Wenning Behaviour

19/03/2024

03/10/2023

My recent post that explained and showed the reactivity escalation sequence in slow motion—what it looks like, and when to correct—got some serious traction from grateful owners who’ve been looking to better understand the process and what to do about it. It also brought some good questions about differentiating between a normal, healthy baseline state of being, and when that baseline state has begun to shift and move into the escalation sequence.

While every dog is different, and all have differing levels of baseline intensity/arousal, as well as how short their fuse/how quick they move through the ES, the best tip is to get a solid sense of what your dog’s baseline state looks like when NO triggers are present. This means getting very clear and tuned-in to what your dog looks like, sounds like, feels like when the environment isn’t offering anything your dog would find triggering or highly stimulating—and your dog is just comfortably existing in the environment.

The eye contact should be soft, relaxed, and casually move from object of mild interest to the next without locking on/changing. The body should be fluid and relaxed, the head shouldn’t be darting around (or locking on), hackles shouldn’t be up, the tail should not be up and flagging (stiff), and there shouldn’t be any speeding up if you’ve taught a solid Heel—and if you have a reactive dog you absolutely should. The breathing should be normal (speed, volume, tone) for the pace, temperature, and activity—and there shouldn’t be any noticeable/dramatic deviations in it.

There’s more, but this is a good place to start. Your first job is to ensure that your baseline doesn’t have any of the above occurring—or as little as possible. (If your baseline is full of these arousal/reactivity signs, you’ve got an unhealthy baseline, and you’ll need to work on these and/or view your dog in a completely neutral environment to get a feel for the desired baseline.)

Your second job is to make the healthy, relaxed, non-aroused baseline state that your dog presents absolutely crystal clear and 100% etched in to your awareness. You HAVE to know your dog’s correct, or desired presentation if you’re going to be able to address the incorrect or undesired presentation. This is key to your success. Most owners have never truly identified the correct, desired presentation, and thus struggle to know what is incorrect, undesired—and thus hesitate due to uncertainty.

But, once you have the the correct, desired presentation clearly identified and the incorrect, undesired presentation clearly identified you’re ready to address any unhealthy deviations the instant they occur, thus addressing your dog as early in the escalation sequence as possible—which any good dog trainer will tell you is the primary secret to success when dealing with reactivity.

PS, what I’ve described here is what’s often ascribed to dog trainers as “good timing.” But the “good timing” isn’t the byproduct of developing ninja-like reflexes (although I wouldn’t say no if offered, lol), the “good timing” is actually the deep (and when practiced enough) seemingly unconscious awareness of what is desired and healthy behavior and what is undesired and unhealthy behavior. Which seems to give the trainer mystical timing, as if they’re correcting before the behavior has even occurred—but it’s really just well-trained “seeing” that enables them to address the behavior so early that it appears to not even have “happened.” Luckily this “seeing” is something that, if desired deeply enough, can be developed the same as any trainer.

23/09/2023

Good morning Wenners, please forgive me. But fie to unforeseen circumstances we won't be out in the park this weekend hence the sad face. But we'll see you All next week. Stay blessed and warm

20/09/2023

15/09/2023

Tomorrow! Tomorrow! We'll see you tomorrow!!!

14/09/2023

I watch owners and trainers work tirelessly to apply fancy terms, diagnoses, and explanations for behavior issues, when reality offers far simpler answers, and solutions.

When I look at all the dogs I’ve worked with over the years, regardless of what their issues have been or where these issues might have emanated from there’s been a simple through line with helping each one: clear, non-negotiable guidance in the form of high quality feedback.

My job has been to determine what behaviors are desired and undesired, what behaviors are healthy and unhealthy—and then simply nurture that which is desired and healthy, and diminish that which is undesired and unhealthy. In other words, to give high quality feedback, or information which steers the dog through the complex and often overwhelming world they inhabit with us.

This is simple stuff, but simple stuff which gets hijacked by the human need for overly intellectual and overly emotional explanations.

Whether it’s been aggression, reactivity, hyper-territoriality, possessiveness, over-protectiveness, fearfulness, bullying, or any other large or small issue, the answer has been the same—give high quality feedback to ensure the dog isn’t left with only its personality, breed tendencies, and canine genetic predisposition to navigate our challenging world and make its own determinations of how to best respond.

Of course, when I look at owners who are struggling with any of the issues listed here (or any others), it always comes down to the same thing—the inverse of what I’ve shared above. A consistent lack of quality feedback and information shared with the dog. Which then creates a huge chasm of guidance which the dog will inevitably fill in whatever fashion that is most natural to that particular dog.

This is where the fancy terms, diagnoses, and explanations come in. Instead of seeing the root cause we see the symptoms and try to make sense of them… but without taking the necessary extra step back to what nurtured the symptoms in the first place—that feedback, information, guidance gap.

The more I’ve thought about this the clearer it’s become. “Leadership” is just a simple way of saying: “Quality feedback, information, and guidance.” And when we see dogs misbehaving and struggling, we should skip the search for fancy definitions or chasing the vague and elusive cause—because the answer is always more simple and always the same… a lack of quality leadership.

TLDR: all behavior issues stem not from the dogs magically manifesting problem behaviors, they stem from owners not giving adequate, high quality feedback, information, and guidance—which forces the dog to offer their best version of what you should be doing… leading.

