Kerry's Clever Canines. Dog Training and Behaviour

26/06/2024

Is it true that if we use cold water on heat stroke pets they will go into shock?

One of the most common things we still hear is that we can only use tepid water on a pet with heat stroke, incase they get some complications like hypothermic overshoot, peripheral vasoconstriction hindering a cooling response, and cardiogenic shock...

We have heard not to use cold water in case it causes shock... this rarely happens!

But guess what? In a recent study over 26% of dogs presented with heat stroke died, with flat faced breeds making up nearly half of heat stroke cases seen in the study.

You should:

💧Get someone to call the local veterinary practice and tell them you're going to travel down with a heat stroke patient
💧Pour, hose or if possible immerse the pet in very cold water (this should obviously be done under constant supervision, ensuring the head is fully above water and immersion should not be attempted if the animal is too large, or you are unable to do so without hurting yourself)
💧NB: If using a hose pipe, make sure it has run through until cold, as they can often contain water that is extremely hot in the tubing initially
💧Do not drape in towels and leave them in situ. Keep the cold water flowing.
💧Move to a cool, shaded area
💧Prepare to transport to vets in a cold, air conditioned car

In studies they found that:

🌅International consensus from sports medicine organisations supports treating EHS with early rapid cooling by immersing the casualty in cold water.
🌅Ice-water immersion has been shown to be highly effective in exertional heat stroke, with a zero fatality rate in large case series of younger, fit patients.
🌅Hyperthermic individuals were cooled twice as fast by Cold Water Immersion as by passive recovery.
🌅No complications occurred during the treatment of three older patients with severe heat stroke were treated with cold‐water immersion.
🌅Cold water immersion (CWI) is the preferred cooling modality in EHS guidelines and the optimal method applicable to UK Service Personnel
🌅Studies suggest using either ice-water or cold-water immersion

The best intervention is PREVENTION, but if you find yourself with an animal with heat stroke, using cold water either by pouring, hosing or ideally (if safe) immersion then this may help reduce their temperature to safe levels while you transport to a veterinary practice.

Read more below:

https://www.vetvoices.co.uk/post/cool-icy-cold-or-tepid

10/05/2024

Thank you to everyone for your understanding and support today whilst we attended a funeral today of an amazing lady, the world is a darker place today. Sessions resume tomorrow.

01/05/2024

I can absolutely see why!! An interest read and confirms why Cooper much prefers the rivers and Bucket and fountain outside full of rain water… and again proves how sensitive and important dogs noses are.

WATER EXPERIMENT COMPLETE...AND THE WINNER IS....
What happens when your followers are nerds? Awesome things, that's what.

In response to my (strangely heated) post on water consumption in dogs, Sue Holstead took it upon herself to test out various waters on her pack.

In short, I posited that dogs, with their super sensitive sniffers, prefer virtually any other water bar your tap water - toilet, plant pot, mucky puddle -because tap water has chlorine in it.

Chlorine is included in water to sterilise it, and it goes in gas form. This means, should you leave said water out to stand someplace for a few hours - in bowl on your kitchen surface, in an open tank in the attic (where a lot of toilet water comes from in Ireland, but nowhere else, it seems…) or in a toilet, say - the chlorine gas will soon evaporate and leave the water, rendering it a more attractive beverage to the dog as a result.

But I forgot my following is global. Most countries don’t use tanks in the attic (why does Ireland do that?!) and other countries have worked to get chlorine out of their water (Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland).

So Sue (UK) set out to find the answer.

She put together 5 types of water: K is kettle water, R is rainwater, L is from toilet, T is tap water and C is from a glass bottle left outside for 24 hours with copper strip running from the ground to bottle, used to purify the water and add a bit of earth-energy; rounded up 5 suspects (4 dogs and a cat) and monitored their consumption over a few days.

The results were:

- The three older dogs only drank rainwater
- The cat drank rainwater and some copper-wired water
- Only the young terrier took a small amount of tap water

Measuring how much water was consumed in total, the winner was rainwater (300ml of 500ml consumed). Followed by copper wired water (200ml), tap and kettle water (

11/03/2024

Even though we’re excited about the weekend… calm, heel walking is key… especially when near a road. If you need help with teaching your dog lead etiquette and to get your walks relaxed, calm and most importantly relaxing for you all please do get intouch.

