Dog Nerd Training

14/02/2025

I hope everyone is enjoying a wonderful Valentine's Day this year, be it with human or four-legged dates! 🌹

Although I don't have my own furry little Valentine anymore I do enjoy this picture of her looking rather dapper ❤️

12/02/2025

A couple of 1-2-1 sessions from the start of this week, including a fresh new puppy!! 😍

If you are interested in booking any 1-2-1 sessions going forward you can contact me at: [email protected]

10/02/2025

One of the biggest issues I see is a dog that will engage with absolutely anything else but their guardian when out and about, not only is this extremely demoralising for their guardian it also means that they won't be able to get any sort of training done in that environment at all. 😰

The fact that so many people have this issue makes a lot of sense, our dogs see us all the time at home and we become old hat, whereas the outside world has so many new experiences and smells to offer that they don't get to engage with the rest of the day. We are but one of the millions of choices they can make when they leave the house, so if they do at all it honestly is a bit of a miracle.

This is where our check-ins come in to save the day!🦸‍♂️

Unless we reinforce our dogs for 'checking-in' with us, they have no reason to know that this is something they should do. So, if we reward/reinforce the moments our dogs do look at us, of their own accord, we make sure our dogs know that checking-in with us whilst in the environment is a valuable choice to make. And, if we make checking-in with us a positive experience for them, over time the number of check-ins we get will increase and the behaviour will become more established.

Like with anything we do have to start somewhere that is low distraction for our dogs, so they do check-in with us at least occasionally. But once they get the idea, they will find paying attention to you in a wide variety of environments valuable. This will help hugely with any recall or response issues you have when out and about, and also allow you to gauge the amount of freedom we can give them in a particular space.

Are they checking in regularly?

❎ No! Keep them on the lead, shorten their long line, or go to a lower distraction environment.

✅ Yes! Increase the amount of line they can have, and potentially let them off-lead!

Over time rewarding check-ins allow your dog to see you as just as, if not more valuable, than what is going on in the environment. This means we get better responses all around for training and engagement when out and about. For this reason, I LOVE check-ins! To me, they are the gold dust of all dog training! ✨

09/02/2025

Busy busy! Plenty of pics from this week of 1-2-1s before my holiday where we we worked on new puppy skills, multi dog household dynamics, fear of cars and reactivity to dogs. 😲 🐾

I’m looking forward to be back this week to work with even more dogs, and if you are interested in booking any 1-2-1 sessions you can contact me at: [email protected]

05/02/2025

🌲 AWAY ON HOLIDAY 🌲

Hello everyone, just a little notice that I am away from Thursday, February 6th, and I won't be back in office until February 9th/10th. This means I won't be posting on here or responding to emails during this time. But I will be back, so I appreciate your patience whilst I am away celebrating an anniversary. 🌈

03/02/2025

Attachment! What is it? 🤔

Attachment was first researched in relation to human children/infants, and how they were treated in the first two years of their life affected their emotional bonds later in life. Children whose parents were unresponsive or dismissive to their needs, were irregular with their care, or were outright abusive to the children all developed insecure (avoidant, anxious, disorganised) attachment styles. Whereas children whose parents were responsive and caring to their child developed a secure attachment. This attachment meant the child felt more comfortable exploring and interacting with the world as they saw their caregiver as a secure base who would be there if anything ever were to happen. More recent studies have shown a similar development in dogs, that securely attached dogs will fair better in the environment than insecurely attached dogs.

So what can we do to ensure our dog has a secure attachment to us? Here are some ideas...

🐶 Don't have your dog 'cry it out' as a puppy! This was a large part of the studies with children and ignoring their emotional distress contributed to insecure attachment.

🐶 Make sure you train your dog with positive reinforcement, rather than any kind of punishment. Punishing your dog with certain tools or actions will not make you a safe space for your dog, and can create a confusing hot/cold dynamic for them.

🐶 Be understanding of their needs as a dog. Remember your dog has their own doggie needs and wants, make sure you are attentive to them and give them outlets for these behaviours rather than getting frustrated and simply shutting them down.

🐶 Listen to your dog's body language and react kindly. If your dog is uncomfortable in a situation, get them out of there rather than force them to continue with it. A dog that communicates their needs is not a bad or difficult dog.

It really is vitally important that our dogs feel safe and secure around us, we are their lifeline to the outside world and most things in their life. If they don't feel safe with us, where does that truly leave them?

