CaroPaws Dog Walking

25/04/2024

Super chilled girls 🥰🐾🥰🐾

24/04/2024

My new girl Luna. What a beautiful girl she is 🥰🐾

07/01/2024

RIP Luna, I miss you so much already and so devasted that I didn't get to say goodbye to you.

My heart is completely broken 💔 I loved you like my own ❤️❤️❤️

Run free now and I hope you find my Jess and Josie to play with 🌈

See you again Princess, we had a blast 💖

29/11/2023

Love this. We need to help our dogs the best we can to cope in our crazy human world 🥰🐾

04/11/2023

The difference a year makes. Fireworks vs no fireworks. Loving the peace here in the North Yorkshire Moors. I would do anything to help dogs feel more relaxed 🥰🐾🐾

12/10/2023

So very true. Thank you Dogs Disclosed

DISTANCE ASSISTANCE
It’s not easy having a reactive dog. As much as we may feel frustrated, restricted, angry or even ashamed or embarrassed, our reactive dogs are also experiencing a range of negative emotions when they react to something that triggers them.

This reaction is usually caused by anxiety, fear, feeling threatened or frustrated.

These emotions cause high levels of stress and stress prevents both us and our dogs from being able to process information, think clearly or learn a different, more acceptable way of reacting to whatever triggers us.

This is why creating enough distance is so important.

I’m really scared of snakes and even struggle to look at them. The only thing I want to do is run away and create as much distance as possible.

If someone was restraining me, forcing me to sit down and look at the snake while trying to feed me my favourite chocolate (or any type of chocolate!), telling me there was nothing to worry about or trying to educate me about the specific species, it would do nothing to alleviate my fear and would only increase my stress levels.

Doing this at a sufficient distance, where I felt safe would be far more effective and my stress levels would be much lower. I may even eat the entire slab of chocolate!

In time, with patience and practice, I may even be able to get much closer to the snake without having a negative reaction.

The same principle applies to reactive dogs. Creating sufficient distance where they can see the trigger but still feel safe, comfortable and don’t react is the best way of helping them to cope with their feelings.

Some dogs (and people) may never be able to decrease that distance and that’s also okay.

Accept your dog for the unique individual they are, work on the things you can change and accept the things you can’t.

08/10/2023

Absolutely. Our dogs should be able to trust their Guardians. Trust goes a long way and helps so much to build the bond we have 🥰🐾

I NEED TO FEEL SAFE

Like all living creatures, dogs just want to feel safe – it’s a basic need.

When we think about feeling safe it’s natural to just think about not being harmed or being in danger, but it’s not just about physical safety - feeling safe emotionally or psychologically is just as important.

While physical safety may be obvious and simpler to address, emotional safety is far more complex and not always easy to recognise or identify.

The same applies to our dogs – they are sentient beings whose behaviour is very often triggered and driven by an emotion.

Many behaviour problems that we see in dogs stem from them feeling unsafe.

A dog that lunges and barks or behaves aggressively with another dog or person is probably doing so because they feel unsafe. They are trying to make the scary thing go away.

A dog that is guarding resources is doing so because they are afraid that the resource will be taken away – they don’t feel safe when another animal or person approaches that resource.

A dog that is reacting to fireworks or thunderstorms or other noises is doing so because they don’t feel safe.

The same can be said for separation anxiety, certain types of aggression and other behaviours.

We can help our dogs feel safe by acknowledging their fear even if that fear doesn’t make sense to us.

We can be a source of comfort, predictability, allow them to make choices where we can, never force them to face a fear, never use punishment but positively reinforce their good choices, all while doing what we can through management, desensitisation or counter conditioning to help them feel safer.

Some dogs may never get over a specific fear, but doing what we can to help dogs feel safer in our world is so important.

Be the person that your dog can rely on and trust to help them feel safe.

Be a secure, reliable, stable base that they can count on when they feel unsafe.

08/10/2023

07/10/2023

Hello, I am Caroline and started my dream job as a dog walker over 3 years ago.

After being made redundant from my role at Barclays Bank I decided to follow my dream and set up my own dog walking business.

As a child I always wanted to work with animals and as a dog lover what better than working with dogs!

I have level 4 diplomas in Canine Training, Behaviour, Communication and Nutrition. I am dedicated to providing the best care for our dogs and will only help to guide dogs make the best choices in an ethical way using force free methods.

I specifically do solo or dual dog walking which enables me to completely focus on the individual dogs needs.

I have set up this page again mainly to save/share positive thoughts and interactions in relation to dog walking and training (both being completely unregulated).

Thank you for following me on my journey 🐾🐾