Never a Ruff day

12/11/2023

Did you know Max was a Christmas puppy? Year after year a lot of these Christmas puppies are dropped off at local shelters or rehome... a puppy isn’t a gift for a day.. but instead a lifetime commitment.. think before you decide to add a new fur baby to your family this holiday season.

07/14/2023

Littermate Syndrome - Why getting 2 puppies isn't a great idea.

Littermate syndrome is the name given when 2 puppies (usually littermates, but this can happen with puppies from different litters of similar ages) are homed together and develop an unhealthy level of attachment to each other.

Puppies with littermate syndrome often have trouble bonding with humans because they are so attached to each other. They are often anxious or nervous around different people and dogs or in new environments. They are much harder to train and often don't want to participate in training sessions.

The easiest way to prevent littermate syndrome from developing is to not get 2 puppies at the same time, especially littermates. Most reputable breeders will not sell 2 puppies to the same family, for excellent reasons.

If you have already recently gotten littermates, there are things that you can do to prevent littermate syndrome from developing but it can take some hard work and a lot of time and management in the early stages.

Things you can do:
- Have separate areas for each puppy so they can spend plenty of time apart from each other. This could be separate crates for sleeping, separate play pens to spend time in during the day and limit the amount of time that your puppies spend together while they are developing.
- Train the puppies separately and take them on individual outings to different places, so they learn how to cope with the world on their own and also learn to be at home alone without distress.
- Treat each puppy as an individual
- If you don't have the time or resources to be able to give each puppy as much alone time as they need to thrive, you could also find another loving home for one of the puppies so each puppy has the opportunity to live their best life and become confident, happy adults.

07/01/2023

11/13/2022

I saw this next to the front door when I arrived at my clients house this week. They have a 5 month old lab puppy that gets quite excited when people arrive.

When I see my clients take the initiative like this it makes my heart happy.

You can either create your own environment or you can become a part of the environment. Even in your own home.

06/22/2022

06/16/2022

If you run into a trainer like this person did run away… they deserved better and so do you

05/31/2022

04/29/2022

03/28/2022

Tell me again why you can’t find at least 10 mins a day to do some quality work with your dog.

01/17/2022

Just a thought of the day I felt compelled to share..

Working in veterinary medicine is where I single handedly see the most dog to dog mishaps with the general public due to simply lacking knowledge on dog behavior, and lack of respect for both their own dog and other dog’s space. Let me play it out for you, of what I see, all too often. Owner has their dog in the waiting room on a loose, long leash. The Dog is free to roam within a 6 ft radius. Another dog and its owner attempt to come in the doors, only to be blocked and greeted nose to nose by the uncontrolled dog, now tense on his leash, pulling and eager to meet. Its owner speaks out, “oh it’s okay! I’ve got him, and he’s friendly☺️” Here is where I step in to politely ask the owner to keep her dog close to her, only to get a response of “he’s fine, he’s wagging his tail!” 🤦🏼‍♀️ Little do they know, I see something else, way more complex, far beyond their assumptions.

Education and knowledge is power. Especially when you are dealing with an animal that you are supposed to mentor and guide for its lifetime, to ensure stability, confidence, and respect. In my professional and outright personal opinion, never is it okay to:
1) Allow your dog to greet another dog nose to nose on a tense leash
*A dog greeted head on is generally very rude, intrusive, and unnatural in the dog world, and can create conflict right from the get go. Any dog can take this posture as threatening, and begin defensive aggressive behavior. To make matters worse, a tense leash can build the energy in a dog to produce reactive behavior due to space constraints. If you must introduce dogs on leash, it is better to allow them to greet side by side on a LOOSE leash, and relax!

2) Assume that a wagging tail is a happy dog wanting to interact
* A dog will wag its tail for a multitude of emotions. It is VITAL to understand what your dog is saying by it’s tail wag. Based on tail position and speed will indicate how the dog is feeling. For example, A low, fast wag can generally indicate nervous energy, or insecurity, which has potential to cause a fear aggressive response. A high, stiff wag can mean over-arousal/over-stimulation or intent of ready to spring into action. The dog will make lousy choices in this state of mind and make it more difficult to control should they “rev-up” more. A medial, soft & loose wag is generally universal for a happy dog. Get to know your wags!

3) Assume the other dog is just as “friendly” as yours
* Not all dogs are dog friendly. This should be obvious knowledge. Just because your dog is friendly does not mean the other is, too. They could be undersocialized, have social insecurities, or just be dog aggressive. Give other dogs space, please.

4) Allow your dog to interact with other dogs in a veterinary office waiting room
* Dogs often come into the vet office already stressed. It is generally not a place of pleasure as the dog is usually being shuffled into a tight room, being held by strangers only to be poked and prodded at. The smell of other ill dogs or even death is in the air which makes a dog uneasy. Most owners are often nervous FOR their dog during a vet visit so their energy does not help the dog, either. There may be the the smell of cats in the room, stress pheremones, and urine markings from other dogs. Dogs come in not feeling well, or maybe have arthritis, or painful from an injury. They may be recovering from a surgery. Or coming in to be put down due to old age or chronic illness. Now tell me why this sounds like a good spot to “play”?!

