Neutral Walks are a great start, but why stop there?
While our Neutral Walks are ideal for building confidence, working on reactivity, and encouraging calm behaviour around other dogs, we believe there’s more to your dog’s social development!
For many owners, the goal isn’t just neutrality—it’s having a dog that behaves appropriately and safely in social settings, understands canine body language, and coexists peacefully with other dogs.
On our recent Neutral Walk, many of the dogs are nearly ready to progress to our structured Social Walks. To test their progress, we introduced our dog, Obie, as an off-lead distraction among the group!
The dogs did incredibly well—they were polite around Obie, and a few even shared nice brief greetings. Seeing the dogs in this ‘in-between’ stage of training was fantastic, and all the owners should be proud of how their dogs managed Obie’s presence.
It’s easy to plateau in training, but it’s essential to keep pushing forward so your dog can reach their full potential.
Join us on our next Neutral Walk or book a Social Walk assessment to see if your dog is ready! ⬇️
www.constellationdogtraining.co.uk/booking
TAILS.. and why you'll hear us talk about them a lot!
When we conduct Social Walk assessments (and during the walks themselves), one of the key body language cues we focus on is the tail. While many of us learn that "a wagging tail means a happy dog," there's actually a lot more that dogs communicate through their tails. This simple statement barely scratches the surface!
In this video, Ryan explains what's happening with Obie and Bella, and what they're saying to each other and the world through their tails. Both dogs have relatively low tails, indicating they're comfortable and relaxed. Obie’s wide, slow wag shows he's content, while Bella’s faster wag, although natural for a spaniel, also suggests she’s more excited and eager to play.
Learning to "speak dog" is a skill that can transform your relationship with your dog, and we're here to help you master it 🫶
To learn more about our Social Walks or other services, or to book a Social Walk assessment, visit our website ⬇️
www.constellationdogtraining.co.uk
🌟 COME WITH OBIE TO HYDROTHERAPY 🌟
As you may know our dog Obie has hip dysplasia, and as part of his treatment we’ve been going to Country Canines Hydrotherapy for water treadmill therapy.
Hydrotherapy can be so beneficial for dogs for a huge variety of reasons including:
🐾 Weight Loss/Maintenance
🐾 Muscle Growth/Maintenance
🐾 Injury Repair and Pain Relief
🐾 Increase Balance and Coordination
🐾 Improves Mobility
🐾 Increase Fitness and Stamina
🐾 Mental Stimulation and Wellbeing
Hydrotherapy can include swimming in a pool (usually with a therapist) or walking on an underwater treadmill, which is what you see Obie doing here. By using the treadmill, the therapist is able to more efficiently target specific areas, adding more resistance on his back legs to help grow muscles and improve his gait.
This treatment requires veterinary referral but many insurance companies now cover hydrotherapy and physiotherapy 🫶
Obie loves his sessions and they are always a highlight of his week! He’s made so much progress and it’s something we’ll continue to do for maintenance. We’ll also introduce hydro to any future dogs from a young age as preventative care to keep them fit and healthy too 🐾
Has your dog ever been to hydrotherapy? 🌊
Barn Hunt Staffordshire
🌟 BARN HUNT - COMPLETED 🌟
Wow, what an incredible weekend we’ve just had running our newest set of Barn Hunt workshops! We had three Beginner workshops and three Progression workshops, and it was lovely to meet so many new dogs as well as see familiar faces.
Including crossbreeds we had 23 different breeds join us from Rhodesian Ridgeback, Doberman and Staffie to Basset Fauve de Bretagne, Podenco and Scottish Terrier - Barn Hunt really is for all dogs 🐾
Firstly of course thanks so much to everyone that came! We’ve loved seeing all your photos and videos (especially as we’re rubbish at taking any) and we hope you had as much fun as we did! 🫶
A huge thankyou to the talented P.L Photography for spending the whole weekend with us photographing all the dogs, we can’t wait to see the images - we know they’ll be amazing! For those that joined, we’ll be in touch via email with how to purchase your images when they are ready - this usually takes a couple of weeks 📸
Thanks to Salthouse Pet Boarding & Freedom Parks for providing such a great venue.