23/11/2023

This Black Friday receive a free nose & paw balm with the purchase of an advent calendars! Perfect for this cold weather❄️ message to reserve yours now

25/10/2023

😂😂😂

05/10/2023

Such good and sound advice!

Educational post
Teaching your dog to do nothing

Honest truth, this was probably one of the hardest things to teach Rose. She was great in the crate, good as gold in the car, and, during training, BUT, when hanging out in the house she found Dude a massive distraction and she struggled to just settle down when left loose with him. Indy was not an issue as Rose was very respectful of her.

Teaching a dog to do nothing at all requires consistency and patience.

We see a lot of dogs for behaviours like pulling on the lead, lunging, jumping up, barking, whining, chewing, and, attention seeking behavious. Sadly some owners see this kind of behaviour as normal or say "he's just excited"

The reality is, these behaviours are very ofen a symptom of a dog who lacks self control. Dogs displaying these kinds of behaviours are often stressed, anxious, or, over stimulated.

If these unwanted behaviours are misunderstood, and the root cause is not addressed, then the owner is less likely to be able to change them.

In many cases like this the dogs we see have never be taught to do nothing, to switch off, relax, or to settle down on a bed as part of their training.

These dogs often have toys all around the house because the owners are hoping they will wear themselves out. They don't seem to be able to switch off. They are constantly doing something, or waiting to do something.

Sometimes we hear that the owners of the dogs described above have been advised to "exercise them more" or "they need more mental stimulation" when actually what the dog will truly benefit from is being taught how to "settle and do nothing" giving them more exercise will actually make the dog fitter and fitter...

As long as your dog is getting an appropriate amount of exercise, you should also teach your dog to settle down, relax, and, do nothing. Its genuinely a fabulous thing to teach.

I talk about two types of settle, a trained settle and a self settle. They are two different things, but they are both very important.

When teaching your dog a trained settle be patient and consider the duration, distance and the distractions. Train each independently before expecting your dog to settle with all three elements. I start by teaching duration first, then adding distance, finally adding distractions. I am careful to always reward the dog in the settle position, not when they are released or called out of the settle, this reinforces the behaviour. I also teach a release cue which gives your dog permission to come out of the settle.

I have written a puppy book based on the life of Rose which is available on Amazon and on our website and we have an online puppy training course as well as offering in person training

www.familydogservices.co.uk

https://www.facebook.com/The-Life-Of-Rose-819251128435132/

24/09/2023

16/09/2023

I think it’s safe to say Dexter worked very hard in his training today and the one to one session was a success! see you soon for our follow up.

22/07/2023

Its Happening!! The weather will clear and the Annual Dog Fest will be here!!! Please do come on down to this free even and support local business and have some fun!! I will be hosting a mini have a go scent workshop and be on hand for any training and behavioural issues you may have! There will be demonstrations and fun for all the family.

15/07/2023

‼️POSTPONED ‼️ due to the severe weather warning for tomorrow and high winds, Beauty Barks Dog fest will now be on SUNDAY 23rd JULY 2023.

This is not ideal but if the safest thing to do. Who’d have though in July! Classic British weather 🙄
Hope you can all understand and are still able to make it with your doggies🫶🏻 thanks for all your support, we will see you next week!!
Rachel x

28/06/2023

12/06/2023

An article I wrote a few years ago regarding thunder… after seeing numerous dogs going missing /and or being found today following on from the storm just a little reminder that what may seem like unpredictable out of character behaviour the dog will have known the storm was coming hours before it did just by the change in the atmosphere.. and likely to be giving off clues too.. so if any one is interested a little more into why’s and what we can do to help our beloved pets here’s a little 2 minute read..

