I’m taking Gavin to the vets later today (just for a check up), but it made me think about recording this. We regularly practice with him as being a spaniel they’re so prone to ear infections! 😖 He’s never had one yet, but it’s always best to be prepared!
It’s also helpful for him to know how to stay still in general, as he finds vet trips stressful, so having him be able to focus on a particular cue such as this can help him to manage his “big feelings” while the vet checks him over! 💕
#dogtraining #dogtrainer #cockerspaniel #cockerspanielsofinstagram #dogtricks
Our first training session using a clothes rack! I’m always looking for ways to improve perfect training techniques - and Gavin is a massive help when it comes to testing new tricks 😁 this one is particularly useful for clients with assistance dogs who need help picking things up and putting them away! 🦮
#dogtraining #dogtricks #assistancedog #assistancedogtraining #cockerspaniel #showcocker #cockerspanielsofinstagram
I had a fantastic session on Saturday meeting the gorgeous Luna the Cocker 😍 Luna is (or should I say, WAS!) a big puller on the lead - she has many places to be, and no time to wait for her family to keep up 🤣 However, the progress Luna and her family made within the hour are astounding! 🤩 She really got the hang of loose-lead walking very quickly, and we even managed a whole walk on her regular route without her human’s arms nearly coming off! You’ll also see in the second video ➡️ that Luna has learnt that tension on the lead means turn around to reengage with her human (to get a tasty treat!), rather than allowing Luna to pull harder to get where she wants to go. We spent a lot of time in the garden practicing this, and it’s already paying off! 🐾A massive well done to Luna and her family for the hard work, attention and dedication during the session - keep it up! 😁👏🏻 #looseleadwalking #looseleadwalkingtraining #forcefree #forcefreetraining #forcefreedogtraining #positivereinforcement #dogsofinstagram #cockerspaniel #cockerspanielsofinstagram #showcockerspaniel
Dogs, like us, don’t want or need cuddles ALL the time. They may have had a tiring day and just need some proper sleep! Or, perhaps they’re new to the family and still getting to know you! But whatever it is, learning to read our dog’s body language is so important when trying to understand what THEY want 💕 #advocateforyourdog #dogtraining #dogtrainer #dogtrainingtips #greyhound #greyhoundsofinstagram #greyhoundlove #respectdogs
How to teach your dog to Bow 🙇🏼♀️
It’s really important to keep training sessions brief and fun - or else your dog will get bored and restless! We allowed for regular breaks and back-tracked any steps as necessary if Gavin found them too tricky! 💕
But this really got Gavin’s brain working - he was absolutely exhausted afterwards! More so than he would be after a long walk 😊😴
#dogtrick #dogtricks #dogtricksofinstagram #cockerspaniel #cocker #showcockerspaniel #showcocker #cockerspanielsofinstagram #cockerspanielworld #sablecockerspaniel #dogtraininglife #dogtraining #dogtrainer
Teaching a Roll Over! 🐾
When we teach our dog a new trick, it really gets their brain working - meaning a happy & exhausted dog at the end ☺️😴
#dogtraining #dogtraininglife #dogtrainingtips #dogtricks #dogtrick #dogtricksofinstagram #cockerspaniel #cocker #sablecockerspaniel #showcockerspaniel #showcocker #showcockerspanielsofinstagram #rollover #dogrollover
Did you know, any dog that worries, attacks or chases livestock is contravening the Dogs (Protection of Livestock) Act 1953? And if found to do so, you could face imprisonment of up to 12 months and/or a fine of up to £40,000. Your dog can also be legally shot by the owner of the livestock if they feel your dog is a threat. If ever you’re unsure as to whether there’ll be any livestock in a field, pop your dog on a lead until you are 100% sure there’s no chance of meeting any 🐑🐄🦙- it’s not worth the risk! Having a solid recall is essential for this - if you’re in any doubt, use a long line! 😊 Encouraging our dogs to ignore livestock is also a really essential skill! With Rosie, we rewarded her for looking at the cows, but not going any closer to them. This way (with practice), she won’t find cows scary and is less likely to bark at them and scare them. The more positive exposure she can have with cows, the better, and should eventually be able to walk past them and ignore them! 🥰 Excellent work Rosie, her Mum of course, and the Tring Park cows 🤩🐮 ✨Side note✨ - that is a tracker on her collar, we obviously don’t condone or use any sort of aversive equipment during our training sessions 💕🐾 #dogtraining #dogtrainingtips #dogtrainer #cockapoo #cockapoolove #livestocktraining #positivereinforcementdogtraining
Teaching a “release” cue can really help with solidifying the “wait / stay” cue 🐾Often when teaching a dog to stay, we’re tempted to repeat “stay…staaay…staaay…”. to the dog, which really isn’t necessary. If a dog is running up to you after a period of time after asking them to stay, that means that’s the duration that they currently know the cue to be. You can then slowly build that duration up! But repeating cues over and over again will often confuse dogs and can hinder the learning process! They will also become reliant on the fact that if they haven’t heard that cue in a few seconds - it means they can run free 😅But teaching a release cue means you need only say the cue (sit, stay, lie down etc) once, and in theory they won’t move until you say the release cue (“Okay!” Or whatever word you chose). Most often used with working dogs (herding sheepdogs and gundogs) but it’s becoming a much more popular tool in pet dogs too! 🐕#dogtrainingtips #dogtrainer #goldenretriever #golden #goldenretrieverofinstagram #goldenretrieverpuppy #dogtraining #goldenretrieverlove
