Adopted Soul Dog Training

Another clip from our Witney Reactivity Workshop! No music cover just so everyone can hear there are no reactions at all. Sorry for my shouting instructions 😂😉. Watching all these people and dogs put their techniques to great use and practice! 🙌 Wonderful work!

How do you go from clip one to clip two?? Well the tools you use are extremely important to gain control and create calmness! William is a very high energy dog and a harness does not help him in these situations, the pulling against the harness and little control involved creates more arousal and therefore creates a lot more barking and lunging when out and about. He can bark at cyclists, traffic, dogs etc. as you can see he is already very aroused. To gain control of the reactivity you must first gain control of the dog and bring the energy down. You must create a calmer more relaxed walk in general and not even worry about the reactivity until that has been achieved. A slip lead gives you control over the front of the dog, whereas a harness only gives you control of the backend. Also it’s extremely important to remember harnesses were created to teach dogs to pull in the most comfortable manner, this is not saying you cannot teach a dog to walk to heel on a harness but with a dog like William it will not give you that control he desperately needs.

If your dog is beginning to pull and get excited to see another dog, which is what is happening here with Hughey. The worst thing you can do is drag them on and try to keep walking whilst your dog is pulling and not engaged with you but more focused on the dog. Can you see as soon as Hughey’s owner stops, breaks that focus, relaxes that lead Hughey’s drive towards the other dog disappears. It’s completely unnatural to us, if we are use to a reacting dog to actually stop instead of trying to escape the situation but 9 times out of 10, it either completely stops the reaction (as long as you are breaking focus and getting engagement) or at least significantly reduces it. Don’t fight your dog and try to drag them away as quickly as possible this will increase any reactions taking place, whether anxiety, fear or excitement!

Here we have something slightly different, this gorgeous girl is Rosie and she can get quite anxious and therefore reactive at the TV, it can be both sounds like this, and animals, fast moving objects on the TV. We decided to break it down so it’s only either sight or sound not doing both at the same time. As you can see she is still uncertain towards the sound but is managing herself and remaining as calm as possible. She is looking to her owners for guidance instead of fixating and barking at the TV sometimes she can jump right to the screen! So this is a fantastic improvement! Ideally we will like to get her to completely relax on a place command (bed, crate) but one step at a time as she struggles slightly more when her freedom is restricted and she feels stuck in the situation. But this is great progress so far!!

A little clip from our Saturday pack walk! Working on our heel walking, lead reactivity and engagement in this exercise! The majority of dogs in this clip came to me with some kind of reactivity not all but a large amount of them, some are young, some unsocialised, some rescues, some over excited and some extremely nervous! And all, each and everyone are doing incredibly well.

Anyone else having one of these mornings?? 😴😴

Just a video I made for a client to remind her how to position a slip lead, so thought I would share it on! Slip leads should always be positioned high on the dogs neck not where the collar sits but instead right behind the ears. I never want a slip lead positioned on the oesophagus. The stopper on a slip lead is the most important, we want it to be firm to keep the lead in place on top of the neck!

When walking multiple dogs I work both on Individual recalls with each individual dog whereby I start with the name of the dog and then the command, only rewarding that particular dog when they carry out the command. Not any other dogs just because they followed. I then also practice and work on group recalls, this is what is shown in the above video. This recall needs to be sharper as we are not getting the attention of our dogs by using their name! All dogs who comply get rewarded, and it’s important to practice in case of emergencies where you need the entire pack back to you straight away! This bunch consists of my three, my mums two and a dog I have once a week! #dogtraining #dogtrainingtips #dogtrainingadvice #adoptedsouldogtraining #adoptedsoulpack #packwalks #trainingwalks #recalltraining #offleadtraining #dogsofinstagram #oxfordshiredogs

How can my toddler engage with my dog appropriately? What activities can they do to strengthen their bond? I don’t want my toddler around the dog food or treats, so how else can they engage? My toddler loves the dogs but struggles with open hand strokes, what can we do? All extremely valid and important questions to ask, all interactions between children and dogs should be supervised by an adult, and all interactions should be fun and enjoyable for both parties. You want the interactions to be calm and relaxed especially with younger children, and no using dogs as a climbing frame, no matter how relaxed your dog is. If your child struggles with keeping an open hand (as they are not able to understand why) hold your child’s hand to stroke the dogs. Or in this instance use a brush. Ensure your dogs and children both know the difference between their toys, dogs should not be taking your child’s toys or objects, and your children should not be teasing your dog with their toys. At this age in the video I would still not allow any interaction with food or treats as emotions are much more heightened for dogs around this time. I would wait until your child is around 3 and a half to four years old for those kind of interactions. As you also don’t want your dog to follow your child when they have snacks! #toptips #dogtraining #dogtrainingtips #dogtrainingadvice #childrenanddogs #adoptedsouldogtraining #oxford #dogsofoxford #oxfordshire #dogs

