Rachel Phillips Canine & Equine Behaviour Consultant

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Rachel Phillips Canine & Equine Behaviour Consultant Animal Behaviour consultant working exclusively with canines and equines.

04/10/2025

Dylan has now realised that retrieving the dummy is highly rewarding to do 🤩 when we first attempted to throw Dylan a dummy, he showed no interest in picking it up whatsoever. There were several possible reasons for this:
🔵 Despite Dylan making huge strides with his dog reactivity, he likely still didn't feel safe enough to play or interact with objects like toys outdoors
🔵 He is likely more of a 'show' spaniel (never can be certain as he is a rescue) so could have less natural drive and motivation to retrieve
🔵 He didn't find interacting with it rewarding

So we continued to support Dylan with his overall confidence outdoors and his owner was still keen to introduce retrieval games to give Dylan both a physical and mental outlet.

We introduced a prey dummy as seen in the video. Dylan finds food extremely rewarding so we taught him that when he interacted with the dummy, we would reward him with food. He also learnt that when he brought it back to his owner, it would be opened for him and he'd get something extra special!

Dylan has really enjoyed this training which is great but it's worth noting, we were fully prepared that he may never be that interested in retrieval games and that's fine too but sometimes just trying different ways of motivating our dogs to play the game
pays off 😉

03/10/2025

When better to do a scentwork session than in a storm?! 🤣 Watch til the end to see Marty be incredible 😲

Lulu is much more weather sensitive and less experienced with scentwork so I kept it nice and easy for her ☺️

Marty is a bit of a showoff so he embraced the challenge! I was amazed he could find a small Kong piece in this weather, especially his last find 😱

The storm joined us just as Zeus' session was due to start so we utilised the barn today (so grateful to have it on days...
03/10/2025

The storm joined us just as Zeus' session was due to start so we utilised the barn today (so grateful to have it on days like this!) Zeus was recently adopted and has several worries about the world 🌎 when he's been in the barn before, it's clear he can start off the sessions quite stressed and it makes it a challenge for him to learn anything new. Today, I set him up a whole array of activities from lickimats, boxes to shred, slow feeders and snuffle mats. All with a few goodies in each. This made a huge difference and he was able to find relaxation despite the loud wind outside. I also put these items on different levels and surfaces to see his preferences. He showed a clear preference to not put his front paws into the unknown such as the plastic bed with a lickimat inside and he preferred to calmly lick over shredding the boxes. Doing these exercises not only sets our dogs up more successfully, it also tells us more about them in terms of their confidence and their physical comfort. We can start to ask the important questions such as is he opting to do that because it's physically more comfortable or is he lacking the confidence to adjust to a more comfortable position?

One thing I can say, Zeus has landed on his feet in his new home with owners who are really committed to understanding him ❤️

I've had such a great day working with dogs and their lovely owners. I am physically exhausted 😂 but my heart is happy. ...
28/09/2025

I've had such a great day working with dogs and their lovely owners. I am physically exhausted 😂 but my heart is happy. Marty joined me for most of the day which meant I could have some one to one time with my girl 🥰 enjoyed a lovely walk although towards the end, she had a big reaction towards another dog on the lane.

I talk to clients all the time about the dog's threshold, and for Lulu if the lane was just 2 metres wider, she'd have been fine. She reacted but it's really no big deal, what made me so happy was the response of the owner of the other dog. Ive seen him lots and I know his dog is perfect off the lead but he clipped him back on the lead for us and offered to let me go past. Yes, Lulu flew around in her reactive manner, growling and lunging but I was so happy someone had offered us space regardless. So thank you man with lurcher 😁

This is also to show, despite the fact I work with dogs every day for a living, I have a dog who has big feelings and that's okay. My role isn't to fix her, it's to help her and I'm pleased to say our walks 90% of the time are reaction free and I'm so proud of that because they didn't used to be 🥰

I've got a day off today which I'm prioritising a bit of relaxation after a busy and productive week ☺️ some of this wil...
24/09/2025

I've got a day off today which I'm prioritising a bit of relaxation after a busy and productive week ☺️ some of this will involve some time with Libby who ensures I don't relax too much though as it is usually her job to add unnecessary tasks to my day 🤣 this could include anything from retrieving hats and sunglasses from her mouth or fixing the latest thing she has broken 😅

Marty jumped onto the table in the training barn just so he could indicate on a piece of Kong I'd left out 🤣 never been ...
23/09/2025

Marty jumped onto the table in the training barn just so he could indicate on a piece of Kong I'd left out 🤣 never been more impressed to see a dog on a table 😅

The ponies has their feet trimmed yesterday and Libby must have known it was Ali's birthday as she offered a nice long h...
19/09/2025

The ponies has their feet trimmed yesterday and Libby must have known it was Ali's birthday as she offered a nice long head cuddle 🤣 she just had to let Ali know how much we appreciate him 🎂 ponypedicures

A short while ago, I could not get Lulu to get into the car. I had a minor bump into a lamp post as a result of my poor ...
16/09/2025

A short while ago, I could not get Lulu to get into the car.
I had a minor bump into a lamp post as a result of my poor reversing a while back which resulted in Lulu avoiding the car at all costs 🚗 she would sometimes even avoid leaving the house all together if she thought there was a possibility she would be asked to get into the car.

Here we are today, after all the work she and I put into rebuilding her confidence 🥰 she gets into the car joyfully every day and she sometimes just gets in for the sake of it as she is doing here 🤣 with such an optimistic look on her face!

So I 100% understand owners who have this issue, I've been there and after a lot of work, time and most importantly, patience, we are out of the other side 🥰

I've had a very spaniel day today 🐕 (or spaniel cross in Arnie's case) I tried to capture a fresh picture of each one in...
12/09/2025

I've had a very spaniel day today 🐕 (or spaniel cross in Arnie's case) I tried to capture a fresh picture of each one in our sessions but I failed by the time I saw Arnie, so there is an oldie of him from Scentwork instead😅. Such a lovely selection of dogs working on all sorts of different things from recall to calm around other dogs to assistance dog training tasks!

Winnie is currently working towards being assessed as a certified assistance dog as I am also a volunteer trainer with charity Dog Aid and I've been matched with Winnie and her lovely owner 😀

Such a productive day filled with happy, wiggly spaniels 🤩🥰

Winston being incredibly brave in his car training session today. This was the point when he felt brave enough to put hi...
08/09/2025

Winston being incredibly brave in his car training session today. This was the point when he felt brave enough to put his front paws in the boot 👏 Usually when working with a dog that has worries or trauma related to getting into vehicles, I find the dog prefers the humans offer a bit of space initially, possibly fearing that if we are close we might just scoot them in. Winston actually took a lot of comfort from me sitting beside him which was really lovely 🥰 he did actually pop his whole gigantic body into the boot after this and we were very impressed.

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About

I am an animal photographer and an artist based in North Wales. I am very passionate about animals and being able to capture their unique personalities through both photography and art is something I pride myself on. I feel capturing as many memories possible of our animal friends is important as they are such prominent parts of our lives.

I myself have a beautiful horse and loving dog who are often the subjects of my work so I know only too well how strong the bond is between animal and human.