The lovely Bruce during his first trip in a supermarket as a Trainee Assistance Dog 🤩
He did AMAZINGLY well, he ignored all people and food on the shelves, and was totally focused on his Mum. A supermarket is a real sensory challenge for dogs - there are people everywhere, bright lights, noises he wouldn’t have heard before (trolleys, tannoys, till beeping etc), so many different smells - so the fact that Bruce took it all in his stride is incredible! 🐾
I’m so impressed and thrilled with Bruce’s progress, all due to his Mum’s dedication and hard work to his training! 💕
#assistancedog #assistancedogs #assistancedogintraining #assistancedogsofinstagram #assistancedogsuk #cockapoo #cockapoolove #cockapoolife #cockapoolife
Explaining the 5 types of DRY Dog Foods 🐾
Do you know the difference between extruded and air-dried dog food?
What we feed our dogs is SO important. “You are what you eat” is the same for them too! 🐾
If we ate fast food everyday, we’d feel sluggish and likely put weight on very easily. 🍔Unfortunately some of the common household dog food brands are just this! But small changes such as changing the TYPE of dry food we offer our dogs, can make a HUGE difference to your dog’s overall health, energy levels, irritability levels (something I see very often in my job!) and lifespan 💕
Not everyone has the space or money to feed a raw or fresh diet (which is absolutely fine!), so here are some alternative ideas to make your dog’s diet a little healthier - the less processed the food, the better! 🥗
#dognutrition #drydogfood #dognutritiontips #healthydog #healthydogfood #dogtraininglife #dogtraining #dogtips #dogsofinstagram #doghealthcare #instadog #dogsofinstagram
✨Client Progress✨ (posted with permission)
Bruce is training (really hard!) to be an Assistance Dog, and one of the things he needs to learn to pass his Final Assessment is to lay down, and only get up once his lead is picked up 💕 this ensures his safety should the lead ever get dropped when out and about, but also teaches Bruce to be completely focused on his Mum and what she’s doing whenever he’s working 🥰
Bruce and his Mum have been working SO HARD, and this is fantastic progress! 🐾
#assistancedog #assistancedogintraining #assistancedogsofinstagram #assistancedogs #dogtraining #dogtrainer #cockapoo #cockapoosofinstagram #cockapoolove
Loose-Lead Walking! I’m sure at some point we’ve all thought our dog should enter a sled-dog competition 😝
Before even using the lead, we want to first teach the dog that walking alongside us means GOOD things happen! 💕 Because often the lead will bring excitement and will make the puppy/dog distracted - meaning we’re having to compete with their attention span as well as excitement! 😅
Maverick, the 11 week-old Golden Retriever puppy was certainly testing his Dad when it came to walking, and being a big breed it was super important that we teach him how to walk nicely early on. But this was our progress in just one session! 🥰 Parts 2 & 3 of our session coming soon!
#looseleadwalking #looselead #looseleadwalkingtraining #dogtraining #dogtrainingtips #puppy #puppiesofinstagram #goldenretriever #goldenretrieverpuppy
Happy Monday! 🌞 When our dogs play, they use a whole range of different body language cues - which can be hard to spot as they do it so quickly! When watching our dogs play, we're really looking for three signs: MIRRORING, WIGGLY BODIES & REGULAR BREAKS. Mirroring - we want to see dogs copying each other's movements, whether that be play-bowing to each other, lying down at the same time or taking it in turns to be chased. Wiggly Bodies - dog's bodies should have a nice fluid motion to them all the time during play. Tails should also not be held too high up (dependent on breed of course!) and should also have a nice waggy motion. Regular Breaks - both dogs should reguarly stop playing to allow the other to decide if he/she wants to continue with the game. Dogss need time to process events when they happen, and this is also the case during play. There can be a whole host of quick emotion during play, and some dogs need a little break to deescalate the situation before carrying on. Puppies sometimes need our help with learning this when playing with older dogs, as often they will just play until they drop (or get told off by the older dog!)! 🥰 Body language we want to watch out for includes: Stiff muscles and body, a stiff and high tail (breed dependent), side-eye where the white of their eyes is visible (also known as whale-eye), quickly turning and snapping - to name a few. If the play partner is polite, they will read these signs and either slow down the pace of the game, or stop it entirely, but sometimes we do need to step in and stop the game if this are still escalating past these points. Sometimes, dogs will also show 'displacement' signals, which are polite methods to indicate they wish the game to stop for a little bit, such as: suddenly stopping to sniff the floor or scratch themselves, yawning or stretching. 🐶
HAM! 🍖
Sometimes, recall just isn’t enough! 🙈 An Emergency Recall is an invaluable cue to teach to get your dog back during a dangerous event! It’s a sure-fire way to get them to come back to you as it uses the HIGHEST value treats EVERYTIME! 😋
In Fern’s case, our goal is to get an Emergency Recall solid enough that she’ll come back even when she’s chasing birds 🦆(her favourite thing in the world!)!!
