Weird & Wonderful, Dog Training and Behaviour

Shelby’s new summer pool since she rips through all the softer ones 😅 the water doesn’t last long 🤣 £7.99 in Aldi, I got mine last week (Thank you to Daisy’s mum for the heads up)🍦

Hector and Hamish modelling some lovely calm behaviour whilst the sheep pass so we can carry on our walk 🐑 One of the arguments I often see on social media which promote the use of shock collars is that they are needed to control dogs around livestock. But all we have used with these guys is a dog lead and some kind and simple training methods 😆

Snow white moment 😆 I was asked to feed the wildlife when looking after my clients rabbits and when I was told that some of them would feed from my hand, I was very excited 🤣 Mr Robin did not disappoint!

Being a greyhound Charlie has an extremely high prey drive so I thought I would get my furry tug toy out and see how he reacted… Fair to say he loved it 💚 Things like this allows Charlie to have an outlet for that prey drive, it can also be used as a reward and something to focus on when we are out on walks 🐇

The 3 main reasons why our dogs struggle with loose lead walking! 1. The Environment. The world is very exciting to our dogs, there’s lots to see and smell. Things to explore and lots of information left by other dogs to suss out. 2. Natural Walk. Every dogs natural pace is much faster than the human one, even those tiny dogs have a faster walk than us. This means when we ask them to loose lead walk, they are having to go against everything that is natural for them. Have you ever been stuck behind a slow walker in town? How frustrating and hard work it is to slow down our own natural pace, that’s exactly how our dogs feel. 3. US. The biggest reason why our dogs struggle with this type of training is because we don’t give them consistent and clear rules. One minute we expect them to LLW and the next we have forgotten all about it and they are off ahead in front of us sniffing. So they don’t understand what they are expected to do. We also have super high, unrealistic and unmanageable expectations of them. LLW training takes a long time because it’s so difficult, and we can often get ahead of ourselves and expect them to do much more than they can cope with. However with a few easy principles and lots and lots of practice we can help our dogs slow down and save our shoulders 🤣

Listen to those sniffs 🐽 Don’t forget to get those noses working this week! The benefits are endless!

Why is play so important to our dogs? 🐶 It helps build connection and improves your relationship 🐶 The better the bond we have with our dogs the more trust we have 🐶 Builds better focus and engagement. The more fun we are the less they will care about the world around them! 🐶 Stress relief for both players, mental stimulation and simply because it’s FUN! Each dog plays differently so it’s important you find the right play style for your dog. Whether that’s tug, being chased or being the chaser, rough play, gentle games! Try some different styles out to see what you dog likes the most. What’s your dogs favourite game to play?

The READY…STEADY game! One of my favourite games to get our dogs attention on us and help distract them during triggers 🐶 I taught Shelby this game to encourage her back in from the garden when she was having too much fun to come back in. She now knows “ready… steady” means something good is about to happen and she comes flying through the door. It allows me to recall her in a different way instead of weakening her main recall cue. Charlie ( in the video) absolutely adores this game. I noticed Charlie would slow right down or completely stop when taking a treat. This isn’t ideal when we are trying to reward him as we move passed triggers, as we want to move away as quick as possible. So we started to play this game, not only does it get his attention back on us and allows us to keep moving but you can tell how much fun he is having while doing it 🎉

Why using a shorter lead can make pulling worse 🐶 Pulling on the lead is something a lot of dogs do, they naturally have a faster pace and bigger gait that us. They also have some amazing senses, in particular, that nose of theirs is extraordinary. This is why loose lead walking is a skill that’s hard to crack. 🧐 Personally I don’t mind dogs pulling. As long as they aren’t about to dislocate my shoulder… I do allow them to go off ahead to sniff and explore. With my own two girls, I’ve slowly worked on Loose lead with Shelby but I don’t expect it from her too much. With Nessie it’s much different, as a fearful dog, she tends to pull ahead when she is a little unsure of something and that is fine with me. I allow her to pull ahead so she can move away from whatever it may be that’s made her anxious and I’ll move quickly with her. So what has pulling got to do with the length of the lead? When we use a shorter lead, our dogs are quite constricted to where they can go. Our dogs will end up pulling a lot because in order to explore even a few steps ahead of us, they will have to pull as the lead won’t reach. Having a longer lead means they won’t need to pull as much in order to reach the sniff. It gives them extra freedom and can help teach them that they don’t need to pull in order to explore the world. The looser we can keep that lead, the less likely they will be reinforced by the environment for pulling. It’s important to note here, that I do not recommend using retractable leads for multiple reasons. I recommend using training leads, they have two clasps (one on each end) and rings up the lead so you can adjust the length. Take a look at this video of Bruno. He has some great training under his belt and when he’s engaging with me he will walk on a loose lead. In the video you can see the difference of having that little bit extra length on the lead, there’s much less tension not only on the lead but also in his body w