You can check out the research review mentioned in the graphic for yourself here: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4348122/?fbclid=IwY2xjawINxTFleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHZmXFzzeC6OXUdY5HYwynOlBmrC_1ZCJlpYQlt4B9n0pIGANeO-aOhWObw_aem_iCHXN4wJwIfrJtp5UpDIcA -prbm-8-071

02/02/2025

Another lovely week of puppy classes! We have a week off next week but this week we covered stay, dog to dog greetings and body language, recall from distractions and more. 🤩

If you are interested in booking any future classes you can email me at: [email protected]

31/01/2025

What is reward placement and why is it important? 🤔 🧀

One of the ways we can help tweak training to be more effective is to think about reward placement or position. So when training for a certain behaviour where is it we are looking to build value, as that is where we will want the reward to be. If our placement is off, we may not actually be rewarding what we wanted to!

For example, if you are working on heelwork but your dog is a jumper, and has a tendency to jump upwards to get the treat in your hand rather than walking nicely next to you, you can change the reward placement from being given directly from your hand to instead to being dropped on the floor by the dog. This means the value is now lower down on the floor, so instead of jumping up to get the reward we will be focused downwards to get the next one.

Similarly, if you have a dog that is very downwards focused on walks you may want to encourage more upwards focus. So teaching them to catch treats and associating looking up with where the value will be may be better choice!

Another tip for heelwork positioning specifically is to try and reward from the hand that is on the same side as your dog so they stay in that position. If we lean across our body to reward them, our dog will start to walk further and further across us in order to get closer to where the value of the reward is (the other hand).

Some other examples of reward placement would be…

🐾 Putting food on the mat rather than giving it directly to the dog for boundary or place training. So the value is in the mat not you.

🐾 Throwing food away from yourself or visitors if your dog has a tendency to jump up at people on arrival home. So they learn to stay further away in order to get the rewards.

🐾 If a dog gets excited when visitors come over, have the owners reward the dog for being calm when someone new comes over, rather than the new person themselves, so there is less value in the visitor making them less exciting.

🐾 If teaching your dog to drop an item in a specific place, such as over a basket, reward above the basket in the position they need to be when they drop the item. This means they will make sure their head is in that position when they drop the item, rather than turning towards you to drop and missing the basket.

What are some ways you have used reward positioning to improve your training?

29/01/2025

A few recent sessions, it looks a bit like we are on Collie watch at the moment! 😉 🍃

If you are interested in any 1-2-1 sessions for your dog (collie or otherwise) you can contact me at: [email protected]

27/01/2025

Such a valuable post from Dogs Disclosed!

If we are walking our dogs for their benefit, make sure they are actually getting what they need out of the walk. 🐾

WHOSE WALK IS IT ANYWAY?

Imagine going on a long-anticipated walk, through new scenery and exciting smells after being cooped up in the same place all day, but you have been fitted with a blind fold and are being dragged or yanked along at a fast pace.

I imagine that this is how dogs feel when we don’t allow them time to stop, sniff and explore the environment.

Dogs largely perceive their world through scent and it’s how they collect and process information to help the world make sense.

Taking away an opportunity for sniffing on a walk really isn’t being fair.. As much as physical exercise is important, the mental stimulation that sniffing provides is equally, if not more important.

Allowing dogs to choose when to stop and sniff provides so many benefits – increases self-confidence, promotes calmness, lowers stress and anxiety levels, lowers pulse rates, reduces cognitive decline in older dogs and provides important mental and environmental enrichment.

Make time for a slow sniffing walk when you can, where your dog is allowed to choose which direction to go and allowed time to just investigate, interpret, process the environment and follow wherever their nose leads them.

It may take far more time and patience as we wait for them to finish smelling that particular blade of grass, but the benefits are well worth it – after all, whose walk is it anyway?

26/01/2025

Third week for our puppy class puppies! This week we worked on duration behaviours, the ‘leave’ cue and recall. 😁🐾

If you are interested in booking any of our future classes you can email me at: [email protected]

24/01/2025

Can you teach old dogs new tricks? 🤔

The answer is a resounding yes!! 🤩

So often people stop training and working with their dogs once they have 'grown up' as they don't realise it is either possible or necessary to continue training beyond that point. Not only is it entirely possible for dogs to learn new skills as they age, it is also extremely beneficial.

Here are some excellent reasons to keep training your dog even as they get older...

🐶 Older dogs aren't as active and easily distracted as puppies, so can focus for longer periods of time.

🐶 They have better mental acuity and reasoning skills so they can figure out more complex tasks they may have struggled with before.

🐶 Mental exercise has been shown to delay cognitive decline in older dogs and humans. For your dog this could be training, brain games and learning tricks!