⛈ Everytime we have a thunderstorm it’s often too late to mention anything, but as we’re in for nearly a week of stormy weather now is the perfect time to be truly British and talk about the weather.. thunder and lightening can indeed be very frightening to a puppy or a dog, they’re often frightened of it because they quite simply don’t know what it is.. they don’t understand what is happening around them, remember dogs sense things on so many levels that we don’t, they sense you’re mood before you know it, can tell if your calm and relaxed or stressed and agitated, they can pick up on people who don’t give off good “vibes” they can even tell when someone’s blood sugar is low or if some one is going to have a sensory meltdown or panic attack or if someone just needs love! Dogs and their spidey senses are incredible! So why dont they react to thunder and lightening we do? (unless you’re my nan and turn off all the electric in a storm bless her.) if you’ve ever had a pressure headache it could give you a glimpse into it, imagine that x 50 dogs are often upset by the combination of wind, thunder, lightning, barometric pressure changes, static electricity, and low-frequency rumbles preceding a storm that humans can't hear, some have even said that dogs get static electricity in their fur due to the change in the environment. What can we do about it? As owners we want to do the best we can do for our dogs to be relaxed, so we REWARD CALM Behaviour, and we need do this all year round, we need to ignore the panicked, whimpering pacing, panting, scratching jumping up, negative behaviour, as much as we think we are consoling them we’re actually rewarding and encouraging the behaviour and this becomes engrained on the dog.

If we stay calm and relaxed, they’ll follow our lead, literally, you can pop your dog on an indoor lead correct any negative behaviour and then get them to settle into a down and decompress at your feet rewarding them with praise when relaxed or give them a stuffed Kong a Snuffle Mat or another brain toy.

You can also pop them into their safe cosy crate (leave the door open) with a nice stuffed kong or fresh bone, those Seratonins released from all that licking naturally help calm your dog.. allowing them to learn to calm themselves.

You can distract your dog by playing distract them with find it games, or tug or hide and seek game, anything thats fun is perfect to distract your dog. After a time of playing pop the lead on them and settle them into a down and settle, or into their crate. Remember The main thing is to reward the good behaviour and help them to forget the storm and when they are distracted they will display calm or playful behaviour.. so that when they come around again they’ll have positive memories and know that yes a storm is scary, but They don’t need to worry about it because you don’t. Therefore the storm becomes a positive experience.

Then try and remember that training is an ongoing process and remember to keep practising throughout the year (once a month maybe more leading up to guy fawkes) helping to desensitise to scary noises with a soundtrack playing the noise of a storm adjusting the sound as you go (although the atmospheric changes are hard to replicate) and again you can do the same with fireworks using lots of praise for calm and positive behaviours and correcting and ignoring the panicked behaviours.

If your dog is older and the behaviour pattern is ingrained, there are tools and aids to help correct, and calm your dog whilst training with them such as thunder shirts, essential oils, dog pheromones such as diaptil, but these are tools and you have to work with your dog to help them and manage and correct their behaviour. ⛈🐾

15/05/2023

This year we celebrate 10 years of Beauty Barks 🐾
DOG FEST… A decade of dogs 🤍
Save the date, Saturday 15th July 2023.

If you are interested in having a stall at this event please get in touch.

21/03/2023

❗️ Final space available ❗️

Would you like to teach your puppy how to listen to you when distracted?
How to focus?
How to Place and settle?
How to leave,
How to recall,
Loose lead walk?
And of course the basic sit, down and stay? And learn about the law and you and your dog.
Basic husbandry and health checks?
Then this class is for you. Held on Tuesdays evenings at 6.00 until 7.00 for 6 weeks. For more information please call 07947739664

22/02/2023

As Rose is in season it prompted me to post another educational post, as this topic comes up alot with clients

Your females first season...

It's worth having a little understanding and knowledge to help you plan for your young females first time in heat. With a little planning it shouldn’t cause too many issues for you or your young dog.

Be aware that she may have her first season any time from around 6 months of age. The average age being between 9 and 12 months of age. It varies from dog to dog.

Seasons usually happen about twice a year, occurring between every 6 and 12 months. Again this varies. Some only have 1 season a year.

The season can last an average of 3 - 4 weeks.

There are some physical changes and signs to look out for when your young female comes into season.

It's likely that the first thing you notice is her v***a becomes swollen/enlarged. It can be significantly larger than usual, sometimes more than double it's usual size.

There will also be some bleeding. You may expect to see a lot of blood, but, it's not always obvious. Sometimes you may only see odd spots on the floor or on her bed/blanket.

As she becomes fertile, the bleeding may become more watery looking or even stop. She will be most fertile between around day 8 and day 15 of her season. However, be aware that she can become pregnant until the end of her season.

Some females keep themselves very clean, so spotting day 1 can be tricky. Once the v***a is swelling I tissue test daily to check for signs of blood.

