Despite its trials and sadnesses, 2024 has been a great year in many ways! Happy New Year to you all and may 2025 be a great one!🥂🐾
Say what??? Homefield is three years old today!!😱😱
It doesn’t quite seem possible, but three years ago I began this journey, combining 20 years of teaching experience with a lifetime of love for all things canine to embark on running my own business working with dogs!
I feel incredibly lucky and privileged to be able to do this - not many people get to have a job which is their absolute passion; and I’m so grateful to all of you who have trusted me to help with your pups.
Thank you all for allowing me to have my dream job!🩷🐾❤️
Fabulous recall from the girl today! Free to interact with the environment and hoon around like a setter, straight back when called every time! 🤩 All trained with a positive reward system - hope I’m. It jinxing it now!!🤣🤣
Loose Lead Walking problems? 🦮 Here’s one reason dogs pull on the lead: just look at Ember’s natural choice of movement! Like most setters, she just loves running! 😇 So when I’m asking her to walk at my pace on a lead for extended periods, it’s super-frustrating for her. It’s my job to keep working on making it worth her while to slow down to boring human speed! 🤯 Understanding this can help prevent me getting equally frustrated with the slow progress!😩🤣
Wednesday Portland Puppies Easton working on loose lead walking! Well done Rocky, Lola and Skye!🐾👀😊
🐶Recall🐶🐾 One of the most important aspects of training a puppy is recall, and it’s one of the most frequently requested areas for 121 help. It’s something I’ve been working on with Ember since the very first few days of her coming home, and that’s paying off at the moment as she is generally great at it. 🤞 A lot of people just use their dog’s name to call them: this may well work in many situations, but there’s one issue that struck me as significant. We use names for all sorts of situations - recall needs to mean ‘come here right now!’ So I prefer to add a cue as well, although I usually use her name as well. This got me thinking about the number of recall cues I actually use: • Ember, come! • Girls, come! (When I’m calling both at the same time) • Touch • This way! • What are you doing? And: Ermmmm??⁉️ The last two are actually interruptors, but because, like all the other phrases, they get reinforced by a food reward when Ember runs straight to me, they’re effectively recall cues as well. 🥳 And that’s the important point: always reward your recall! Always! You want your puppy to know that coming when you call is going to be reliably worthwhile - so even if you’re just calling them from another room or in from the garden, a piece of sausage or a training treat will reinforce that. 😆 I’m not complacent - it’s entirely possible that Ember will hit adolescence in a few months and decide that she doesn’t need mum anymore and can do what she likes, thank you very much! But I’m optimistic that the amount of reinforcement she’s getting now, as a baby dog, will mean I can get it back on track without too much stress.
Adding the 3 Ds to a wait: duration, distraction, distance. Nice work, pups!🥰🐶🥰
I often recommend Houndagrips long-lines and leads to clients, because I really like the products! If you’re thinking about a good quality long-line that does what it says on the tin, you should be able to use my code for a discount on the website:
https://www.houndagrips.com/
HOMEFIELD
Never too early to start habituation to potential prey!🤩🐦⬛🥰
🦮Walks with Puppies Part 2🦮 🐾 Ember is now getting into a routine of walks each day, and we’ve started to explore more locations, although always quite short distances as she’s only just 14 weeks old.🐶 Like many puppies, she’s not a massive fan of having the harness and lead put on, although once dressed, she’s quite happy. I don’t want this to become an issue, so she has a treat through the neckpiece of the harness as it goes over her head, and a treat on the floor while I attach the lead. This way there’s no force involved so no stress for her or me.🦮 We usually go out for two, sometimes three, short walks a day, and at least one of these is on a longline. Ember has been promoted to the big girl Houndagrips longline now, slightly longer than the lightweight one and much more comfortable to hold; she gets lots of freedom to run, stop, sniff, and play, and I can drop it in places for her to really run around. 🚂 At times she pulls on this, as she’s excited and trying to keep up with Sonnet - that’s fine, because she is learning to stop when she reaches the end , and I differentiate from loose lead walking by using a different lead - a 2m training lead. ☑️ Another technique I’m using to encourage walking with me when needed is off-lead heel, with lots of reinforcement for being in the right position. If she gets in front, she’s learning that the food won’t arrive until she’s dropped back beside my leg. 🐕🦺 I’m now starting to introduce loose lead walking when out as well - not every day and not for long periods as it’s really hard work for a tiny pup. Again, Ember gets lots of food rewards for walking where I’d like her, with plenty of breaks for sniffing; if she pulls, I stop and wait for her to return to me and her reward for this is continued movement forward. It’s very much a work in progress, some days she is more receptive than others - this can be be
The second week for the May Portland Puppies class today, and they were fantastic! We threw in a bit of Drunk Dog Walking and a Wait, as well as finding games to encourage alternatives to jumping up and the all-important Leave! All stars: well done Ozzie, Grace, Haggis, Lucky, Bob and Ronny!🐾❤️🐾. If you’re looking for puppy classes, I have added a second course for June (4 spaces at the moment). Also, I’m looking into the possibility of running a Wednesday morning group - if this would suit you, let me know!😁
