Today our team completed the PetTech PetSaver First Aid and CPR course thanks to @adogslifepetfirstaid. We covered the most common types of emergencies we would face in a day care setting and practiced our skills on stuffed doggies. Casper the life form dog enabled staff to feel for the pulse of a dog. Our facility is now stocked with a pet first aid kit (our walking team still have their smaller kits with them in the work boxes). From seizures, to insect bites, choking and CPR we are now qualified to be first responders in the unlikely event a dog in our care requires it.
By law, we are required to have an agreement with a vet clinic and we’ve partnered with Advance VetCare Flemington who we can rush dogs to after we administer the first aid.
Did you know there are no laws requiring us to be certified in pet first aid or CPR? Instead, our commitment to providing the highest level of care and training prompted us to arrange this for staff. #happypawswaggytails #pettech #petfirstaid #petcpr #qualifiedpetfirstaid #hpwt #dogdaycare #dogdaycaremelbourne
All Work (for Elliot) and all Play (for Loki) at the Flemington premises!!! Legit this dog won’t play with anything other than the red Mitch ball by Aussie Dog. We thought Loki would make a good toy tester but his obsession with the red ball means nothing else has been touched. Elliot has been busy with painting, building office furniture, sorting toys, and unfortunately making notes of all our water leaks!!!!! No big opening is without its hiccups and the water, plus fencing delays are just some of the tough waters we’re navigating. Nothing a good game of fetch can’t fix though! 🥎 We’ve held our last batch of interviews for team members and have now closed applications. Our team are almost ready to start training and we are hopeful for an early August open. Don’t forget our Day Care EOI is now open to current and new clients (see our story for the link, we will have a QR code in the window of 424 Racecourse Road in the coming days). #happypawswaggytails #keepingtailswagging #hpwt #dogdaycare #dogdaycaremelbourne #toytesterfail #toytester #ballobsessed
Dougal may be in his cheeky teenager stage where he’s conveniently forgotten any and all previous training but he sure understood today’s assignment of loose leash walking. We consider ourselves specialist at teaching loose leash walking here at Happy Paws and genuinely love being able to show a client the change in walking as quickly as 20 mins into the first session. We find dogs take somewhere between 5 and 10 focussed loose leash walking sessions to really master the art of no longer dragging their humans around - and this includes 1 to 2 handover sessions where we work directly with the client to show them how to maintain the same behaviour when we’ve left. Dougal shows great potential in mastering loose leash walking and showing that underneath his cheeky smile he’s a good boy at heart. Well done Dougie #happypawswaggytails #hpwt #keepingtailswagging #looseleashwalking #walkingthedognotthedogwalkingyou #leashmanners #nolongerpulling #dogtrainermelbourne
In just 6 days Thunder has gone from being extremely wary of the big scary crate to settling down inside for up to 10 minutes at a time. Elliot has worked with Thunder twice a day for the last 6 days with short sessions with the crate. Thunder is quite calm inside the crate, happy to take treats through the gate and has been eating meals inside the crate. His crate training is by no means complete, but this is a good foundational start for his humans to continue making progress while counting down until Thunder takes his big journey overseas. #happypawswaggytails #keepingtailswagging #hpwt #cratetraining #thundersbigjourney #dogtrainermelbourne
Applications close July 1stFlemington day careDog walker - Brunswick and North Melbourne locations.
COMMENT WHICH TOYS YOUR DOG WOULD BE MOST EXCITED TO PLAY WITH!!!!
Delta has been working on her agility skills the last few weeks when the park has been empty and finally captured a good jump on camera! Delta probably won’t have an agility career ahead of her, but tasks like this, learning new things, keeps her engaged and gets the brain working. #happypawswaggytails #keepingtailswagging #hpwt #dogwalkermelbourne
DID YOU KNOW????? SCENT CHANGES WITH THE TEMPERATURE OF THE AIRLevi was all about the sniffs this morning. We often joke that post rain sniffs are the best. But there is some science behind this. As with warm air rising, scent rises too in the warmer weather. And by contrast, scent sinks with the colder air. Here in Melbourne, we are quite used to cold weather, and for dogs noses this means a higher concentration of smells at ground level. Does your dog seem to take more time sniffing on cold days? #happypawswaggytails #keepingtailswagging #hpwt #thenoseknows #sniff #sniffscience #thescienceofscent #dogwalkermelbourne
MASSIVE ANNOUNCEMENT!!!!!!
We recently spilled the beans to our current clients about our expansion into doggy day care but here it is for all our followers. We have taken over this premise in Flemington Victoria and will be working hard over the next few weeks and months to transform this empty warehouse into the doggy day care of your pups dreams. Lots of work to be done but we are EXCITED.
