Videos contain barking!
When Archie became dog reactive years ago i hired a couple of different trainers.
One told me to spray him with water or throw a metal box of coins on the ground near him.
I tried it, it made things worse.
The next trainer a few years later told me to buy a halti so that he wouldn't be so willing to lunge at other dogs. I didn't try it because i already realised that using aversives would make it worse.
Finally i decided to become a force free trainer and do the work.
Archie has lost most of his hearing now but he can see these dogs running the fence lines on either side of him, and he can hear the very close up barks.
I know this because he performs his default check in when he detects the presence of another dog.
Force Free Training is the only way to deal with fear based behaviour (without fallout)
Lecter, vet phobia, before and after montage:
Clip 1 represents a typical vet visit just over a year ago. It's important to note this is Lecter already on oral sedation, it's having little to no effect because his adrenaline is overriding it.
Clip 2 is Lecter at home using our consent training protocol. His Mom mastered this and practiced regularly for a year.
Clip 3 is Lecter back at the vets, still with oral sedation but the picture is a completely different one, BECAUSE of the training Roba his Mom has done with him.
If your dog is stressed at the vets it's worth investing the time in training to prevent a lifetime of stress for them and you.
Don't forget we also do live zoom sessions to help you train your own dog. Here is how it works as demonstrated by Azza and Mishka in Cairo.
They did super well. This was their first experience of live training and their first attempt at a "leave it" behaviour with force free techniques. We also worked on recall and mat training in the session.
For more information please inbox us.
***Trigger Warning: Animal abuse ***
Warda, before and after montage.
When Warda arrived in February 2022 she was mostly pretty quiet. I knew she was very stressed.
However after a series of major stressful events she started to become super reactive and aggressive, particularly towards my husband Stewart.
She was also not safe to be around other animals or my kids.
****brief history on Warda. Ex street dog, severely beaten causing multiple life changing injuries and disability. Followed by 6 years in a 400 dog outdoor shelter. At 11 years old she had spent her entire life outside, she wasn't coping with the change to a domestic life****
I had to do a number of things to remedy this situation.
1. Warda needed her own accommodation away from her triggers to calm down. We made a garden room, (with power for heat) for her, with a large 12 x 12 house and a good sized, private enclosed garden.
2. Time and space away from those triggers.
3. Slow and gradual reintroduction to less anxiety provoking people (starting with my kids)
4. Sought advice from a trauma informed behaviour expert: Roman Gotfried.
5. Taught Warda to retreat to me rather than defend in the presence of a trigger. Trained out of context first, then under low level distraction before increasing.
6. Counter conditioning any chance i got where she was exposed to my husband.
7. Using his voice recorded and his clothes to engineer opportunities to train when he wasn't around.
8. Used any novel person who visited as an opportunity to train Warda to alter her perception of them (especially men)
9. Reintroduced her to a calm friendly sibbling dog for daily play sessions.
10. Reintroduced her to my husband, with him under careful instruction about how to behave and read Warda's body language.
The timeline for this behaviour modification from the start to now was 3 months.
Any questions please let me know.
The Charming team are delighted to offer professional mentorship to budding animal trainers and enthusiastic pet parents.
Here is my mentor Max Easey talking a little about what we offer on our 13 week course. The course combines learning theory (weekly lectures taken in your own time), practical application and virtual shadowing opportunities aswell as weekly zoom catch ups with your tutor.
For a full promotional video see the link
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=01RqOBw1cnQ&feature=youtu.be
Please direct any enquiries to [email protected] or post below for more information.
Here we are REALLY committed to training Baladi dogs.
We are also REALLY commited to helping disabled dogs.
So when we got the chance to train Mazika a blind puppy with a brain injury and neurological issues (which inform her concentration abilities and movement patterns) of course we wanted to.
Mazika's rescuer and adopter Samah had been struggling to find ANY behaviour she wanted to positively reinforce because Mazika is quite erratic, walks in circles and has a long history of mouthing and jumping at her. She is otherwise healthy and lives a full life. Samah wants to be able to walk into the space without being mobbed (fair objective)
We started in protected contact behind the blue gate. This is the last of 3 short live sessions we did today on zoom.
Samah has the food in her hands here.