We all go to the vet with our dogs. Please make your next visit pleasurable for everyone!

12/28/2021

The purpose of multiple training sessions is to build routine, form habits, and accountability.

Routine. Did you set a schedule for you and your dog to work, play, and rest? Or did you struggle bus through the week, unable to find the time to do anything productive?

Habit. Do you stick to your schedule every day of the week? Did you get your training reps in? Or did you try it one time 5 days ago and now you can't remember what you were instructed to do?

Accountability. If your trainer doesn't check in and assess why progress was or wasn't made, would you work as hard between sessions? Or would you give up after trying it two times and settling back into old habits that had you calling your trainer in the first place?

Multiple sessions is as much, if not more for you than it is for your dog. He won't train himself. And just like people, dogs need routine to form good habits and regular accountability checks to make sure you're on track.

Training isn't one and done. It's work. Which means you have to do it regularly, on time, and to standard for it to pay off.

Keep working so you can get those results!

12/23/2021

When people get a new dog, everyone talks about puppyhood, the does and don’ts, how to deal with specific puppy issues. People will prepare themselves for the first few challenging months with a puppy.

The mess, chaos and sleepless nights are generally overshadowed by the cute fluffy cuddles and the expectation that it won’t last for too long. Your eager little puppy will start to master toilet training, sleeping through the night, basic skills and even recall, but then adolescence hits.

For some it hits like a bus, but very few people talk about adolescence.

Adolescence is a really hard and trying time for both dog and owner. For owners, it can be really frustrating, as your puppy that was making loads of progress can suddenly stop, and even regress in some areas. Some of the behaviours that were adorable as a tiny puppy, become annoying and rude by a dog who is a lot bigger. With the largest number of dogs being placed into rescue during adolescence.

From roughly 5-6 months until around 18-24 months, your puppy is no longer a puppy, but rather a teenager. This can look very different in different dogs. Some may become more anxious, or fearful, some more reactive to things, others over confident, and for some lucky owners their dog will remain easy going and steady.

For the dog, adolescence is a really difficult period to navigate through, there are so many changes with hormones, genetic drives, even the brain structure and a second fear period, all happening simultaneously.

Hormones play a bit part into the development and sexual maturity of a dog. For female this may be a season and potential subsequent phantom pregnancy, this may result in dramatic behaviour changes. For males, they have the highest level of testosterone in their body, than at any other time in their life, even adulthood, and you may find your adolescent male starts to become more aggressive particularly toward other entire male dogs.

You may find that certain innate behaviours get “switched on” and become more easily triggered. So with Collies you may find that your dog starts to herd more things, and becomes more reactive to things.

Your dogs behaviour may also change, there are a number of behaviours associated with adolescence such as:
- Increased independence, some may label this stubbornness.
- Decreased responsiveness to trained cues
- Increased impulsivity
- Increase in energy
- Gender specific behaviours (i.e scent marking)
- Exacerbation of existing patterns (i.e Destructive behaviour, reactivity, fear based behaviours, excessive barking, compulsive behaviours etc)

During adolescence the brain structure changes and develops into a mature brain. New neural pathways are made, and others are lost, even ones that you use regularly, infuriatingly. Your dog may become more reactive, the reason for this is that the inhibitory neurons of the amygdala don’t fully mature until the end of adolescence, these help to dampen down emotional responses. You may find that they become more sensitive to things, and remember negative things more than previously, this is because extinction memory is impaired during this period, which means your dog is more likely to create fear memories due to a bad experience. The training you do with your dog may feel like you’re taking one step forward, but two steps back, this is because there is a decrease in the communication between the frontal cortex and amygdala, this is a key component for skills training.

It is important to try have patience and compassion, for both your dog and yourselves, as you guide and support your dog through this sensitive developmental period.

03/31/2021

Laser pointers can do a lot of damage to dogs. Please help us spread the word and make companies start warning pet parents of the risk to their dogs and cats.

Add an OCD warning label for laser pointers

10/09/2020

TGIF

09/12/2020

It’s very rare I recommend people. But I would 100 percent recommend fluff grooming for anyone that is located in our area!

07/27/2020

Is it the weekend yet?

06/15/2020

It’s Monday.... again

05/07/2020

Should probably try clicker training

04/13/2020

Good morning let’s start Monday morning out with a smile.

04/12/2020

A Sunday well-spent brings a week of content

03/29/2020

Remember this moment when you try to tell your trainer.. your yard is enough exercise for your dog

03/22/2020

By the end of this quarantine everyone is going to have perfectly trained and brushed out dogs right?

03/21/2020

I ever I haven’t told you, I am grateful for so many of the truth friends I’ve made over this last year. Thank you all 💙

03/19/2020

Trying to be serious and not laugh at the same time

03/17/2020

Life isn’t perfect..But my dog is!

03/10/2020

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