Cooper doing some longline training and engagement with his owner around an excitable playful dog. This is lovely and happy engagement from Cooper with his owner. Cooper loves dogs and wants to go and say hello to all the dogs around, when dogs are present his ears switch off and he has been known to not come back or listen to commands so this is lovely work from them both. As you can see he is not even using all the longline but sticking quite close to his mum, lots of eye contact and a wonderful break on focus of the dog running after the ball (which is a double whammy of excitement). It’s important to work on a longline until you have bulletproof recall and lots of engagement with your dog especially around distractions to ensure everyone is safe and feeling comfortable! #dogtraining #dogtrainer #dogtrainingtips #dogtrainingadvice #adoptedsouldogtraining #engagement #leadership #control #longlinework #rescuedogs #romanianrescue #dogsofinstagram

How good are your dogs Threshold training??Can you trust them on their threshold without being present? If not start practicing, thresholds are lifesavers and the backbone of any training you begin!

What is a true heel walk??A true heel walk is where your dogs nose does not go past your toes.A loose/ slack lead. No tension.Your dog is in tune with your body. It’s your direction and your speed. You do not keep up with your dog or hold your dog back, your dog walks at the speed you set and follows any direction you take.A true heel walk takes practice and patience, and discomfort for yourself not your dog!!Don’t give into the easier options, ie letting your dog off lead as soon as possible even if they are pulling! If you need help please get in touch!

Longline session

Teaching Cooper how to engage, listen and remain calm on a longline around distractions. Cooper is a wonderful boy but has a little cheeky streak when off lead or on a longline he doesn’t necessarily listen, his owner cannot hold the longline as he zooms off running around with his friends, sometimes he doesn’t come back to her as he does not want to go back on lead and his recall is hit and miss, whilst his engagement is non existent. Here you can see I am not even using all the longline, it’s constantly slack but I am teaching lots of engagement around off lead dogs, in a dog park (keeping a distance of around 30m). Lots of turn arounds, recalls where he walks/ runs into me not me reaching out to him, lots of praise and excitement in my voice, and even in this short video you can see the progress of eye contact from Cooper to myself. This video is also great to see how to use a longline safely, I prefer longline to extended leads for a few reasons, first off I can use two hands, secondly longlines are suppose to remain slack so it gives the allusion of being off lead due to no constant tension being added to the lead, no pulling back etc. and thirdly when I can drop the entire longline when ready and give freedom with a safety net. However both extended leads and longlines can be dangerous, it’s important with a longline you don’t hold them tight around your arms/ hands they can easily be in looped or dropped, you only give as much lead as your dog is using at that time, and pick it up when they are not using it. If you need to work on recall or off lead reliability please shoot me a message! #dogtraining #dogtrainer #dogtrainingadvice #dogtrainingoxfordshire #oxfordshire #adoptedsouldogtraining #adoptedsoulpack #longline #longlinetraining #offleadreliability #control #confidence #leadership

Changing direction with no verbal cue. Changes in direction without being verbally told to follow, is extremely important when it comes to off lead reliability with dogs! It creates velcrocity and means your dog is always in a following mode keeping an eye on you and following your direction, therefore your leadership. Verbal commands are important and should definitely be used in your dog training journey, though there is still so much power in silence. It’s common practice for our dogs to be spoken to, to much! This particular walk I had my three dogs, Freya who I have once a week and Hugo who I know well and have every now and then. I also had my four month old son strapped to me asleep. As practice I gave myself the challenge of doing the whole hour walk with no verbal commands or cues and no treats! Therefore no direction except my body and no rewards! How do you think it went??? Are you ready to take on this challenge? You have to be ready and have your training firm and solid before giving this a go!

