On Cloud K9 - Dog Training & Pet Services

19/09/2025

A GOWL FROM A DOG IS REALLY POLITE!

I had a negative interaction with a guy that had 4 off lead dogs in Clyne Gardens today. This guy is well known for giving unsolicited Caesar-Milan-type training advice to people, particularly females, and I know that most people put up with him because they feel unsafe if they don’t.

I could see him talking to a couple of ladies with a 3 or 4 dogs.

Oshi is super friendly, and this isn’t always good. She approached this guy’s GSD who growled, so I called Oshi away and put her on the lead so she couldn’t go back to the GSD.

The guy shouted at me that I didn’t need to put Oshi on the lead, that my dog needs “socialising” 🙄. I told him that I didn’t need socialising dog training advice from him and I didn’t want it because I’m a qualified dog trainer, and asked him multiple times to move on, I told him I felt unsafe (he was shouting at me by this time), threatened to call the police, started videoing him and eventually he moved on, all the time shouting at me.

I thought of this encounter from his GSD’s point of view. Oshi approached the GSD, the GSD growled. This means that the GSD is not OK with unsolicited attention (me too!). A growl is a really polite way for a dog to say “back the pup up” because the other dog has not read the body language correctly. Oshi is quite good at body language, but sometimes feels that she knows better and tries to convince a dog that she wants to be their friend. This is not ok with some dogs, and this is why she was put on the lead. Essentially by putting Oshi on the lead I stopped her and the GSD having the uncomfortable encounter that I had with the GSDs owner. This GSD owner is ignoring his dog’s polite warnings and demanding that people “socialise” their dogs with the GSD who clearly wants its space 😳.

19/09/2025

Barkour!

Oshi has a fun weekend planned…

Scurrying with Puppy Power tomorrow morning (it’s going to be wet!!). We did a taster session at Wagstival and really enjoyed it.

Barkour with Afan Adventure Dog on Sunday followed by fun in Motsi's Meadow with her besties Myla and Nori 🐶🥰.

19/09/2025

Oshi’s got the appetite of a super model 🙄. She’s so skinny she can hide behind a tree 😁.

09/09/2025

I passed my PDT Genius course in preparation for starting the Canine Behaviour College Level 6 Diploma course next month 😀.

The "Absolute Dogs Genius Course" (specifically PDT Genius) is a games-based dog training program for existing PDT Graduates. The Absolute Dogs Genius Course builds upon foundational knowledge from the core PDT (Pro Dog Trainer) and PDT Geek courses, offering advanced practical skill-building and deeper dives into dog behaviour through neuroscience and "geeky" lessons.

27/08/2025

Not strictly barkour! but Afan Adventure Dog has given us the confidence to try different things 🥰.

I can point at something and Oshi will try different ways of interacting with it. For example, if I point to a bench, she’ll normally jump up on it (4 paws) and if I point to a post or tree she’ll put 2 paws on. I’m working on her offering different behaviours, such as going under or through things, with she’ll do if either prompted or lured, but I’d like Oshi to be creative. It’s good brain work. Do not strictly barkour, but Afan Adventure Dogs’ Barkour sessions have given Oshi the confidence to take it “outside the box”.

Barkour!

27/08/2025

Barkour!

10/08/2025

This is a really bad video, but this is a Barkour variation of 101 things to do with a cardboard box.

It’s something that Oshi has invented this evening 🥰

I’m asking Oshi to be creative in how she interacts with this fallen tree before I throw the frisbee.

For the last few days she’s been jumping on (mostly) benches and tree stumps as we’ve been practiAfan Adventure Dogend away (Afan Adventure Dog) but when I pointed to this fallen tree she offered a 2 paws and so I changed the game and have introduced a “creative” cue and a “try again” cue to see if she can offer different behaviours.

09/08/2025

Oshi has been mantrailing since she was 11 weeks old and she *loves* it!

Today she found someone 150 meters away that had been “missing” for 15 minutes.

I highly recommend mantrailing, particularly if your dog needs a confidence boost.

30/07/2025

If you’ve followed me for a while, you’ll know Osian - my just-turned-one border collie. She’s an absolute cutie and (mostly 😁) a good girl.

But what you didn’t see were those early adolescent months, where constant attention from strangers convinced her she was a supermodel 🙄.

She went from being wary of new people - I’ll link to the video in the comments where it took her a full seven minutes to greet my friend - to acting like everyone deserved a piece of her. She’d mug people for attention!

What did that look like? Jumping up at everyone, whether they’d solicited attention or not. Every single day of her life, someone’s told her how beautiful she is. I’ve had people queue up to say hello to her. One person even stopped their car and got out to meet her. Another slowed down their car just to shout how beautiful her markings are.

Can you blame her for being a diva?

Then she started chasing bikes - not to herd them, but to say hello to the rider. And I could see where this was herding 🙃: bike chasing would become car chasing, would become herding children… all the typical collie problems 😬.

Luckily, I knew how to get ahead of it.

I doubled down on disengagement training - teaching her to walk away from exciting things. We played lots of games to build impulse control. I rewarded any good choice she made.

But what really made the difference wasn’t just the training. It was the management.

Her recall as a pup was good, but her improved confidence plus adolescence meant she started having selective hearing if there was even a chance of potential fuss from someone else. So I stopped walking in Clyne Gardens during busy times - no more rehearsing those over-the-top greetings. Instead, we went on quiet sniffaris in dog-friendly shops. That had its own issues - eye contact from a stranger and she’d be dancing at the end of the lead 😅 - so I got her a yellow “IGNORE ME” jacket. It helped!

We took a break from the woods too, where mountain bikes were a guaranteed distraction. And if we did go, she was on lead or a long line so that she couldn’t choose to say hello to the riders.

In short: I didn’t let her practice the stuff I didn’t want becoming a habit.

Fast forward a few months… and no, she’s not perfect. But she’s so much better than she was — and much better than she’d have been if I’d let her keep rehearsing the inappropriate greetings.

She’s still super friendly, but now, when I call her, she comes to me (mostly 😁) instead of kidney-punching an unsuspecting stranger (or worse 🙈).

And she still gets lots of fuss from people, but the greeting is more polite these days. Instead of excitedly jumping up, she (mostly 😁) cwtches up to people’s legs and they (mostly 😁) think it’s adorable.

If you’ve got an overenthusiastic adolescent pup at home, you’re not alone — and you can help them grow out of it. Drop me a message if you need support ❤️.

25/07/2025

The birthday girl is all tired out 🥰

25/07/2025

Ice cream birthday brunch at The Touring Tea Room😍.