Massive thanks to Rebecca for filming these videos, as I managed to get zero all weekend and would have nothing to post here otherwise 🤣 You’re a superstar 🌟
And of course to Barn Hunt UK for the continued support and trust in us to take the lead of your fantastic sport in Staffordshire.
We’re already planning our next workshops and our first trials so stay tuned on our socials and sign up to our newsletter - we’ve got lots of ideas for how to make our Barn Hunt events even better for you and your dogs! 🤩
Until next time, ratters! 🐀
Want your dog to have recall like this around other dogs?
Join us for our Canis Minor and Canis Major group classes this morning!
Ford Green/Bradeley Football Pitch
Beginners - 10am
Advanced - 11am
Only £12 for an hours training!
Book online now or drop us a message ⬇️
www.constellationdogtraining.co.uk/booking
Did you know that on top of training we’re big fans of learning about all aspects of dog ownership including holistic health and nutrition? 🤓
It’s no secret that we love raw feeding and saw huge benefits when we switched our dog to raw 🥩
However we understand that raw isn’t for everyone - but even if you don’t feed raw for your dog’s meals, have you considered giving them raw meaty bones?
Some of the benefits of raw meaty bones include:
🌟 Helping to clean teeth
🌟 Stimulating natural chewing and licking behaviours, releasing endorphins and fulfilling aspects of the predatory cycle
🌟 Provide a natural source of a huge range of nutrients including calcium, phosphorous, collagen and more
🌟 Promotes healthy digestion through tissue and fibre in bone content
🌟 Increases mouth, jaw, neck and even shoulder strength and health
Examples we like to give our dog include turkey/duck/chicken/goose necks, feet and wings, as well as lamb and venison ribs.
A few safety tips:
🚫 Never feed cooked or smoked bones, as these can splinter and be dangerous for your dog
🚫 Weight-bearing bones should only be given to chew on, not eaten.
➡️ Supervise your dog when eating raw bones
➡️ When introducing them for the first time, you can always hold the bone to encourage chewing and prevent attempting to swallow whole
➡️ Start with a safe size of bone for your dog - we recommend chicken feet/necks for smaller dogs and duck necks for larger dogs
Does your dog like raw meaty bones? Have any questions about raw feeding? Let us know in the comments! ⬇️
Had to put together a little reel to showcase the videos we got of these awesome pups and their owners having fun and doing amazingly in our Howl-o-Ween Fun class! 🎃👻🫶
Good dog trainers should help you feel confident, make sure you and your dog are having fun, and help you feel motivated to keep moving forwards. What they shouldn’t do, is let you compare yourself to others, whether online or in real life.
With the popularity of social media, it’s easy to get caught up seeing ‘perfect’ dogs and comparing yours to them, which isn’t fair on your dog or yourself. It’s important to remember that social media isn’t always real, and that everyone has their struggles or things that they are working on. Even us dog trainers!
We know what it’s like to feel unsupported or judged as dog owners by trainers, and so it’s even more important to us to provide a judgement-free, supportive service to our clients, helping build you up and give you the knowledge and skills to become a confident dog owner.
📲 Get in touch today if you’d like to join a friendly, supportive dog training team!
Join us on a dog walk!
Good dog training takes time. There’s no ‘quick fixes’, there’s no miracle formula to have the ‘perfect’ dog. But what there is is consistency, hard work, dedication, and showing up each and every day for your dog so that you can live your best lives together.
This video shows our 2 year old male German Shepherd, Oberon, on a walk with one of his dog friends. Since he was a puppy, we worked every day on nailing the behaviours in this clip - reinforcing him for every check in, practising recall safely on a long line, proofing his recall in different environments, and going on countless neutrality walks and pack walks (coming to CDT in September!) to encourage dog neutrality. If you build solid foundations, you really will reap the rewards.
If you’re struggling with any of the behaviours in this clip and want some help to achieve off-lead freedom, focus, and/or a solid recall, then get in touch today and let us help you get there! 📩