I don't normally allow this because the dog can then focus more on the food than the behaviour and listening for the vocal marker.
BUT because i was giving Samah quite a hard task to mark and reinforce snapshots of very brief desirable behaviour (calm orientation to Samah without jumping, keeping all 4 paws on the floor) i let it slide FOR NOW 🤣😅
She's going to work on her timing with her able bodied puppy and her 14 year old son!
You will see I'm MORE than a bit passionate about what i do!!
#disableddogs
#miraclesmission
#forcefreetrainer
#Baladi
#houndcharming
#donoharm
Sandy's spay cost has been covered in full by a generous donor.
They have also donated a large sum help to fix the shelter gates, to keep the healthy dogs separate from the ones needing medical treatment.
This will help limit the spread of disease, parasites and illnesses at the shelter.
Sandy will undergo her spay this week and after a period of recovery will be ready for adoption in Egypt or beyond.
If you are interested in adopting Sandy please message the page.
Training a resource guarder should NEVER involve putting hands in the bowl or arbitrarily taking food away.
That will cause and strengthen resource guarding.
To change the way your dog feels and behaves around food. Or around other beings, near their food, you can ask us for help.
I trained my old, blind, disabled dog to willingly participate in taking her daily pain relief.
Old dog, new tricks. They may sometimes need special care but this can be a breeze if you train with humane reward based techniques.
Could you welcome a disabled dog into your heart and home?
Please take a look at all the amazing dogs waiting for their humans at Miracle's Mission
If you train loose lead walking well enough and for long enough, it will eventually become a default behaviour (under the right environmental conditions.)
Preparing vet phobic dogs for what will happen during their appointments can help reduce the stress for the dogs and their humans.
Roba and Lecter are a an awesome example of a team who put the work in with us and gain incredible results. Like this...
Here's what Vigo and her partner have to say after 6 months of Hound Charming.
This was totally unscripted, unexpected and very nice for us to get this kind of feedback at the end of one of our live sessions.
Day 38. Actually feel quite proud of this.
If you could have seen the out and out sh*tshow that was day 3 between these 2 dogs you would know why.
I very clearly remember saying to my friend Carol, "given sufficient opportunity she WILL kill him." I meant it too. No wonder i was so stressed 😂
At this point I'm not worried if they aren't best buddies but if the worst happens and a kid opens a gate or something i need to know it won't be a blood bath. We do actually operate 2 barrier system but better to be safe than sorry.
To be this close and both relaxed enough to eat with no sense of tension or posturing is HUGE. Go Charming!
For help with inhouse aggression you can contact me at this page.
Working through some aggression issues between my blind foster dog Warda and my resident dog Murphy.
I tell Warda we are approaching her and I reinforce Murphy for the turn away from her.
For help with this or anything else you can message me.
My foster Warda the 11 year old Egyptian Baladi dog finishing her first week with me on a high last night.
#adoptdontshop
#adoptthelessadoptable
#disableddog
#Miracle'smission
Yasso had a very bad start to life. He was tortured by kids then tossed in the trash all before 6 weeks of age.
Vigo rescued him and has really thrown herself into force free training. Not only signing up for practical coaching but also our theory course, and it shows.
Helping Yasso has not been an easy journey he has so much fear and trauma to recover from.
Here Vigo is working on his reactivity to dogs and enlisting some help from the strays on their holiday. Arent the beach scenes amazing?
I love the part where you here her shout to her husband "i think it's working!!"
Are these perfect sessions? No
Are they massive progress for Yasso and Vigo? Yes so they MUST be celebrated.
Vigo has a long line on order so we can ditch that flexi leash. We do not wanted added tension in reactivity training.
Also next time she tries the window protocol she will be further away from the stray to stay well below Yasso's vocalizations.
Progress not perfection
Video coaching works for any dog, anywhere. It works if YOU work it, like Vigo.
Not all behaviour issues are safety critical, some are just a bit annoying. Whether it's a big or small issue Hound Charming has you covered.
Lecter the Corgi liked to help with the housework (herd the hoover and mops)
We started by moving the object slowly while switched off (in the case of the hoover) and then giving him something he enjoyed.
Later on we taught him to do something different while his Mum did chores.
