The Dog Squad

06/01/2025

SLEEP WELL dearest Alf… 🐾💔🌈
I am so very sad to share news of Alf’s sudden passing this weekend. At just five years old, he has gone way too soon and without warning, which is so very hard for us humans to process.

Alf joined The Dog Squad early last year and took to scentwork like a duck to water. His enthusiasm was unbridled; he was a natural, a fantastic air-scenting dog who would sometimes like to retrieve KONG! Tricia swore he only barked in class, I like to think from pure joy!

Alf completed his UK Sniffer Dogs Bronze and Silver awards and joined our Demonstration Team at Paws in the Park last September, taking the crowds in his stride and showing everyone just how brilliant he was at his job. He was due to start his UKSD Gold and NNA journey this week.

On behalf of The Squad, our deepest condolences to Tricia and family who have lost a family member, scentwork and running partner. He was the goodest boi, a joy to train and a beautiful soul. Fly high dearest Alf! 🧡

06/01/2025

LAST FEW SPACES for Retrieve Team Level One starting tomorrow! 🎾

This course covers what you need to make day to day walks enjoyable with your dog: loose lead, recall, impulse control and putting the brainwork into fetch!

Perfect for ADOLESCENT dogs, working breeds, especially gundogs, come and reap the rewards of your training!

https://www.bookmyclass.co.uk/TheDogSquad/booking.aspx?BFID=101&CID=95

05/01/2025

Congrats to Lynne with Pip who placed Reserve at today’s Foundation Trial, also winning out of Foundation! And well done Lorna with Lottie who gained two more badges at their second trial, fantastic work and a brilliant start to the year!

05/01/2025

Excellent work from Lynne and Lorna who kicked off the year with a Foundation Trial with The National Nosework Association. Pip took Reserve and won out of Foundation whilst Lottie gained her second set of badges! Well done both!

Spaces available for our ORT clinics the next couple of Tuesdays if you’d like to get trialling with the NNA. Message me to discuss!

01/01/2025

Can we get some followers for Large Breed Dog Rescue this new year please? It is much harder to find homes for larger breeds so every follower is a potential new lead/share/help! 🙏

So we are 950 people away from 40,000 followers so your mission if you choose to accept it is to share our page to all your doggie friends and get us to that milestone

Every person on the page is a potential home for a dog. a sponsor for fun day, a transport volunteer, a sharer

01/01/2025

Happy New Year folks! As I say to the dogs, “ready, ready???”
Let’s do this! 🎉🐾💪🖤

30/12/2024

💜 THE POSITIVE PUPPY! 💜 Helping you shape your puppy into the dog you’ve been dreaming of!

During our six week foundation course you will learn HOW your puppy learns and be coached on different techniques to support your training journey together!

We cover all the things you want to get right like:

✔️ Loose Lead Walking
✔️ Recall
✔️ Impulse Control &
✔️ Socialisation

AS WELL AS, all the things your pup needs you to get right, like

🐾 Habituation
🐾 Play
🐾 Communication &
🐾 Rest

The Positive Puppy will be running outdoors at Kings Hill Sports Park on Wednesday mornings AND indoors at West Peckham Village Hall on Tuesday evenings from early Jan’25.

Head to The Puppy Club at linktr.ee/thedogsquadofficial for more info!

linktr.ee/thedogsquadofficial 🐾

29/12/2024

Change of scenery! 👌

23/12/2024

Wishing all our friends, clients and followers a wonderful Christmas! 🎄🎁🐾

I am taking the next week off to spend with family so please bear with me and I will reply to messages in the New Year! 🎉

Merry Christmas All from Charlie and I! 🖤

22/12/2024

In the spirit of the season; “She’s behiiiiind you!!” 🎭

18/12/2024

Although the dog’s visual colour spectrum is not as varied as our human one, I like to think that they smell in a vast colour spectrum of their own! This is a brilliant depiction of how many tracks they might scent and that’s just the scent on the ground!

https://www.facebook.com/share/15NwDfJe6f/?mibextid=wwXIfr

A fun visual representation of what your dog sees (smells) every day. Look at how noisy it is and how many tracks there are intertwining. The different animals, people, and dogs movement in just one area. The snow lets us humans see the history of this area and what animals and people have passed through. A dog will smell this every day and know who and what animals have passed through. Smellavision!!!!

Dogs are incredible.

Imagine tracking and detection dogs needing to filter out all this noise and track a single scent down. Amazing!

(Note this is a fun representation, not accurate)

15/12/2024

We had a fun morning at Nosework Games Level One with Cloud Nine K9s Scentwork & Search Dogs, a first for myself, Gail and Helena, second time for Sue.

Sprout with Sue cleaned up winning 1st in Go to Source, 2nd in Needle in a Haystack and 2nd overall! 👏

Xyla with Gail placed 3rd in Needle in a Haystack and Charlie and I placed 2nd in No Going Back.

Charlie really struggled with the two indoor searches, fell back into barking which in turn triggers me! Toffy was super distracted with all the new smells, sights and sounds and a complete change of context, so Helena also experienced some frustration today.

However, whenever things don’t go to plan, I see it as ‘valuable information gained’, not failure. Dogs have zero interest in deliberately upsetting us or deliberately not doing their job. It is our job to work out what it is in the environment or context that has prevented our dog from working and then feed that into our training programme to set them up for better success next time.

So well done ladies, thank you for having us Rhea, and here’s to more Dog Squad Day Outs in 2025! 🐾🐾🐾

14/12/2024

📣 Well done to all our Christmas Competitors today!
Silly Santa says thanks so much to all the dog’s for saving his bacon this year, as all magical pills have been recovered! 🥳

Each of the searches posed its own challenge and the dogs were ready to rise to them! Here are the challenge winners!

💫 Nancy wasted no time on the Calendar Chaos, finding in a record 6 seconds!

💫 The Stockings caused no surprise for Maggi today who triumphed in 5 seconds flat!

💫 Bertie was not to be outdone conquering Santa’s Sacks in just 7 seconds!

💫 Indy Paraded the Presents like a Pro winning out in just 23 seconds

💫 Milo did not Blunder on the Baubles, proving he is ORT ready in just 5 seconds!

💫 And Sprout was not worried by the Workshop, winning out in an incredible 23 seconds!

🎄 Shout out to Jo and Emma who tied on the human scent test correctly calling 5 out of 6 mystery scents! I know who all the drinkers are now! 😜

So after much fun and festivity, here are our overall Christmas Winners, based on highest number of hides found, in fastest time and with false calls accounted… 🥁🥁🥁🥁

🥇1st Place: Helena with Toffy!

🥈2nd Place: Sue with Sprout

🥉3rd Place: Sarah with Luna

Well done to all the dogs! Everyone found 7 hides or more, and the handlers entered into the spirit of things wonderfully! Thank you so much for coming!
🐾🎄🎅🏼🎁

13/12/2024

Congrats to our latest Puppy Club members to finish their Foundation course today!

It’s been a really fun six weeks getting to know these puppies and see their different characters emerging. I am confident that these handlers have a number of strategies up their sleeve to help with loose lead training, recall and early impulse control as well as having enjoyed some nosework games along the way and had a chance to learn and practice appropriate socialisation.

There is so much more to developing a puppy than we can cover in six weeks but I certainly aim to get everyone off to an excellent start. Now the ball is in their court as to what they keep up and I hope to see lots of them in 2025 and beyond!

Well done everyone! 👏👏👏