Whilst recall should be 99% consistent, it’s always good practice to have a fall-back cue for that 1% of the time! 🐾
#dogtraining #dogtrainer #dogtrainingtips #workingcockerspaniel #workingcocker #dogtrainingadvice #instadog #dogsofinstagram #doglover
Gavin’s mental enrichment activity yesterday - learning Roll Over!
Teaching our dogs new tricks is an amazing way to bond with them, and also get their brains working! 🧠
This was learnt in just 20 minutes - if you dedicated 20 mins a day to training your dog, imagine what you could both achieve! 😁 🐾
#dogtraining #dogtrainer #dogtrainingtips #rollover #gavin #cockerspaniel #cockerspanielsofinstagram #sablecockerspaniel #dogtrainingadvice
Fern’s first attempt at scent work - and she did brilliantly! 😍
#scentwork #mentalstimulation #doggames #scentworktraining #dogtraining #dogtrainer
We have exciting news! 🎉
We are now official Butternut Box Ambassadors 😄
As most of you know, Canine Nutrition is something we take very seriously, having done hours (and occasionally days 😆) of research on what is the best food to be feeding our two dogs, Gavin and Sable.
Butternut Box was the first company in the UK to introduce a new type of dog food - Fresh. They cook all meals at a gentle 90 degrees, ensuring the food retains all the nutrients, but is a welcome alternative to those who struggle to feed raw food. The only ingredients are 60% meat (single-source protein) and 40% vegetables and lentils. And they taste test all meals themselves 😆 The flavours they currently have are: Beef It Up, Chicken You Out, Gobble Gobble Turkey, Wham Bam Lamb, Swish Fish Dish, Pork This Way, Duo of Duck & Chicken, You've Got Game and Ready Steady Veggie 🥰
There are no nasties such as 'animal derivatives', 'cereals' or 'artifical colouring' which is unfortunatley used in many large and well-known dog food brands that we see in our local supermarkets and pet shops. These ingredients are only bulking up the dog food (or making it look colourful!) and contain no nutritional value! 😔
Butternut Box also have a very high rating of 94% on one of my favourite websites All About Dog Food. The link can be seen here: https://www.allaboutdogfood.co.uk/dog-food-reviews/1727/butternut-box - this website is fantastic for finding out about the nutritional ratings on dog food, and what ingredients to avoid.
To get your first and second Butternut Box order for 50% off, click this link to place your order: butternutbox.com/Ravenpaws50
We at Ravenpaws do also offer nutrition advice, and can help you to make healthy changes to your dog's diet - which doesn't need to break the bank! 💰 We can work around any budget, dietary need or food type preference (dry, raw, fresh etc!). For more information, visit our website: https://ravenpaws.co.uk/dog-nutrition
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On Sunday we did a quick scent-work taster during Seren’s 121 session - and my goodness did she pick it up quickly 😍 her natural instinct really shone through, and I’m sure she’ll be a sniffing expert in no time with a little more training and practice! Huge well done to Seren and her Mum & Dad for putting in so much effort with her training, she’s coming on leaps and bounds 💕🐕
#scentwork #scentworktraining #labrador #dogtraining #dogtrainer #dogtrainingtips #labradorsofinstagram #imdt #lab #labradorretriever
Yesterday we worked more on Max’s loose lead walking and getting him used to politely saying hello to dogs - and also to ignore them! He and his owners are doing an AMAZING job and real progress is being made! 🥰
Max is such a happy chappy who just wants to greet everyone (and dog!), but he’s learning that this isn’t always possible, and when it is to do so in a calm and polite manner 🐾
Shoutout to Sable for being a very good stooge dog 🤣💕
Week 1 - Boomerangs! 🪃
Here are the results for Gavin! He really enjoyed learning this trick, and we’re working on increasing the distance and changing up the object he goes around!
If you managed to have a go this week, we’d love to see your attempts by commenting below! 🐾
To see Sable’s attempt - head over to our Instagram page (Facebook won’t let us post two videos at once!) @ravenpawstraining 💕
