My Dog Trainer

17/12/2024

Agreed!

13/12/2024

My ideal client - open to learning and doing what I suggest. It was truly a pleasure working with Alex and his pups.

06/12/2024

I love happy clients and Journie was an absolute sweet wild boy.

05/12/2024

5 REASONS TO TEACH YOUR DOG TO LIE DOWN

1. For a Veterinary Physical Exam
2. For clipping / cutting nails
3. When your dog is running off
towards danger
4. On a mat when Visitors enter
5. When you want to relax

03/12/2024

02/12/2024

Get the right dog from the right shelter!

29/11/2024

Are you planning on getting or giving someone a puppy for Christmas?

28/11/2024

If you had only one word to describe your pet what would it be? 🤔

27/11/2024

If you're having difficulty reducing your overweight dog, and keep restricting his or her food more and more, you will be depriving them of essentials needed for health and long life - vitamins and minerals, fatty and amino acids. If you have a large dog with a weight problem and no amount of reducing food helps, you need a full panel thyroid test. And sometimes, believe it or not, you need more food, not less. But at a minimum, the required nutrients missing from a very low calorie diet have to be replaced. Don't like to use supplements? I prefer not to as well, but if it's a choice between using them or having the dog suffer the consequences of chronic low intake or even deficiency, in a heartbeat I'm adding the supplements.

27/11/2024

Treat🍟🍖 or Toy🥏⚽️. Which would your pup choose first?

25/11/2024

We are still getting thunderstorms and with Independence Day this weekend, that means Fireworks, but you can DO something to help your dog's fear and anxiety, it's no fun being terrified!

17/11/2024

It's a rainy, thundery day. Do something to help your pets. In two weeks time, it's Independence Day in Bim = Fireworks, time to start Desensitising your dog to Fireworks NOW! Call me, I can help!

16/11/2024

"I am a board-certified, veterinary technician, specialist in behavior.

A secondary socialization period from 12– 16 weeks is not recognized. The brain stops growing ex-utero at roughly 12-13 weeks; this is defined as the sensitive period for socialization.

It is important to gently expose puppies to everything possible before 12 weeks of age, assuring that they have pleasant memories without fear. This should begin as soon as the puppy is 5 weeks of age, at the breeder.

Puppies should be interacted with different textures, gentle handling, and veterinary care. They should have “protected exposure” to different environments, meet all kinds of people and children and a wide variety of “ known” and reasonably gentle, vaccinated, healthy adult dogs and puppies.

Caution should be taken to not expose puppies to sick dogs, puppies with unknown vaccination histories, and frightening experiences.

Food is used for counter conditioning, to prevent negative emotions from “sticking” when inadvertently bad experiences happen.

I ran puppy socials at a veterinary behavior service for six years. We included puppies as young as eight weeks, after they received one set of vaccines and were cleared as negative for parasites and other communicable diseases. We wanted to know that they were in the home for at least a few days to assure that they were asymptomatic for respiratory or gastrointestinal symptoms.

Occasionally, we had an outbreak of Giardia or a tracheobronchitis which was quickly detected and contained. We would simply notify everyone and cancel one social if needed.

The risk of not exposing puppies under 12 weeks to other dogs, children, and people has profound detrimental outcomes for many dogs. When dogs have serious behavior problems, lack of socialization before 12 weeks is considered just as detrimental as genetics and epigenetics.

Many veterinarians are still touting incorrect information. I work with clients all over who tell me that veterinary hospitals tell them not to expose the puppy to dogs or take them out of the house until after the rabies vaccine at 14–16 weeks.

This is incorrect information and we have significant scientific data to prove it.

Most of this information has been widely available for 30 years or so, but I find that the veterinary community doesn’t readily listen to the specialty of veterinary behavior medicine as much as they would perhaps listen to an oncologist or an orthopedic specialist.

It is important to continue to give puppies over 12 weeks of age pleasant experiences, and gentle exposure but they are no longer in the sensitive period for socialization."