Here we have the gorgeous but very anxious Ruby trying to navigate a busy road. Ruby the Cockerpoo is extremely anxious therefore has extreme reactivity towards everything, loud sounds, people, bikes, children, balls, animals, dogs, large vehicles etc. This barking and lunging became so unbearable that her owners actually stopped heel walking her and exposing her to these situations, which as you can imagine made the situation a lot worse. But without the proper instruction they were unsure of how to navigate and help Ruby appropriately. Taking her out in fact made her owners feel anxious and made it unenjoyable. Look at how far we have come, still some work to do, but Ruby and her owner are both beginning to feel a lot more confident around busy areas, look at that lovely loose lead walking, look at the eye contact Ruby is giving her owner and she doesn’t give into her fear but in fact they both recover very quickly from the slight step back where there was people on both sides of her! I am so pleased with all of our progress!

Teaching Kenzo the joys of more freedom using a longline. Kenzo cannot currently be trusted off lead due to both his prey drive and over arousal around dogs! He does all of his walks on a short line, so we want to start teaching him how to be reliable off of lead and how to conduct himself with more freedom! Now recall is an obvious and very important command to teach when using the longline but I always like to start with changes in direction and the this way command. Non verbal changes in direction help create a Velcro dog outside, this ensures your dog is always keeping an eye on you and means that they will stay closer to you! If you do not teach velcrocity outside you could have a dog that goes a long distance from you, and may even end up seeing things ahead that you are not aware of. It’s always important for me to teach a dog to stay close! I use a 10m longline to teach this, we then also teach the same thing but with a verbal command, in case I need my dog to change direction quickly! As you can imagine this was a very fun but also very exhausting session for Kenzo! Can’t wait to keep you updated on this one! #dogtraining #dogtrainingtips #dogtrainingadvice #dogtrainingisfun #dogtrainers #adoptedsouldogtraining #jindo #jindodog #recalltraining #longlinetraining #offleadreliability #trainyourdog #control #velcrodog

Pack walks

Another clip from one of our pack walks! We always do exercises before the walks which are on lead. This is where we focus on control, heel walking, engagement, reactivity etc. Dogs are never and should never interact with one another when on lead. They are not allowed to sniff eachother etc as this can potentially create more reactivity, pulling towards dogs and a lack of engagement with their owners. It can also make dogs feel uncomfortable and give them the need to lash out. Do not allow your dogs to interact with other dogs when on lead it’s a very forced situation. It’s also important to not allow your dogs to run upto other dogs when on lead. #dogtraining #dogtrainer #dogtrainingtips #dogtrainingadvice #adoptedsouldogtraining #adoptedsoulpack #packwalks #packwalksofinstagram #socialisationtraining #socialisationwalks #trainingwalks #dogsofinstagram

When your clients who have extremely reactive dogs, listen, take on board and go and practice your training on their own and in their own time! And not only that but have amazing and wonderful results. This is all you can want as a dog trainer, giving your clients the tools and confidence to go and work on their training on a daily basis. Absolutely fantastic work here from Winston and Kenzo, and I couldn’t be happier to have received this video on my maternity leave! Great work! 🙌🙌 #dogtraining #dogtrainer #dogtrainingtips #reactivedogs #control #engagement #leadtraining #leadership #adoptedsouldogtraining #confidence #dogs

One of my favourite places to train dogs in Oxford is Millets farm, it’s usually busy with people, children, dogs, they are allowed in the garden centre, and the garden centre cafe, there is a farm where you can work around the animals, both large and small. It’s a great place to work on your engagement and heel walking around lots of distractions! Here we have Betsy doing just that, Betsy is a wonderful young dog. Who just loves everyone and everything! So remaining calm and ignoring everyone is hard work but as you can see she is just doing incredibly well, remaining relaxed and walking beautifully on the lead.

Here we have little Rin showing off her fantastic loose lead heel walking! It’s so important that dogs of any size yes even the small ones have a strong heel walk, as it’s less to do with getting pulled or you being uncomfortable on a walk, but more to do with creating a strong following mindset in your dog. Being a strong leader for your dog. Yes of course it stops the action of pulling but it also significantly reduces any lead reactivity, creates more engagement with you and your dog and also means that they are more likely to listen, and engage when off of lead. #dogtraining #dogtrainer #dogtraining101 #dogtrainingtip #dogtrainingadvice #chihuahua #chihuahuasofinstagram #adoptedsouldogtraining #looseleadwalking