesn't have to love people coming into your home, but you must secure them safely away or keep them on lead when people enter.

There's no magic wand that can erase your dogs genetics, rewire their learning and make them forget their traumas. Management is part of life with any dog and part of any training programme. Training takes weeks, months or even years, and it has it's limitations. Don't believe the hocus pocus on TV where a few jabs in the side cures a dog of fear based aggression. Dogs can't be "fixed" just like humans with severe trauma or anxiety can't be "fixed".

Stop judging people on their dogs behaviour, and start understanding that one day it could be you. Stop telling people to " just get them trained" like an hour with a trainer will solve irreversible damage done in puppy-hood, years of trauma or complicated phobias.

Be proud of your dog, warts and all 💓 your dog doesn't have to be perfect. You just have to keep them and others safe.

27/10/2025

This!

One thing that really struck me when Ember was a puppy was her inability to settle unless shut away. Normal puppies sleep, she didn't.

She also chased her own tail, writhed around and scratched a lot.

As she grew up, we realised she has a pretty severe food allergy and her immune system reacts to any complete proteins.

We manage her diet as best we can with hydrolyzed food- proteins broken down so the immune system doesn't recognize them. But she still has many flare ups, from eating things from the floor or when we are trying to test new things.

The first sign I see is always this. Hyperactivity, she no longer settles. She's constantly wanting to play and zoom. She barks when she wakes up as she wants me to get out of bed. She's clingy and can't cope without my constant attention. She's constantly chewing up things, digging or stealing.

When she isn't itchy, she sleeps most of the day, she's happy to sleep in, she loves my attention but is happy without it. She doesn't chew anything up, or dig.

I know allergies aren't technically pain, but they cause immense discomfort which causes an inability to settle. I see so many dogs with painful conditions who are very active, and who are even hyperactive and zooming in response to pain.

If your dog is unable to settle this is not normal. Investigate why this might be.

25/10/2025

Yesterday I went to a Halloween festival. There were huge crowds, loud bands playing, fire dancers, people on stilts and magic shows. It was so crowded we had to squeeze through people. I enjoyed it, but I couldn't help but notice so many dogs who were really struggling.

One dog stood behind us in the crowd of the band playing. The dog was getting stood on, touched by multiple people, it was so stressed and overwhelmed it slipped its collar as it tried to get away. I saw an own owner with a Chihuahua, so terrified it absolutely broke my heart, and a malinois cross, who was also very stressed, pacing, panting and lunging at dogs. The owner didn't even seem to look at the Chihuahua, who was cowering, jumping at every nosie, running to the end of the lead and trying to flee. I saw a reactive cockpoo forced to stand in a crowd while it barked and lunged constantly at other dogs, owners not even caring to move. I even saw someone carrying a wide eyed and panting puppy, a great way to traumatize a young dog.

Why, in your right mind, would you bring a dog to an event like that? Dogs are not children, and go back just a few decades and dogs never left the farms they lived on. They were perfectly happy. Now we're dragging them to a festival to stand in a sea of people listening to deafening music?

Don't get me wrong, a few dogs ( think old labs) were absolutely fine. But they were few and far between. And I still wouldn't say they were enjoying it.

I don't get this new obsession with making everything dog friendly. Dogs want to go to the woods, stalk sheep, hunt deer , swim & be dogs. A festival like that, that is allowing dogs is not dog friendly at all in my opinion.

Here's to less " dog friendly" human events and more snuffle/ enrichment centers, private hire parks/ pools and sniff spots, open green space an trails. More kind and ethical modern trainers and dog sports focused on dog happiness and health.

I know it's nice to have your dog with you all the time. But it is not fair to drag a terrified dog around an event like that. If your dog really actually enjoys that, then go for it. But I didn't see a single one.