General's Dog's Bodies

Sleepy Sunday Vibe 💤

Whistle training could help improve your dogs recall. It is clear and consistent and gives your dog the clarity that they need. Often recall cues such as 'come' can get over used, and become a bit like background noise to dogs and can be a bit hit and miss when your dogs come when called ⚡newsflash⚡ Your dog is not coming back because you have called them, they are coming back because they have finished what they are doing and then returning to you. This is not a recall! There are many reasons why this could be happening: Sometimes you use come sometimes you use your dogs name, sometimes you reward with a treat, sometimes you don't, sometimes your dogs walk is the only thing they have done all day and you are calling them back just at the time they want to go and do a sniff.... If you have been to my classes or have had any training from me, I talk a lot about motivation. So I have a question...if the environment is more motivating than your recall cue, what can you do to help improve it? Is your dog excited and runs over every single each time? If not why not? What can you do to help improve this? Here are some tips I do with my dogs: 🐾 fun games between me and my dogs at home, on walks, in the garden 🐾 Search games between me and my dogs at home, on walks, in the garden 🐾 Hunting games between me and my dogs at home, on walks, in the garden 🐾 Opportunities for my dogs to chill, sniff, and forage on my walks 🐾 Nutritional Diet 🐾Sleep - they sleep alot 🐾 Understanding when it is time to play and when it isn't - impulse and focus control - settle training 🐾Whistle or clear words which have meaning and a consequence (positive reinforcement)- rewards need to be motivational, play needs to be motivational and engagement with owners need to be motivational. If I recall away from something nice, such as a sniff, a squirrel, another dog etc this needs to be worth my dogs while, they need to be paid and they need to be paid highly - don't

#wales #dogwalking #caldicotcastle

Coco my elderly beautiful Coco. 😊 Very Deaf, Very Sore, Very Confused but still Very Happy and on lots of meds, not very mobile but still enjoys a venture out, but is very Slow. Her nails are starting to get a bit too long, which will also add to discomfort. She used to like having her nails clipped, but she can no longer tolerate this. All of my dogs get solo time with me where we do special things together, such as a slow walk, or scent work or training. I think it is important to do this when you live in a multi dog household. Coco loves individual time, learning and enjoys training, and as the saying goes 'you can never teach an old dog new tricks' is an absolute lie, as the video shows. Introducing her to a scratch board will help keep her nails short, once she has learned what to do, she will be able to scratch the board and this simple trick will keep her nails looking good too. The platform is only slightly raised for now, I am hoping I will be able to rest this on my legs to create a slightly bigger raise, but I don't want to cause any discomfort and this might be too hard for her, so will see how she gets on. When I train I like to use choice and shaping, if she moves towards the platform she gets rewarded and bonus if she steps on to it. I'm not using any luring, as I don't want to put any pressure on her to move onto something she may not be sure of, i only want her to move towards the scratch board if she is absolutely happy to do so. The raised scratch board is also a good physio technique as you can do it with back paws on as well as all four paws on using two different platforms.

Visited Newark Park today with the family. Hazel was absolutely buzzing with all of the smells, pheasants and absolutely everything today, and at one point I really did think omg, are you ever going to calm down and stop pulling. What I did was: 🐶 let her walk & sniff and walk at her pace - this helps her process her environment 🐶 Every 5 metres - change direction no cue, no speaking 🐶 Slow down the pace - check ins start to happen - rewards start flowing fast 🐶 Tight lead = change direction and reward for slack lead (don't care if she is in front of me as long as lead isn't tight) 🐶Sit and cue go sniff - working together voila. It is so important that she has the opportunity to access different environments, I cannot expect Hazel to be able to remember the foundations of walking nicely in ALL new places, so I simply need to go back to basics and go nice and slowly with her. Hazel really struggles with impulse control and she gets over aroused very quickly so it is my job to help her manage ALL situations. She absolutely smashed the coffee shop though (I call it a coffee shop, a tent might be a more accurate description) , hazel led down nicely, whilst Dax enjoyed rolling around in the wood bark flooring. 😆😆

Ideally I really would like a bit more space when I'm eating, but as long as she is sitting and not jumping, this is okay with me. Will I reward her with a treat - no, but she will get praise for this. Ideally I like her in her bed when food is about, but I have just come home and she wants to be near me so this is all I am going to expect from her. I also don't want the bed to be a place she gets sent when she has been chilling in it all morning, I want her bed to be a nice place. Right now just my presence is her reward for staying in a sit and resisting my cheesy potato. Lowering our expectations with our dogs will help with their learning and will help you with success with training too. 🐕🐶🐶🐕

