A bit of fun with the mini shepherd (and thank god she is mini or she would not be happy welcome on shoulders 😂)
#dutchshepherd
Blooper day is everyday with a shepherd.
Storm Darragh has brought strong winds in! This is a demonstration of how wind affects the dispersal of human scent. Wind presents additional challenges for trailing dogs, as the scent particles they are detecting are blown far and wide.
Yes we all got covered in flour, and yes there's definitely some blooper footage of this exercise that you might see at some point 😂
#mantrailing #scentdispersal
Remember to add some silliness to your training regimes 👍
A little late sharing this here, but Astrid is 2!
Little wolfy is still pretty little but it's amazing to reflect on how far she's come.
#dutchshepherd
I spent some time with Ava this week to help her prepare for the arrival of a new tiny human in the house!
As well as the usual brush up on loose lead walking (alongside a pram) and advice for managing dogs around kids, we taught Ava something that is both fun and useful...
Ava already has a solid foundation in scentwork, so we've adapted that training and taught her to freeze--indicate on dropped baby items. This is dual purpose - firstly, to help her owner out when a tiny shoe gets launched out of the pram and is nowhere to be found, and secondly to stop the dog stealing discarded baby socks!
A novel use for scentwork that was very fun to explore 😊
#scentwork #boxerdog
The best way to motivate my dogs to do what I ask, is to use a reward currency that they deem valuable. You wouldn't do your job if your boss decided one day that they were going to pay you in buttons from now on.
For Astrid her ultimate reward is this Emotional Support Bear!
#dogtraining #dogsofinstagram #dogreels #malinios #dutchshepherd #funnydog #happydog #belgianmalinois #positivedogtraining #dogstagram
I very rarely play fetch with my dogs, or at least normal fetch. The repetitive nature, the adrenaline and dopamine highs can make it very addictive. To the point that your dog can forget how to dog when out on walks.
It can also massively increase the risk of injury if they are leaping, twisting or suddenly stopping to catch it. We are about to go through Darwin's second surgery for a ligament tear, so trust me that this isn't something you want to go through. Whilst his aren't fetch related injuries, ligament tears are commonly caused by fetch.
Instead I like to use Astrid's favourite Kong tug. And we mix up how we play with it. In this video we are working with frustration and impulse control. Calmness is definitely something a lot of people want to work on, but here I'm purposefully amping her up. I want to work on her being able to hear, listen and respond to me even when she gets that tunnel vision. So instead of just fetch, we are working on impulse control, leave it, recall and then finishing with scentwork as she needs to search for the toy.
Here's a video of my helper Bertie, who is very new in his scentwork journey. He volunteered to help test out my new makeshift scentwall contraption. Thank you Bertie!