It's quite normal (but not always the case) to notice a few changes in her temperament or behaviour. Every female is different, with some they may seem lethargic, or, seem more clingy than usual. Some may be more excitable and full of beans, maybe even behaving a little bratty. Some may try to hump other dogs. She may urinate more frequently, and some scent mark.

Do take care when your female dog is in season. A male dog can pick up the scent of a female in heat for MILES.

Be extra careful if you have an entire male dog and a female in heat living together. They will need to be kept apart.

Do not underestimate the lengths a male dog will go to, just to get to a female in heat. Dogs have been known to start tracking a female in heat if out on a walk, escape gardens, break through garden fencing and jump very high fences to get to a female in heat.

Some male dogs can become very stressed, I've even known dogs to stop eating if there is a female in heat nearby. He may vocalise, howl, whine, bark and pace.

My advice is to avoid walking your female in heat where you are likely to see other dogs. You don't want a male dog following you home! If there is somewhere secure you can go and exercise her safely, great. I'd also recommend keeping her close by or even on a lead. She may decide to go looking for a mate!

As your female comes out of season keep an eye on her for signs of a phantom pregnancy

https://www.petmd.com/dog/conditions/reproductive/c_dg_false_pregnancy

And for Pyometra

https://pets.webmd.com/dogs/what-is-pyometra-in-dogs

25/01/2023

Sadley little lilly didn't make it home 😭💔🌈

23/01/2023

🚨 Apologies I’m having technical difficulties with my phone line at the moment calls and messages aren’t being received. If you need me to get in contact with me please message me on here or via whatts app. Sorry for any inconvenience caused. 🚨

26/12/2022

Hope you all had a relaxing and wondrous Christmas.

15/12/2022

URGENT REQUEST FOR THE NATIONAL ANIMAL WELFARE TRUST WATFORD

They are desperately in need of old towels, bed sheets, Blankets, duvets, warm dog bedding, The centre is really struggling as it’s all frozen over and the washing machines have broken, and they can not wash anything and they must be washed regularly for the dogs and cats to stay safe, clean and warm, I’m happy to collect them and drop them for you also. 🐶 🐕 🐈 🐈‍⬛ 🐱

Address below for drop off point also you can get stuff delivered direct to the centre from Amazon thank you.

02/11/2022

This is why I love the job I do and the clients I work with. After showing them how amazing their dogs are and giving them the right tools and direction and then All THEIR a hard work and rebuilding of their relationships with their dogs results like this… 2 calm dogs staying in place when they’re having a family meal where as before they were constantly at the table looking for snacks and freebies!

25/10/2022

This little lady Buffy came to me as a reactive and nervous girl, after a horrific experience at a puppy class she found lots and lots of new situations stressful. With the firework season upon us she began desensitisation work with her mum, this starts by giving them a relaxing and positive Serotonin job to do whilst playing the noise of fireworks softly and more and more louder over a period of days/time until eventually this becomes the result a calm relaxed dog.

Obviously with all fireworks unless you know your dog is 💯 bomb proof and non reactive or likely to bolt try not to walk them when fireworks are likely to be happening and especially not off lead.

As we are in firework season now and if your dog is struggling with firework stress, make sure they have had a good run/walk during the day, play some mental games with them. Make them a nice safe den, with a chew or stuffed kong and let them go in, close curtains/blinds play soft classical music or turn up the TV To drown out noise for them and remember to keep calm yourself.. use an ADAPTIL plug in near their den/crate and remember to try not to over react to your dogs uncomfort and keep working on desensitisation of fireworks until your dog is comfortable.

If you need any assistance with this please feel free to contact me.

25/10/2022

https://fb.watch/gn-mGocaqN/

08/10/2022

08/10/2022

This little lady and her sister used to pull, zig zag and very loudly react to any one and other dogs and just make walking not fun at all for anyone. (Except them!) Walking became something mum didn’t enjoy at all. Now look at them! All the hard work is paying off! 🌟

22/09/2022

Why teaching your dog”place” is so important. It teaches your dog to relax and settle in even the most stimulating of places. Here we are in a busy vets, where there is an overload of sensory stimuli for a dog, with sights and smells and noises, lots of other animals, lovely nurses and Ofcourse treats and the excitement of going into see the vet! But teaching your dog to go into a full down and settle helps them to relax. This is so important to teach your dog and this video here is the exact reason for it.

15/09/2022

Please note when booking a training or behavioural session a 50% securing fee will be taken before the first session takes place.