Rough play!
How rough is too rough?
Why to stop it?
When to stop it?
How to stop it?
Why is it happening?
The video below shows an early morning interaction with 5 dogs present, 3 of my own, 1 in for residential and one on a day visit.
This is how I dealt with their behaviour recently.
The 2 black labs Rupert(residential) and Koda (my boy) are having their usual morning playtime, whilst I pick up last nights poop and tidy and hose the garden down (again 🙄).
This wasn't particularly rough for the breed in my experience, you can see they are playing by certain behaviours, such as: play bows - feet out bum up, loose & floppy play bounces, open mouth growls with sneeze noises -communicating between themselves it's play, and also they are taking turns to be submissive, also you can see, no hackles raised, no intervention from the others.
This particular morning things were getting a little too boisterous for my liking, whilst other dogs were around, this is why I opted to intervene.
I chose a moment to add my communication by observing, I saw they were taking turns to jump then pause to process their next steps, I used this money to add my prompts to ensure a better chance
As you can see, there wasn't instant engagement towards me after trying to capture the break with a general behaviour prompt, play soon resumed, with thanks to Koda. After a few failed attempts to divert attention to myself, I escalated my output (some "trainers" call me abusive for this 🤷🏼♂️) this was done due to failure to engage with me NOT for the playing.
Then I got distracted by Koda standing in poop 💩😂
There was a short pause where I got interaction from Koda, however, you can see he's still mentally fighting his impulses to play. I added a physical stimuli (Touching him) to make myself more interesting for longer interaction, this also didn't go as well as it could. You can hear I gave a few more chances to make a better choice of behaviour which
Puppy Class 19/1/25-16/2/25
Heelwork
Heelwork is great to train with dogs because it promotes control, focus, and a strong bond between you and your dog. When your dog learns to walk by your side, it helps ensure that they’re walking calmly and not pulling on the leash, making walks more enjoyable for both of you. It also reinforces your role as the leader, which can be helpful in other training areas as well as giving your canine the confidence in you to handle any situations, so they don't have to. Plus, heelwork can be a mental challenge for the dog, as they have to pay attention to your movements and stay in sync with you. It’s one of those skills that improves overall obedience and strengthens the connection between handler and dog.
Are you training heelwork with your dog right now, or just getting curious about it?
Our Monday night heelwork sessions are open to all levels, from actively competing dogs to new pups beginning their training journey. And it's only £5 per dog.
It's also incredibly fun as well as a useful resource to have in your back pocket.
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I had a big long post planned, but I've decided I'm just going to say on behalf of myself and Kelly.
Thank you to all the amazing people and dogs we've met this year, you're the reasons our year has been so fantastic.
See you all soon
Dan & Kelly
🐾🤎🐾
Don't worry too much about making mistakes during training, getting it wrong is just the first step in getting it right.
A few clients recently have been a bit frustrated with themselves for making little mistakes here and there, it's normal to make mistakes, I made a lot in my journey to becoming a trainer, I still make the odd one here and there, I own them though and learn from them!
It's more important to not get discouraged, frustrated or upset, your mood effects your training, which effects your dogs behaviour, which effects your mood even more. It's a vicious circle!
To make you feel better and make myself look worse, here's one of my more stupid mistakes caught on camera. I've never made this mistake since!
Excuse the quality this was filmed around 10 years ago.
Happy Friday everyone. You know what's great about the weekend (for most)?
That's right, more time to spend with the dogs and do some training.
I've said to a few people this week, a tired dog is a well behaved dog, this is Logan after 45 minutes of laser pointing training, due to him going partially deaf at 12 years old I have had to implement some new methods to help direct him and reduce his anxiety.
Get training folks 😎🐾
Finally, I'll be doing my best to catch up with emails this weekend, apologies for the delay it's been busier than expected recently.
Have a great weekend all 🐾🤎🐾
Today, our little Lola is 8 years old.
Here are some photos through the years from age 1-8. She's barely aged 😳
This dog had taught me so much over the years, the most important things being patience and understanding.
She was never going to be the dog I wanted her to be, so instead she became the dog I needed her to be.
Happy birthday Lolly Bobs 🥰🤎🐾🐾
Send away & recall
A few weeks back whilst working with an extremely reactive dog, 3 off lead dogs that not only had no recall, but absolutely zero interest in their owner at all, ran over to me.
Not only did this require me to use my body as a barrier to avoid a serious incident, resulting in me being bitten in the leg, getting a mouthful from the owner for explaining this is why dogs should be trained or on lead, it also caused a huge setback to the dog I was working with.
If you want to let your canine off the lead, train it!
Off lead training is important and needs to be kept up. I do this exercise with my dogs at least weekly to ensure they have a good solid recall and a redirect command to move them away from a situation if needed.
If you are interested in training off lead control with your dog(s) drop me a message.
Lots of clients and friends have asked me what training I do with my dogs for fun and to keep them well exercised
I made a little video a few years ago of some of my down time training, yes I really do train for fun in my spare time.
I'm aware this won't be to everyone's taste
I've always been reluctant to post this sort of content for that reason.
However, this is what I do, I don't recommend doing this sort of training without a professional, be it with me or another trainer, you have to know what you're doing.
(No harm came any dogs in this video it's all simulated aggression)
Reducing anxiety with obedience, engagement and mental activities.
This St Bernard I worked with a few years ago was highly reactive and had to be muzzled around people. As scary as the concept of a reactive 64kg dog is, the muzzle came off and the work began. Using positive reinforcement and positive association, he soon began to engage well, after a few sessions we had covered obedience, heelwork and just started search games. Here is a video from our 3rd session, doing a short engagement recap. From what I can remember, a few trainers had tried before me with poor results. No matter what dog or behaviours you are dealing with, there is always a solution, you just need a trainer/behaviourist who is confident enough to get stuck in.
Logan joined me this week to help with some desensitisation, positive association training with some reactive dogs, and to demote a few possible disciplines to be trained into some of the older dogs.
He's still in great physical and mental shape, can go for hours with tons of drive, but at the grand old age of 12 he definitely needs more time to recuperate these days.
Body language & filming yourself.
I usually suggest to film yourself training for a few minutes once a week. Here is the reason why I recommend doing so.
Early on in my dog training days, I encountered an issue with a certain discipline. It took me weeks to figure why I just couldn't get consistent results or why the dog I was training would randomly preform the command without being asked.
Dogs associate more than just the command words we use, every time I tried the "stand" command I would sometimes slightly nod my head, other times I wouldn't. This left the dog a little unsure, as he had started to associate that head nod with the command.
I filmed myself working on the stand command around 150 times and noticed the sporadic nod.
Here is a video from when I tested the theory of hand signals only in 2015, with a different dog I hadn't done signal training with yet. It goes to show what dogs notice during training.
As you can see, he responded pretty well to the regular hand gestures I seem to do.
If I hadn't have filmed myself, I would never have spotted the mistakes I was making, it also gave me a huge confidence boost to see the progress I was making after thinking I'd hit a brick wall.
Even if it's only 5 minutes a week, take a video, watch it back a few times. Trust me it helps.
Also be mindful of your body language during training, try to keep it the same and you may just end up with a few party tricks you didn't even know you'd trained 😎🐾🐾
Pardus K9 is a Winsford based canine professional offering:
