The Pack Therapist - Eleonora Capobianco - Dog Trainer & Behaviorist

05/04/2023

💡🐾 Hopefully reflections inspiring aftermath and considerations on my experience in Malta🐾💡

In the past 4 years spent working in Malta, entering in contact with hundreds of families, I collected quite some data and could start seeing statistical recurrence.
The picture that emerges of the situation is quite clear and endemic:
most dogs live in a condition of deprivation regarding their primary needs and unnecessary overstimulation at the same time, with activities and environmental stimuli they were not prepared for and not supposed to face. This results always in a condition of chronic stress and accumulated traumas, that are the main cause of most of all those behaviors that we call problems.
The lack of opportunities and the difficulties for dogs of having healthy social contacts and experiences are also contributing to increase stress levels, while they should be one of the primary needs to fulfill to provide a balanced healthy life.
The old classical training ways that most owners seek to solve these problems are actually creating more stress in dogs and worsening the situation, if not creating problems in the first place in dogs that had none.
The root cause of this, is that we tend to seek control and obedience over understanding and collaboration, that should be the foundations of including dogs in our social group called family.
Coercion, commands, orders, conditioning, are not the ways to establish a healthy relationship, nor the tools we need to obtain what we want.
Knowledge, respect and commitment are much more powerful and effective tools, but they put the effort on us, so most people prefer to fool themselves with delegating to wizards with a magic wand or following instructions without questioning nor fully comprehending them, hoping they'll do the trick.
In my experience this road always leads nowhere good.🤓

16/02/2023

⚠️Online Support available ONLY⚠️
At the end of this January I moved away from Malta, but knowing the situation of my working field in the country, I feel like some people can still need and use my help.
This is why, in the limit of my possibilities, I decided to leave behavioral consultation services still available as online support.
Please contact me only if you are ok with this kind of service🙂.

Online services available only! From now on I can only provide online support to whoever may need my help and services.

12/01/2023

I was so proud and excited for this project, so much that it took me the whole summer to make it perfect and prepare it to be used, as it was too hot anyway. Then the rain season came. And then I had another big unforseen situation that kept me from starting activities and now is forcing me to give up the whole thing.
Life is unpredictable, but in this case in a good way :) , so I am not too sad to renounce to this project, wich I put a lot of love in, to dedicate myself to another personal one 🤰.
If there is anyone interested in renting an amazing field, with a peaceful and heart filling view, that is already set up for dog amusement, here is the link ⤵️
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/3428928137432682/

11/01/2023

🎬 last chapter for this adventure 🎬

31/10/2022

🎬 here we go again😊

23/10/2022

first episode of new season aired yesterday 😊🎬

20/10/2022

05/10/2022

I was amazed to find such a good report of the situation of Strays and dog shelters reality in my country, made accessible to English speaking public.
I feel obligated and honored to share this, as finally some important words coming from the best of my teachers and colleagues can be heard and hopefully initiate some questions and doubt in the mind of those people that consider themselves dogs lovers or volunteer in this field.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1dQiqW81hg&ab_channel=FiloFilmsTV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE1lBPmuZMc&ab_channel=FiloFilmsTV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N48Ipg_MXDw&ab_channel=FiloFilmsTV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=symqrzl5e08&ab_channel=FiloFilmsT

A four-part documentary about stray dogs in Italy. Please check out our first episode with Luca Spennacchio, and help us spread the word. You can also find u...

21/09/2022

Short sad chronicle of a walk on a foggy muddy lake...🐾🙈😣
Everybody enjoys things in their own way😁..spoiler, that on my dog's face is not mud 🐄

13/09/2022

So true :)

16/08/2022

THE GIFT OF THE GROWL
Why growling should never be punished and also never be ignored
Not all growls are negative. Some growls are play growls, attention seeking growls, pleasure seeking growls or frustration growls. They may all sound a little different and may be unique to the particular dog. This post is not about different types of growls, but about warning or aggressive growls.
When a dog growls, maybe even at us, the natural human response is to feel offended and maybe even angry. Surely dogs need to learn not to growl, growling is bad, growling is unacceptable, growling is a problem and needs to be punished so a dog learns it’s wrong, disrespectful and not to do it again, right?
NO, this couldn’t be further from the truth! A dog that growls has just provided us with a very valuable communication signal. In their way, they have just communicated to us how they feel without resorting to a bite. Dogs use growling in an attempt to avoid having to resort to biting, not to initiate it. They could just as easily have not even bothered to growl and gone straight to a bite.
Growling is a dog's way of saying "please stop," "stay away from me," "go away," “I’m not comfortable with this and I’m feeling threatened”. A dog that growls is trying hard to communicate and punishment suppresses this ability to communicate. Punishment doesn’t change the level of the dog's discomfort; it creates more stress and the dog will feel more threatened.
Growling is not the problem. Growling is the result of and the symptom of a problem. A dog that bites without the warning of a growl is a far more serious problem than a dog that growls but doesn’t bite.
Look for any other early warning signals that may precede a growl. Recognize and take note of what makes your dog feel threatened and create distance between your dog and whatever is triggering them.
Be grateful for the gift of a growl - it provides us with an opportunity to address the cause & prevent the bite.

09/07/2022

🎬🐾

19/06/2022

🎬 Every now and then I get the opportunity to share knowledge through different channels and hopefully get to a wider audience with some educational information 😊
For whoever missed it, this is a first pill on this nice tv program Madagascar ‘Id-Dinja tal-Annimali’.
ENJOY !🍿🐾

19/06/2022

one week late, but better than never!
I'll share the episode this evening 😊

13/05/2022

COLLIER vs HARNAIS
j’entends souvent dire que le cou du chien est très fort et résistant grâce à la présence de certains muscles « costaux»…
🤔🤔🤔
peut-être bien, mais ces muscles se trouvent sur LES CÔTÉS, pas DEVANT ou on trouve des organes assez délicats et fragiles et où justement le chien sent et subit la traction de la laisse.

09/05/2022

⚠️ WORK IN PROGRESS⚠️

I am delighted to announce that after three years of search, I finally found a field in a lovely location to create an experiential ground for dogs to have socializing opportunities and for their owners to have a learning time in a peaceful and safe place.
I am working hard to prepare it and make it as welcoming, fun and comfortable as possible and my dogs are helping in testing the tools and finding all the cozy corners 😄🐾
Spoiler down here⤵️

12/04/2022

❓ WHEN IS THE RIGHT TIME TO START TRAINING MY DOG❓

This is definitely one of the most frequently asked questions I get, and it usually comes already too late.

The answer is simple, but hard to give, as it requires a significant shift in the mindset of the person who asks.

The training is mainly for the owners on how to educate their dogs, so it does not depend on the dog's age.

Educating the dog is a process we carry out every single day through every little interaction and experience we have with our companion, not through fixed exercises to condition certain behavioral responses.
In order to teach anything to our dogs that will help them cope in the un-natural life they share with us, that will make it simpler for both, we have to educate ourselves first.

So the new question would be:
👉 "WHEN SHOULD I START MY TRAINING AS A DOG OWNER/PARENT"❓

In this case the answer is A.S.A.P., ideally even before the dog is in our family.
With puppies especially, every little minute counts as we have the hardest part of the job to carry out before the fourth month of age, if we want to prevent any of the most common issues in the future. Then we have adolescence to face, for dogs it lasts few months but is an equally challenging time ahed of us.

We usually have 9 months to prepare ourselves for the task of parenting a child as a new member of our family and it's of our own species. What let us think that parenting an individual of a different species, who's lifespan is much shorter, as his evolutionary process, should be an easier task?
Too many dogs end up abandoned or suffering, because of the total lack of awareness in humans of the responsibility and efforts that this task demands.

⚠ As for the majority of cases, prevention is better than cure.⚠

07/01/2022

SUPPORT GROUP CREATED!

👉www.facebook.com/groups/educateddogownersinmalta/

The number of families with dogs in Malta is constantly increasing, but the places dedicated to animals are not following the same trend.
We have already few options where to bring our furry companions and some of these are becoming dangerous or very stressful to use just because people are not educated on how to behave and handle themselves in order to respect and not become a problem for others.

Sometimes this lack of knowledge or responsibility creates serious and terrible situations that reflects negatively on the entire community of dog owners, or worse, on the innocents dogs in general.
More often this just results in a wide numbers of dogs not having a social life because their owners don't feel comfortable in those situations and just avoid them.

With these reasons, and pushed by a concrete need of certain special dogs to have social interactions in a safe way, I finally decided to expand my contribution with a new project.
I created a group where the individuals that responsibly completed an educational program with me, will have direct access, so they can connect with people that share the same knowledge and skills and be of help and support to each other.

My purpose is to facilitate the birth of a community that could create options for dogs to meet safely and gather social competences through positive experiences🐾😎.

Hoping this will promote responsibility and education as a trend.

16/12/2021

Animals don't speak our human language but they talk.
They use a universal language and then every species has its own dialect and culture in a way.
We consider them as stupid or inferior just because they don't have a complex verbal language when in their simples ways they can express so much without words.
Instead of trying to impose our ways and uses to them we should really start to listen to them and learn how to go back to that simplicity of nature that we got so far from and is starting to affect not only us but also our pets.