🐶 Older dogs may not be able to do as much physical exercise as their younger counterparts and will get bored at home, training gives them an alternative outlet.

🐶 Topping up a dog's training throughout their life is always useful, when training a dog we are teaching them a second language, and just like learning a second language if we don't use it, over time we start to forget it.

🐶 You don't know how much time you will have left with them and every moment you can spend together counts, training is another fantastic activity that can bring you happy memories together.

I still trained with my dog Suzi up until she passed at nearly 18 years old. We would work on fun things we can both enjoy together like our trick titles with More With Your Dog!

Training doesn't just have to be a chore, something to do to accomplish a specific goal, it can also just be another way to spend time together. ❤️

You can check out the study mentioned in the graphic for yourself here:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26728398/

22/01/2025

A selection of the wonderful dogs, of all sizes, I had the pleasure of seeing this past week! 🐶 💕

Amongst the things we have been working on have been fear of strangers, liking strangers too much, recall and basic puppy skills.

If you are interested in booking any sessions yourself or just want some more information you can email me at: [email protected]

20/01/2025

During my 5 years as a dog trainer, before setting up Dog Nerd Training, I was lucky enough to work with a whole host of dogs and owners. Some of them, very kindly, left the reviews below for me, and their words truly mean so much. 🥰

I am forever grateful that I get to do this job and hope I can bring this positivity forward to Dog Nerd Training in 2025!

19/01/2025

A wonderful second week of classes for our newest set of puppy recruits! 😍

This week we went over how to do some basic vet checks, focus and off lead following/heelwork amongst other things.

If you are interested in booking any future classes you can contact me at: [email protected]

17/01/2025

Why do I need to work on this, won’t my dog just grow out of it? 🤷🏼‍♀️

Sometimes people think that a puppy or adolescent behaviour will simply disappear as they get older, so they don’t need to train or prevent the behaviour right now. However, even if a behaviour has started due to the dog’s particular life stage it will often not disappear after that life stage has passed - but why?

Well, once a behaviour has started it is simply another behaviour that has been added to the dog’s repertoire, and now, just like any other behaviour, if it is practised it will get stronger and more established.

For example, if you have a young puppy who is chewing your table legs, that may start because of sore gums from teething, BUT once they realise that chewing table legs produces a positive and soothing outcome for them, they will go back to them again and again to get that same effect. Dogs of all ages enjoy chewing, so if as a puppy they discover a preference of your wooden table legs, this behavior will continue on into adulthood.

So what CAN you do about it? 🤔

Firstly, put a management plan in place so the dog cannot practise the behaviour. For the table leg chewing this could be we put a barrier around the table legs so the dog cannot get to them to chew them. This prevents them practising the behaviour and establishing it as a habit.

Next, figure out why the behaviour is happening and address the need in a more appropriate way. For a puppy chewing table legs, we would give them an appropriate safe chew to have instead. Then without table legs as an option anymore, they will instead practise chewing the appropriate chew creating a new habit.

This means when they are older you can remove the barrier to the table legs, and as your dog will never have had the opportunity to practise the chewing table legs behaviour, they will stick to their more established behaviour of appropriate chews.

It is far easier to put these training plans in place now than undo a tricky habit later. So if you don’t want a behaviour to continue into adulthood - don’t just rely on waiting it out! 👍

15/01/2025

A few cuties from the last couple of days, and I have high hopes for them all! 😁 🐾

We worked on a variety of struggles from barking, to toilet training and heelwork.

If you are interested in booking any sessions yourself you can contact me at: [email protected]

13/01/2025

🌟 ALL-AGES DOG TRAINING CLASSES 🌟

Are you looking to set training your dog as your 2025 New Years resolution? Do you have a new pooch, or does your current dog just need to top up on some of their training skills? Would you like to join classes that are science-based, fun, and have been proven to help get the results you need? Well, we have the service for you!

We have our next set all-ages dog training classes starting 7pm February 21st at Coolham Village hall. These classes run for 6-weeks, giving ample time to cover all the basics and show you how to take them even further out in the real world.

So, why should you choose us?

✅ Our classes are run by a fully qualified pro dog trainer.
✅ We provide our clients with exclusive handouts even when they miss a training class.
✅ We offer lifetime online support for you and your pooch.
✅ We keep our groups small, so each client and their dog can get the individual attention needed.
✅ We have been rated 5-stars on Google and Facebook.

If you are interested in booking you can contact us via messenger, or email us at: [email protected]

We very much look forward to hearing from you 🥰