Tag your mates and let the dogs know we will soon be open for most dog fun you can imagine. #happypawswaggytails #keepingtailswagging #hpwt #dogdaycare #doggydaycare #dogdaycaremelbourne
Rusty is hanging out with Happy Paws for a few weeks worth of walks. His humans heard about how we love taking reactive dogs. Rusty has done a lot of training previously (not with us) to help his reactivity and it shows, however he still struggles with other dogs. Rusty started his walk today a little bit spicy, so Elliot decided to use the neighbourhood dogs for a little impromptu refresher session for Rusty. While he’s barking in this video, he’s not directing those barks at the other dog, nor is he displaying fearful or aggressive behaviour. The barks are most likely to be a) “give me more food” or b) “I’m bored with this Dalmatian, let’s keep walking please”Either way, it’s a much calmer, happier Rusty and he had no further spicy-fire-offs for the rest of his walk. #happypawswaggytails #keepingtailswagging #hpwt #kelpie #reactivedog #fencedogs #dogwalkermelbourne
Maple is a big bundle of excitability, friendliness, and love - she’s, well, a typical LABRADOR!!!!! These are the traits we love about Labs, but have become problematic in that Maple needs to say hi to everyone and everything and does so by dragging her humans around with little regard for them being attached to the other end of her leash. So, Maple has been working super hard on not only her loose leash walking, but on ignoring people unless she’s given permission to say hi, and generally improving her impulse control skills. She did AMAZING yesterday working at a semi-busy shopping complex and being able to settle into the tasks she was asked to do. #happypawswaggytails #keepingtailswagging #hpwt #impulsetraining #looseleashwalking #labrador #happydog #lotsoflovetogive #missmaple
Busy finish to a busy week with many of our regulars hitting the jackpot with their humans requesting extra walks!!!! Ha, we will never say no to an extra walk (or two). #happypawswaggytails #keepingtailswagging #hpwt #dogwalkermelbourne #extrawalksyesplease
June is very smart. Today she learned how to ring a bell! While this might be a cute trick for a pet dog, for an assistance dog tasks like these can be life changing. For example a task like this could be transferred into a light switch that the dog hits when it hears the doorbell, which alerts a deaf handler that there is someone at the door. June isn’t an assistance dog, nor is she training to be one. But being a highly intelligent dog she gets enjoyment through trialling and mastering new and different training tasks. Prior to this video being taken June was hitting the bell and getting it to ring every single time. She was a little bored by the time we got the camera out, so we decided to simply reward any engagement with the bell, whether it rang or not. For a pet dog a task like this could be used to alert an owner the dog wants to go outside to toilet. #happypawswaggytails #keepingtailswagging #hpwt #ringthebell #tasktraining #smartdog #training #dogtrainermelbourne
Archie, Polly, Shadow, June, Ziggy and Wolfie, Rupert, Ollie, and Hank all had great walks with the Happy Paws Heroes despite a few cancellations due to car issues our team had. Shadow and Polly got plenty of play time in with their local oval being incredibly busy with lots of dogs, although Shadow did make sure he had some one on one time with Mr Turtle. We’ve honestly never had a toy sooooooo popular as Mr Turtle, with some dogs even being allowed to keep it, and we’ve replaced it many times over. #happypawswaggytails #hpwt #keepingtailswagging #walkies #mrturtle #populartoy #dogwalkermelbourne
Hank wanted to show off he’s not the only Happy Paws dog who can belt out the notes after we posted Zarah’s audition tape!Who else has singing dogs???? Let’s hear them!!#happypawswaggytails #hpwt #keepingtailswagging #singingdogs #dogwalkermelbourne
How do you teach a dog a complex task like opening an automatic door???????? Hit the like button if you’ve never thought about it until now!There are probably a few ways, but with Static we are targeting a touch. While in this video, her nose touch was quite gentle, we have also been targeting on wooden spoons and she smacks it darn hard, basically punching the spoon. We want that level of force because those green door open buttons take a bit of force to hit. Static is mainly being trained up for work as a psychiatric assistance dog, but her handler does have significant mobility restrictions as well, so tasks like this will greatly assist. Using targeted touch, we can move to having Static hit elevator buttons, door open buttons, low light switches, etc. Static continues to prove how smart and willing to work she is, and really is well suited to task training. Again, as we say each week, we are incredibly grateful our client is willing to give our social media a small glimpse into training an assistance dog, and sharing their journey with their disabilities. #happypawswaggytails #keepingtailswagging #hpwt #assistancedogintraining #assistancedogtasks #tasktraining #touchtraining #targetting #dogtrainermelbourne
Big Thursday for the Happy Paws Heroes with multiple staff members out from early in the morning to late in the afternoon. We all managed to beat the rain however and clocked up a few kms exploring with the pups. #happypawswaggytails #keepingtailswagging #dogwalkermelbourne #hpwt #dogtrainermelbourne
Zarah and Nacho LOVE Wednesdays because it means an excursion with the Happy Paws Heroes. Their humans also love Wednesday’s because our excursions are guaranteed to tire your dogs out and make them, excuse us, dog tired. Nacho’s first time to the beach today and for a dog who doesn’t love water he was very brave following Zarah into the water. After a good swim and chase of the ball it was time for some digging before hitting the grass for some rolls and cuddles. Both dogs were dried off and de-sand-ified before being returned home for afternoon naps. #happypawswaggytails #keepingtailswagging #hpwt #dogexcursion #dogbeach #swimmingdog #dogwalkermelbourne #dogtrainermelbourne