Sally Cottingham Dog Trainer (2024)

Offering remote and in-person training & behaviour consultations.

15/04/2023

Hey everyone 👋🏼 You may have noticed I’ve not been very active on here recently. Sadly I’ve decided to take a hiatus with my behaviour consultations & training programmes 😣
I’m getting married this year and having a separate full time+ job, studying a degree, planning a wedding AND offering behaviour consults as my second job has proven rather difficult.
I’m hoping to be back once things calm down a bit! Just need to take some time to focus on my full-time position with guide dogs, my canine behaviour degree and my wedding 😄

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working with the clients that I have thus far, it’s such a passion of mine to help dogs & their families to feel happier. I’ll be back! 😁

02/10/2022

🐶 Nearly finished with client Tucker’s 6 week reactivity programme: my aim being to give his owner the skills and toolkit to continue working on helping him to feel safer when he is on walks.

💥 Tucker barks & lunges at both people & dogs, he has ‘nipped’ previously. As always, I don’t have footage of his bad reactions because I simply avoided it happening - a good dog trainer will not want to ‘see’ a dog feeling their worst. Alongside acknowledging his anxiety and trying to help him to feel better about dogs & people, we’ve also worked on undoing some behaviour chains that I noticed on our first meeting.

🐶 We’ve made sure to consider his breed characteristics and how his needs can be met as to the working pattern he may want to have access to in a structured way ☺️

💥 There is no ‘quick fix’ when it comes to a dogs underlying feelings, it’s something that takes time but I’m so proud of these two for the progress they’ve made in the time we’ve been working together.

🐶You can see a moment in this reel where Tucker goes towards my stooge dog and makes a FANTASTIC choice to disengage and focus on his owner. That is absolutely incredible for a dog like this, who on my first meeting was lunging and trying to nip at anything that was close enough.

👏🏼 Give me a message to enquire about my reactivity programme 💕
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06/06/2022

Ouch!!

All puppies play bite. It is completely normal puppy behaviour - however, it can really hurt and be very intense at times.

Rather than get frustrated or cross when your puppy bites – redirect that biting behaviour on to soft toys. Very often we ignore the puppy when they are playing with their own toys, and then squeal and move away when they bite us. It is this behaviour that teaches our puppies that is it more fun to bite us than their boring toys.

If your puppy's teeth touch your skin when you are playing, try not to react. Don't shout or smack, or tug your hand away, as this will increase your puppies arousal and make them want to bite you more. Encourage your puppy to play with toys becoming animated and squealing when they bite and tug on the toys, your puppy will then learn that biting the toys is much more fun that biting you, which gets no reaction.

You 'can' withdraw quickly when puppy bites you, but this can lead to an increase in frustration and more intense biting if done too often. If your puppy is becoming too aroused during play and is biting your hands or clothes repetitively they should be removed from the situation for a while until they have calmed down.

Putting your puppy into a puppy pen with a Lickimat, or natural chew can help them to lower their arousal levels. Do not use this as a punishment. We are not ‘cross’ with our puppies, we are just helping them regulate their own arousal levels.

Rough play with humans should be avoided as this can encourage biting especially on the face and hands. If your puppy is encouraged to bite people's hands, clothes, socks or feet, this is a behaviour that very often persists into adulthood – which can cause significant problems later on.

Children are very often overtly excitable around puppies. Their contact needs to be managed by an adult, and the puppy or child removed from the situation if the puppy becomes too intense or 'bitey'.

If you have an older dog, and that older dogs is showing signs of being uncomfortable around your puppy, make sure they have time away from each other. Puppies don’t understand the concept of harassment, and they need you to manage the situation, as they can’t.

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https://www.imdt.uk.com/find-a-qualified-imdt-trainer/england/greater-manchester/sally-cottingham

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Videos

🐶 Nearly finished with client Tucker’s 6 week reactivity programme: my aim being to give his owner the skills and toolkit to continue working on helping him to feel safer when he is on walks. 💥 Tucker barks & lunges at both people & dogs, he has ‘nipped’ previously. As always, I don’t have footage of his bad reactions because I simply avoided it happening - a good dog trainer will not want to ‘see’ a dog feeling their worst. Alongside acknowledging his anxiety and trying to help him to feel better about dogs & people, we’ve also worked on undoing some behaviour chains that I noticed on our first meeting. 🐶 We’ve made sure to consider his breed characteristics and how his needs can be met as to the working pattern he may want to have access to in a structured way ☺️ 💥 There is no ‘quick fix’ when it comes to a dogs underlying feelings, it’s something that takes time but I’m so proud of these two for the progress they’ve made in the time we’ve been working together. 🐶You can see a moment in this reel where Tucker goes towards my stooge dog and makes a FANTASTIC choice to disengage and focus on his owner. That is absolutely incredible for a dog like this, who on my first meeting was lunging and trying to nip at anything that was close enough. 👏🏼 Give me a message to enquire about my reactivity programme 💕 • • • #dogtraining #dogbehavior #dogbehaviour #caninebehaviour #reactivedog #behaviourmodification #behaviouranalysis #dogs #sheltie #doggo #lovedogs #dogsarefamily #positivereinforcement #forcefree #kind #compassion #trainingwithfeeling #dogtrainer #behaviourist #caninebehaviourist #ukdogs #ukdogsofinsta #ukdogtraining #happydog

Sally Cottingham Dog Trainer