Play is so beneficial to your relationship and therefore your training journey with your dog 👏🏼 I for one, have previously made the mistake of not playing with my dogs because they aren’t “fun” to play with… but it’s all about finding how they WANT to play and building that co-operative play to begin with. No one likes all work and no play, right 🤷🏼♀️So get out there and do a play session if all else fails 🎾
I’M NOT TRAINING MY PUPPY.That may not be a statement you expected to hear from a trainer or quite frankly, anyone whose just gotten a new puppy. However, I’ve made the decision to really slow my training process down with new puppy, Raya. With every dog I’ve owned and worked with, I’ve learnt something new, with that knowledge and experience I want to ensure each of my dogs is the best they can be, however with that knowledge, comes a lot of pressure. The pressure I put on myself and also on my dogs to be “well behaved”, but what does well behaved mean to you? Each persons expectations of their dogs comes from themselves, there are no single ways and means of a well behaved dog. With all of my dogs I’d openly admit I’ve made mistakes, but the ones that I fully regret, were the expectations I had for Stitch to not be a “typical yappy dog” and Kovu to not be out of control as “he’s going to be a big dog”, with those expectations came so much pressure and training from day 1 and resentment set in, they resent training with me and vice versa and conflict within our relationship was prominent, needing repairs later in the line when it should never have been there in the first place. I feel that and see that every day throughout my pack, my bond with Harlow and Duchess is totally different, they enjoy training for and WITH me, I raised them both with 0 pressure in the first few months, Harlow was my first dog as a teenager and in that time I was learning with him, Duchess was never meant to stay so I had the mindset of “not my dog not my problem” 👀 until it became my problem 😂So what am I doing with Raya? Crate trainingHouse trainingCharging marker wordsRecallPlace training Environmental exposure Our typical day to day life consists of a few minutes free shaping behaviours, taking her everywhere with me, food searches or hand feeding meals, play sessions and plenty of naps. That’s it. I plan on continuing this until around 6 months b
Saturday was a sausage dog kind of day 🤣 A household full of love and a whole lot of chaos 🙈
We worked on reactivity with Trigger, Benny and Frank. Lots of homework to do and we will be having weekly sessions together but they absolutely smashed it 😍
Dudley’s Behavioural 🤩
Introducing Dudley 🐾 Yesterday we had the pleasure of meeting this little boy and breaking down why he had such big emotions around strangers, noises outside the home and especially the postman 🙈
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So Dudley has a history of some seriously noisy reactivity and has nipped in the past, his owners kept him separated from strangers and were becoming increasingly worried about his behaviour and wanted to help him and them get to the bottom of it.
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Dudley was very insecure, we could tell this by his reaction when I (a stranger) took the lead, he instantly wanted to run back to dad and climb up his leg! We also managed to break his fixation with the use of treats and sniff games, meaning he wasn’t too over threshold and fearful or aggressive to be able to take food ✨
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So with that we got to work! We broke down his triggers into really small sections, such as the second the doorbell went off, to the door opening and the stranger walking in, to his emotions surrounding someone new in his home.
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We always look at the walk and home situation as a whole as you can’t have one without the other, so we also went for a nice structured walk around the block as a way of bonding with him prior to working on the in home stuff!
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As you can, see this boy was super quick to learn, we taught him what was expected and what behaviours we didn’t want, and gave him new ways of coping with his stress to enable him to learn to be calm and content in the presence of people in the home - which can be seen in the last clip, both clips beginning and end are within an hour apart! 👀
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He and his owners absolutely smashed it and I’m super excited to see and hear how they get on in future but they’ve got their homework to do 😍
Biggie 🐾
Biggies behavioural today 🫶🏻
It was an honour to meet this boy, he is a true love bug, thinking every man and his dog are his best friends, unfortunately, Biggies life is at risk, his family have been reported and they will be due an assessment in the new year, due to this, his pro active family enlisted me as his last chance, we made massive progress across our session and they will be continuing their homework 🤩 I look forward to seeing how they progress, it was an honour Biggie, lets prove them wrong and keep you safe 🩵
Honestly, Biggies only fault is he’s too excitable and friendly… it’s simply the breed he is that has put both him and his family through so much recent stress, even the incoming ban is not enough for some people and they just have to take it that step further…
Today we worked on calmness and inviting guests into the home, what is expected when the doorbell rings, door manners and thresholds, lead walking, dog and people reactivity out of excitement, his fear of getting into the boot of the car… and probably so much more I’ve forgotten 🙈😂
Lots of homework Biggie, I can’t wait to see what you can do 🤩
Today we saw 6 month Klaus for his behavioural.
Working on his nuisance barking, mouthing, lead reactivity and recall.
We made massive improvements in today's session and saw some big changes in his behaviour and state of mind, his mum and dad are very happy with how today went and super proud of him!
We also added in some place work, calm & settlement training as well as door manners and thresholds.
They've now got their homework to do! 🙈
I'm super rubbish at getting videos without a second pair of hands but I got his cuteness on camera so that's all that really matters right? 👀🤣
Smudges residential so far. This boy needs lots of exposure, socialisation and confidence building. This boy's fear of traffic is proving a challenge for his dad, walks are stressful for both parties and that fear is now escalating to all environmental exposures and also causing some reactivity. So far so good and we're enjoying the process 🫶🏻
Today's behavioural saw Drax. His mum has done such a good job with him however needed some guidance on his dog reactivity.
We first swapped out our training tool, I'm not an advocate for haltis, especially for strong dogs prone to pulling and lunging. The damage these tools can do is incredibly scary when most people are misled by the title's "gentle leader". It's so aversive and clear to see, Drax here has worn his for 6 months and still unhappy in it as shown. The halti has added to his reaction due to the negative association of pressure on his nose, and the frustration from being held back.
Anyway, enough about the tool! Drax here aced his session, by the end we were able to use his toy drive to put his frustration into and he was learning to follow his mum in a calm state of mind using our structured walk to pass dogs on lead.
Drax's mum was over the moon with this result as previously needed to cross the road to avoid dogs, her confidence had also plummeted so both Drax and his mum have lots of confidence building homework and some bonding to do outside the home!
Lots of management and handling techniques were discussed, giving them the tools and knowledge needed to continue working as a team.
With impulse control, controlled prey drive, confidence building, structured walking, play drive and giving Drax a "job" we aim to see some major improvements in coming weeks!
Looking forward to seeing this team grow and flourish.
Good luck guys! You're going to smash it 🙌🏼
Reps reps reps 🙌🏼 We've begun lead training, she finds this difficult so we're only asking for a loose lead currently and not a heel position.
Heeling/loose lead, does not mean yanking the dog every 2 seconds, we start right from leaving the front door, teaching calm, we use directional changes and we teach the position and the lead pressure separately, then bring it all together 🫶🏻
Today I thought I'd introduce the slip lead and work on some loose lead (shes always off lead so not something we've felt the need to work on), usually she would have her nose to the ground and quite literally be swimming... What looks like disobedience to the untrained eye, was actually a lack of confidence and some confusion. We unpicked it all and started from the bottom, now we're here!
We have a loose lead, we have some engagement, we have happier, more confident body language, we have started to add in automatic sits and to be honest, for the first short session I couldn't be happier ❤️
Then we have Harlow, whose off lead heel is the end goal for her, he's such an angel, I wanted him as a distraction but he thought he had to be in position, in synch with my turns and even his automatic sit 🥹 I love him so much 🥰
