Happy Companions

08/11/2022

The thing I love most about sniff walks for my boys is that I know they are getting SO much enrichment and are able to just be dogs and do what dog's do.

A dog's nose is their primary sense, it's what they use to see the world, learn about their environment and they sniff to self regulate emotions and calm themselves down after a high arousal event. But unfortunately some dogs are hurried along on walks and not given that time to be able to fully enjoy that sniff time...... Now dont get me wrong I understand that some dogs can sniff EVERYTHING 😂 and some other reasons we might hurry a dog on is 1. That outdated belief that we should be "in charge" on walks and when we want to walk they should obey and 2. Because who's not in a rush nowadays. But just Imagine for me if there was something down your road that's new and you need to investigate to learn why it's there or what it is, so you stop to have a look but before you fully find out what it is someone yanks you away by your arm, how punishing and frustrating would that feel?..... So now think the same for you dog.

So what can we do to make sure walks are happy and fun for both guardians and dog???

🐾 Teach a "Go sniff" cue. This is great for super sniffy dogs
🐾 Teach your do a "let's go" cue for when it's time to move on.
🐾 When you're not in a rush go on a sniffari with your dog, where they can just go where their nose takes them (obviously safety first) I have spent 30mins out and only got to the end of my road on a sniffari 😂
🐾 Give other appropriate outlets for your dog to sniff. Scent work is brilliant for this.
🐾 Use a different harness for when you need to just get your pup out for a walk and when You're doing a sniff walk so your dog has clarity on what type of walk is happening.

10minutes of sniffing is mentally tiring for your pups just the same as an hour of physical activity 💪🏻

30/08/2022

Hey guys, Ive been so quiet on here for so long but this dog training stuff is SO bloody hard. I have been taking an unplanned break from alot of things dog trainer related the last 4months where I've been injured and building a PT studio and its made me see I was already feeling so overwhelmed and burnt out with the dog training world. I honestly have never been in such a position where people don't respect me, my knowledge and just want to argue. The negativity in this industry is MASSIVE and the dislike and competition you face from other trainers is just ridiculous. I just want to help people enjoy life with their companion/s but right now I feel like that comes with SUCH conflict (most of the time) and I don't want to spend my time having to defend myself constantly. So right now I'm just enjoying being with my boys 👇🏻👇🏻 and working on them and myself to find that fire again 🔥 I will be back to it as I've worked so bloody hard to get here and push myself out of my comfort zone but I'm just working on how I can change what I am currently doing to find my dog training tribe and just enjoying my boys 🐶🐶 who have come on leaps and bounds since I've dedicated more time to them ❤️❤️✌🏻

10/08/2022

Definitely not a specialist yet but I love my badge and I really enjoyed learning more about how scentwork can benefit pet dogs from puppies to adolescents and fearful or reactive dogs 👃

13/07/2022

This boy this morning 🤣😂🤣 my phone reel is absolutely FULL of these pictures.
When it's too hot for walks play catch with treats in a teeny tiny pool (don't panic I also have a BIG umbrella up too)

12/07/2022

How beautiful is this girl 😍 I just love working with puppies they are my absolute favourite 🥰 I have always been a prevention over cure person which is why I wanted to specialise in puppy training. You get to have fun while giving them and their pawrents skills that will benefit them for the rest of their lives. What could be better than that 😁🥰

11/07/2022

BODY LANGUAGE

I took this picture of my Fred as this shows SO well some body language cues that dogs give us. Can you see what Freddie is telling me in this picture? Tell me in the comments what signs you can spot...

So the situation, Freddie went in my dog training bag and came running in the living room with this chaser tug, because its my work tug I followed him in to get it back as i didnt want it destroyed. As I walked in to the living room this is the body language Freddie gave me. What did I do in this scenario???? I respected him and i moved away. I created distance to where he felt comfortable, I didn't need to assert any dominance over him by trying to take it out his mouth and I didn't tell him off. There was no growl at this point but he shouldn't need to escalate to a growl as he is clearly showing here that he isn't happy and is worried this thing he sees as valuable is going to be taken away. So out to the kitchen I went, I got another tug (a higher value tug to this one) and came back in the room and started to play with it. Fred very quickly came and interacted in play with me. I continued to play using both tugs (the one he stole and the appropriate tug) and then put the stolen one away and continued with just the appropriate tug on its own. Problem solved and no lose of trust or relationship between me and my boy. Food can also be used here to swap something if needed.

Lesson for me moving forward, Fred has always had some resource guarding tendencies from his early years being puppy farmed so his confidence training needs to be upped again, his drop cue needs some more work to be more solid, some disengagement training wouldn't go amiss, I need to add lots of swaps back in to his training and possibly train a bring me cue.

Respect your dogs body language, Resource guarding is a natural thing that all species do and telling them off for it teaches them to stop these early signs and go straight in for a growl or even a bite.

09/07/2022

I have been a little quiet on here the last few months as I have had alot going on with my PT business but I needed to share this with you all because I am so proud of this amazing family and myself for how well this has gone.

