Miss Lola getting her recall going!! She is improving so much in her ability to see triggers and not react and also enjoy engaging and learning new skills!
Oscar practicing his engagement, heel work, auto sits, release and recall! :D he also made friends with a beautiful king Charles sweet heart and even met his old border collie friend Buddy! What a social day he's had! 😏
Me having some fun with miss Daisy who is quite anxious when without her sister. She can trigger stack easily which can cause her to be reactive to people and other dogs especially if they are coming towards her. Today was excellent progress as she showed more confidence when we arrived which meant we were able to do a bit more. Less is more with the anxious ones and going at their pace is paramount.
This is not long after beginning the walk and I wanted to make a point to stop and reset miss Daisy but also do a bit of confidence building and Bonding. It's really important that nervous dogs feel they have a safe place. We want that safe place to be us. Engagement and focus is the best alternative for a nervous dog to perform so they start to look at us for guidance.
After Daisy had some confidence boosting with balancing on the back of the chair and engaging with me, we headed out for a walk and worked on some obedience then got closer to some people and although she was alert and even reacted to a big group, the intensity was low and she was able to disengage! A massive win!
Super proud of Daisy and it's only her second training walks 🥳
Scooby making some excellent choices here despite the temptation! He loves other dogs and can be vocal about stimulus that he's unsure on like people walking slowly, hoodies, environment structures etc but today there was only a tiny bit of huffs then he turned away! This is huge for Scooby who's just recovering from his 1 year regression 😁
Miss Zoe learning that although she's close proximity to another dog, it's not all about play. After a few initial hellos through the fence meant that attention on me was possible. It really helped that Cruise was super relaxed and not interested in play at that moment.
This is huge for Zoe and am so proud of her :) thank you Paws Plus Ltd Canine Training & Behaviour :)
Scooby had his first training walk today after completing his Adolescent programme and just look at this lead work!! Am so pleased to see his family have put in the hard work which made today go a bit more smoothly than anticipated. He had a couple of reactions to other dogs through frustration which is all arousal based as he just wants to meet them and play. He did really well to recover after each one and learn the process of successfully desensitising and counter condition his emotional response to be more neutral when seeing other dogs by building more engagement with me :)
Not a bad first walk at all!! 🥰
An awesome video of Arnold working really hard and implementing his cool trick his dad taught him the Twirl! It can be a useful tool to add some enrichment into your dogs heel work as well as build engagement and maintain focus 🥰
Some beautiful photos of George and Frank meeting for the first time outside Frank's house with his mum.
Initially George barked and pulled towards Frank to want to say a friendly hello which at times set Frank off also however Frank and his mum and dad have done an incredible job at reducing his reactivity! Frank would react instantly when seeing another dog but in just a few sessions he was able to meet dogs so we set up this play date and once they met all the frustration was gone on both sides. We got to do a little walk then thought it would be nice to see how they went off lead at Frank's house.
Frank and his sister Missy had missed that critical socialisation period so they just don't know how to interact with other dogs. Frank got so excited that it was a little overwhelming for George so we swapped him over to Missy.
Missy was unsure but curious as she had her hackles all the way up which is just a state of arousal in this context. She was avoiding him until we got this lovely video right before George wanted to poop haha he's really trying to bring out the play in Missy and you could really see the conflicting emotions but not bad for their first set up meeting with another dog. Thanks so much George for being your happy self 🥰
Bruno's first training walk! We got hit with the rain so kept to the shelter and worked on engagement, lead work and just building a relationship. He wants to go and explore however he learnt that if he wants his sniffs fastest he needs to maintain a loose lead.
We also worked on his possession over the ball. He hasn't tapped into his resource guarding potential just yet but the beginnings are there where he takes something and actively moves away from me. If I go close he gets a bit stiff and holds it in his mouth if it's dropped. We started working on a game I call Drop To Swap. By the end he was happily giving up the ball for something of equal or high value. We will continue to work on his retrieve so instead of gunning it, he can start to build on the relationship of fetch where no communication is broken 🥰
We also worked on his reluctance to get in the car but by the end of the session he jumped in on his own! Yay!
Rex had his first training walk today! He was full throttle as soon as we left and would pull and even vocalise in frustration. He even slipped his collar 😳 but he managed to come back rather well, phew! This is why I made a slip lead out of my regular lead to keep him safe and continue with our session.
When we arrived at the carpark he was wanting to seek comfort in the environment as he wanted to pull towards sniffs. His body language was low and ears back so showed that the underlying emotions were fear based. He's also been reinforced for this as he's so strong and is used to pulling his owners. We are now going to switch this thought process by getting him to check in with us when feeling nervous or unsure instead of wanting to escape and hide. He will start to realise we are the safety blanket and will be setting the environment up so he doesn't feel too stressed but can recover when there are stressors around.
We wrapped up the last of the session by going over some of these techniques with his mum so she was left feeling confident to carry out little bits of quality walks here and there throughout the day :)
Bo working with Keira during yesterday's session 🥰 it's been amazing to see them bond as Bo remembers Keira from a pup!
A couple of weeks ago we met with Xena who is a 16 month old Doberman whose amazing owners (relatives of the beautiful Zea in puppy training) adopted from a not very nice backyard breeder at 14 weeks. She is a beautiful soul but has had a rough start to life so can be anxious at times and can also pull like a freight train when on lead.
True to her nature she is great at informing everyone at home when there's any movement outside being a guarding breed. We spent a lot of time focusing on this particular behaviour as well as laying some foundational work and further enrichment in her daily routine.
By our second session, Xena was able to recall away from seeing my car at the window as I arrived and has been responding really well! What a breakthrough. The second session was about her lead skills. Working on a formal heel, decompressing and body movement. She responded really well with her family skilling up in their handling techniques.
Her mum sent us this very cute video. Xena is so eager to please with such a dedicated family that makes this all so rewarding 🥰