My boy, Hamish ⭐️ I just wanted to pop on a post about Hamish and how amazing he has been doing. He has had quite a rough year… he has severe allergies that lead to him having lots of trouble with his skin and has been having vaccines and lots of treatment for this at the vets, he was attacked at a local day care facility just after I closed the business and on top of all this his big brother Tommy sadly passed away and he now has another little brother. With lots going on, Hamish started to struggle on his walks with me. He had his confidence knocked a lot and struggled with leaving home. He would refuse to walk and get quite anxious about it. We put lots of things in place at home, as well as doing a pain trail to check that wasn’t the issue then stripped everything right back to basics. Me and hamish carried on doing our walks but took it right back. Keeping walks short and sweet and going home before he started to struggle, we wanted to make every walk a success so he could start building his confidence back up. There’s been lots of hurdles along the way and we have our bad and good days but most importantly we listen to Hamish and we have made slow but amazing progress. This video was on one of Hamish’s good days, just look at him go. I was so proud of how far we had come I wanted to do a little post for him ❤️❤️

This video is 12 seconds … but in reality they were out sniffing for 40 minutes. 40 MINUTES!! And all it took was me scattering a big handful of cat biscuits in the grass. Scatter feeding is an amazing enrichment tool and it requires basically zero effort from us. You don’t have to have a garden, you can do it in the house, in a snuffle mat and out on a walk. The value of spending time sniffing for a dog is unmatchable. I do this on days where I’ve been really busy and maybe the girls haven’t done much. Or when Shelby is over aroused and Nessie is stressed, it’s a great decompression and relaxation tool. You can do it with your dogs dry food if they are motivated enough to go find it, or break up some treats small, I even do this with peas when I overestimate on portions! It’s something every dog owner needs to add into their dogs life’s 🐽

Angus has made amazing progress since starting his walks with me ⭐️ Angus can be reactive to other dogs and is more comfortable when he can be a good distance away from them. We have been working hard on teaching him that dogs aren’t so scary and that when he sees dogs, a treat will follow. In the video you’ll see him looking off at the other side of the field at a dog and looking straight back to me for his reward for calm behaviour! ❤️

Wouldn’t expect anything less noisy for our Luna ☁️ Showcasing our crash gated boot (or as she would call it, jail 🤣) this gate is great for not only ensuring safety of the dogs in the boot if the worse were to happen but it also stops them from jumping out when I open it… it should be great as it was very expensive 😂 Don’t worry we do have seatbelts for dogs on the back seat if they find the boot a little scary 😧

The best boy 🐱 We cater for all kinds of pets with all kinds of needs, experienced with giving medication including insulin injections like shown with Jerry in the video :) Get in touch if you have a pet who requires extra help ❤️

Sniffy walks ✨ Sniffy walks are my favourite type of walks… especially when it’s a warmer day and we don’t want to do too much vigorous exercise and risk heat stroke. Although our sniffy walks do include some aspects of training, sometimes it is just nice to let the dogs have full control (obviously in a safe manner) to choose what they sniff and where to go. On this walk we spent 40 minutes in the same field, going into all the long grass and bushes and just encouraging them to use their noses. Did you know 15 minutes of sniffing can equal an hours walk? Sniffy walks are great for all dogs but I particularly love doing them with Nessie who often finds the world a scary place, so doing this can help her decompress and relax 🐶

We mainly focus on sniffs during our walks but Leo found out I had a squeaky ball in my pocket 🐶 🏀