So some context...Harley was 6months when her pawrents approached me, they have 5 cats...yes FIVE cats 🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱 and little Harley would bark, pounce and growl at the cats everytime they came in the room. I wasn't going to take this client on as I thought 5 cats would be too much for me to contend with and they initially thought that Harley was resource guarding them or the sofas and i am not experienced to work with resource guarding, but after an in-depth assessment and watching videos of Harley's interactions with the cats I was confident it wasnt resource guarding at all and decided to help. Fast forward 3months to a 9month old Harley who is able to settle on the sofa and pay no attention to the cat that walks into the room 🥳🥳🥳 Harley is just behind the foot in the video 😁

Absolutely zero force was used to get this outcome. I even told Harleys pawrents to stop saying No and telling her off. We worked through purely games to teach her skills rather than just telling off, we discussed body language and over arousal in dogs, we talked about the science behind how dogs learn and her pawrents understood that this was going to take some time and consistency. They still have some work to do but today I left them after their last session of their programme feeling confident that they would continue the training implemented so far and live in a harmonious household 😁🥰👏🏻

01/07/2022

Exactly this 👇🏻 this is why my style of training isn't a quick fix and doesn't involve aversive equipment. My style needs time, consistency and patience 👏🏻 let's hope more people start to understand this 🐶🐕🐕‍🦺🦮

Don't confuse suppression for skill.

19/06/2022

Happy fathers day to all those dads and god dads who's babies have 4 legs and fur ❤️

15/06/2022

Morning walks with this boy 🥰 lots of chilling in the shade and rolling around in the cool grass 🥰❤️

15/06/2022

It's a warm one and due to hit in the 30s on Friday....take care of your furbabies

More on caring for your pooches in the warmer weather! 😊🐶🐾

11/06/2022

SHHH! What was that?!

Do you have a noisy, barky household? Are your dog’s barking struggles keeping you up at night?

Of course, I can understand why you might not have heard the news over all that doggy singing and shouting, but never fear because I'm here to share it with you!

AbsoluteDOGS have just released a BRAND-NEW Stop Barking mini-course, brimming with all their best strategies, top tips and barking solutions! As an AbsoluteDOGS Pro Dog Partner, I’m excited to share this mini-course with you!

https://game.absolute-dogs.com/stop-barking1653996642857?prod=stop-barking-mini-course&ref=1473

For the SUPER price of just £27 GBP / $36 USD you are going to get:
🐾Real-life solutions to arm you with all you need to achieve a quiet household
🐾5 Game Up videos, demonstrating practical games to train your dog in just a few minutes a day!
🐾5 Skill Up videos, where you get to geek out and learn all about how games-based training can help you reduce your dog’s barking once and for all, regardless of your dog’s age, breed or history!
🐾Terrific troubleshooting top tips on all the most common barking struggles faced by dog owners all over the world!
🐾Immediate and lifetime access to the course – so you can play again and again, as often as you want!
🐾Video captions

As a student of Happy Companions you will also get:
🐾 20% off 121 sessions for Barking struggles
🐾 Advice and help from me as you go through the course

Sign up to the Stop Barking mini-course today

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Did you know that you have the ability to transform your dog’s barking struggles through the power of specific, targeted training games?

01/06/2022

YES 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻

01/06/2022

Do you have a dog that is reactive to noises? Scared of fireworks, thunderstorms and more. Then this game is for you.

Using things that allow your dog to create the noise themselves and then get rewarded for it is a great way to start building confidence with noise in general and will start to create positive associations with different noises.

Now some dogs will need this built up slowly, I started my Ralph with the buzzers with no batteries in just to get used to the buzzers and then once i added the noise i made sure it was on a surface that muffled the sound, so work with your dog and where they are at.

More work is needed for dogs that are already reactive to noise but this is a fun way you can start to help them and great for puppy habituation.

Give me a mesg if you want some help with noise sensitivity/reactivity 👍🏻

31/05/2022

27/05/2022

Please read this....its so important for us to understand our furry friends better and stop creating dogs that are shut down and have no way of communicating when they are uncomfortable or uncertain.

Language matters. It matters because there is meaning behind it. When we talk about wanting to “nip in the bud” a behaviour that a dog is exhibiting, it usually comes from a place of embarrassment, frustration, or simply from having unrealistic expectations of a dog in their current developmental journey.

Often we want to “nip in the bud” normal dog behaviours such as chewing or digging, or even worse to shut down vital dog communication such as growling when guarding a resource, or barking when left alone.

This kind of language comes from a long held societal belief that dog behaviour should only be under our command. If we didn’t ask for it, or we don’t like it, then it needs to be stopped, shut down, silenced.

Not only is it unreasonable to silence our dogs’ methods of communicating with us, it’s dangerous. A silenced dog is a dog with no way of saying “please stop”, “please don’t touch me”, “please give me space”, except for to lunge, to snap, to bite.

And then what happens? They get labelled as aggressive, out of control, “not suitable for rehome”.

Yet this can all be avoided by changing our language. Rather than “I want to nip this behaviour in the bud”, let’s try

“I want to better understand this behaviour”
“I want to support my dog to feel comfortable”
“I want to be a safe space for my dog to come back to”

The next time you feel scared, uncertain, intimidated, or out of your depth, question how it would feel to be shut down and unheard. Maybe you already know how that feels.

Vow to always give animals their voice.