Boundaries are so important, not only in work but in our personal life too. I've talked quite openly about my ADHD journey since getting my diagnosis in November and it is highly likely that I'm autistic too AuDHD. I'm nearly 49 and have probably most likely been masking my whole life, so with that has come high expectations and proving myself worthy and most definitely people pleasing, I struggle with routines and change and I also like to work a hell of alot, I am always learning and researching things, I could talk to you for hours about dogs and i should probably write a book as it would be great, but get me talking about something else I might struggle to engage. I am slowly trying to find out who I actually am, I think the people close to me see the real goofy Debs, and I think that Debs is the real me, my doggies who I care for and I look after definitely see the real Debs, but I am still trying to find a way of unpicking the more difficult things, which i really struggle with and that is confrontation and setting and verbalising clear boundaries, whether that's work or my personal life. I find that I am either always apologising or feeling guilty or feel that I have upset someone and trying to fix it. With that comes a lot of stress, anxiety and overwhelm - which I already feel due to the ADHD. I am able to compare this to how a dog responds to behaviour as the chemistry is pretty much the same, my bucket is constantly over spilling, with the many triggers which I deal with in the day and sometimes this creates a meltdown/burnout - (I am old enough to recognise this so can mostly take myself away on a quiet walk which is often all I need) But one of the biggest things which I need tohelp myself with is boundaries and communicating my needs. Sooo... This is my goal going forward: I am going to try really hard to learn how to do this. 1.Set clear boundaries and expectations. 2. Be kind to myself and stay safe 3. The people who listen are the people who

Rudy's back in the building 🎉🎉 you may have seen my post last week about poor Rudy being spooked by a loud bang. Couple of weeks of gentle walks, building in games and going really slowly has helped Rudy build his confidence back again and today he enjoyed his walk again back with his friends. He is still not 100%, you can see that in his face, but as long as Rudy is given time to process the noises around him and things are taken really really slowly, he should start feeling safe again. 🐶

Does Hazel love squirrels more than me? Of course not, this is her natural instinct to do this, but what I do want is for her be okay and calm in this kind of environment, otherwise she will go solo! How do I do this? I start with walking slowly so that Hazel can smell and process the environment, smells, noises. The lead is nice and loose, if she stops I wait, if she pulls - I move slightly so the lead is still slack and i wait, I am not cueing anything apart from when she auto checks with me. I then start rewarding at a high rate. (Didn't capture this on camera as I can't hold a camera and treat rapidly at the same time.) This is to build her engagement with me and I do this by highly reinforcing her with treats at a high ratio, moving very slowly and I only begin to slow the rewards down when she starts to auto checking in with me and starts to offer me new behaviours. This training is still a work in process. On her familiar walks, she will stop at a distance and wait for me to cue her to move on. She is not ready for this yet in this new environment, I have to take my training right back to the beginning, it is too challenging and I need it to be easy and not to difficult for her. I can tell this by her body language, increased breathing and the length it is taking her to offer me engagement. I often get this from clients too, well they can do it when it suits them! Or is it just too hard for them? Are you expecting too much from your dogs? Could you change something to make it easier for your dogs? My change which I made today: 1.putting both my dogs on leads to make it easier for Hazel 2. Practicing in a different environment 3. Making it easy 4. Not expecting too much 5. Moving slowly, giving her time to process things 6. Practicing more in this new environment to make it easy, slowly building up her skills so that we are a good team.

This week in our Saturday morning Teen/Adult class we did an introduction to scent work, tracking and man trailing.

My Saturday morning puppy class Scent Work Week. Scent work is amazing for all dogs, all breeds, all ages! Lowers Cortisol Levels, increases Endorphins and it is mentally rewarding for dogs also tiring too.

Lovely windy walk at Sand Bay today 😍 with my husband and daughter, enjoying a lovely walk along the beach, no talking, just the wind blowing until....I get my phone out to do a video.... Antecedent: phone means mum is about to do a video Behaviour: annoying whiney noise coming from daughter's gob Consequence/reward for doing such whine: I stop filming, daughter gets attention or much more likely calculating behaviour that the video is not able to be used 🤦🏼‍♀️ result I ignored the pre teen and continued filming, as a result her whining didn't get rewarded, her chain of behaviour didn't get any rewards or reinforcement so she gave up and climbed a huge tree trunk instead. Which she chose to do, if she hadn't I would of redirected her to it anyway giving her an alternative to do. With dogs it is exactly the same: trainers will call it the ABCs... Antecedents: a predictor which begins a behaviour. Dogs are great at predicting patterns. Examples of this with dogs could be, grabbing a bag or picking up keys, putting on your shoes - predicts owners are about to leave the house or a walk may be happening. The Behaviour: this could be shown as barking, mouthing your feet or hands as your putting on shoes, lying by the front door, stealing items, jumping, zoomies. The consequence/reward: the actual walk, the dog prevents the owner from leaving, attention (good or bad) gets given a reward when owners are leaving or gets told off. Whether the consequences/rewards are good or bad for the dog the chain of behaviours end up being a self rewarding chain, unless something is changed in that pattern and prevents or manages the behaviour from happening in the first place. When training or helping our dogs, there is always something you can be doing, even if you're super duper busy there will always be one tiny change which can be made to help your dog and make your life a little bit more happier.

Puppy and Teen Classes today we learnt the 1,2,3 game, using it both in recall and loose lead. We extended our wait training and added in a backwards turn away from handler and also learnt an Emergency Stop. We even had time at the end for buffet closed, which was comical, with the puppies offering lots of different learnt behaviours to get noticed. 🤣 Unfortunately didn't film any of the puppy class 🤦🏼‍♀️

Monty absolutely smashed it today. Through gentle shaping, we slowly built the layers to make a mini circuit. Started today's sessions with just 3 straight hoops, then worked on a circle separately, then we joined them together and once Monty was confidently doing this, we were able to add a couple more hoops to the end. Building the confidence through patterns of learning 🥰