10/09/2023

I’m always fascinated that so few ever consider/understand this. Of course when it comes to the purely positive/force-free folks, I expect it, but I’m amazed that much of the balanced community seems to be just as blind to it.

What you will often hear in the balanced community are conversations about the dog’s softness and the need to be judicious and sensitive in the application of corrections/punishment, but strangely, you almost never hear similar conversations about rewards. As if only one necessitates careful consideration.

And to be fair, you’ll often hear conversations about how you “present” yourself to firmer, more challenging dogs, in order to be able to be successful and safe. And yet somehow the act of rewarding—which is absolutely being taken in as a conversation by the dog about who you are—is almost never considered part of how you’re presenting yourself, nor is it considered how the dog might run with these conversations which most don’t even realize they’re having.

Play a loose and depth-free game of rewarding a firm or serious dog and you could very easily find yourself in very deep trouble. Play the same game with a pushy, bratty dog and you’ll wonder why you’re getting so much pushback and struggling so much.

The upshot: If you’re training dogs—dogs which will come with wildly varying personalities—you had better start developing awareness around the multiple layers of conversations you’re having with them. If you think rewards are just rewards, you’re playing some seriously shallow checkers while the dog is playing some seriously deep chess.

If you haven’t given much thought to the deeper layers of impact that rewards can have on the dog, their downstream behavior, and their perception of you, I suggest you devote some time to its consideration.

PS, to be clear, I obviously have nothing against rewards—I use them with every single dog—but I am incredibly judicious in my entire presentation/interaction with the dog, and keenly tuned into how every input from me impacts behavior… and interfaces with their personality. Which means I treat rewards with the utmost consideration, regard, and respect, to ensure I’m not just training surface level behaviors, but far more importantly, I’m training and molding who the dog becomes and how the dog shows up in the world in the deepest behavioral sense.

09/09/2023

How did we get your dog here?

This should be obvious. If you’ve brought your dog in for training, there’s obviously some aspects of the way you’re living together which aren’t working, aren’t healthy, or need improving.

Over and over at go-home sessions I hear clients ask: “When can we pet/kiss/cuddle him?”, “When can he be allowed to freely roam?”, “When can he be on the furniture?”, “When can we relax the rules and loosen up?” And while I get all these questions—we get dogs so we can enjoy them—there seems to be a strange void in reality, or maybe better yet, in understanding.

If you’ve got a dog with zero issues, and your relationship and life together is one of harmony and ease, this post isn’t for you. And our services are likely not something you’d be searching out. But, if you don’t fall into this category, whether it be due to your hard work with your dog, or due to having one of those unicorn dogs (they’re out there!), then it’s time for some straight talk, and hopefully some helpful tips.

If you find yourself in the camp of needing to make changes and improvements with your dog, then the above questions are not the questions you should be focused on, at least not yet, and likely not for a good while. Instead, the questions should be: “How do we construct our day/life to best recreate how you lived with our dogs?”, “What were we missing/doing that created the mixed messages or allowances that led things astray?”, “How do we learn to see all the little moments—which we thought were benign—as far larger, gateway moments?”, “How do we present ourselves in a fashion which will cause our dogs to take us seriously?”, “How does affection, doting, treats, and even play often create messages of softness that work against our goals?”, “How do we correct our dog’s unwanted behavior in a fashion which is effective and helpful?”, “How do we stop feeling guilty about implementing all of these changes, and instead feel good that we’re doing what’s best for our dogs?”, “How do we do what you did, exactly, so we can get what you got?”

The questions should be focused on fixing what was missing or broken, rather than focused on “How do we get back to where we were…which caused us to come to you in the first place?” I’m sure you see the irony here. And like I said, the goal isn’t to be in this new space forever, but you have to come to terms with the fact that you’re fighting an uphill battle. One of deeply entrenched perceptions, patterns, associations—which all need to be undone, and rebuilt correctly, BEFORE the fun stuff can be implemented without fallout, fallback, and disappointment.

Once you’ve put in that work, THEN you can start to ask the other questions. And if you do so in this order, you’ll find yourself talking with a very excited, motivated, and optimistic dog trainer…because they’ll know you’re both focused on reality, sacrifice, effort, and compromises. And they’ll know they’ve got a client who’s got a very good chance of achieving their goals. ❤️

02/09/2023

About today, meet Vinci, our newest recruit!

02/09/2023

Looks like rain, but I'll be there, in my gumboots and rainmac! Bring an umbrella if you must!

02/09/2023

We see this issue over and over. Dogs who have behavior issues who’ve been taught all manner of cool looking obedience stuff, but have zero ability to shut it all off and simply relax/turn off.

You don’t have to look far to see the countless examples of humans in your life who use motion (physical body movement, talking etc.), constant activity (work, scrolling, never ending social activities, exercise junkies etc.), and of course all manner of bad habits (alcohol, drugs, food, shopping etc.)… all to help them avoid the busy and uncomfortable mind they’re stuck with because they haven’t done the work to learn how to healthily turn it off.

Our dogs are of course far more simple, and far less crafty in the ways they camouflage their issues, but camouflage they do, and if you’re encouraging it through constant play, constant motion-oriented training, and constant stimulation, you can’t be surprised when your dog is a camouflaging master who not only is unable to be calm/still/relaxed when needed, but who also almost certainly has other seemingly unrelated behavior issues which are absolutely related—you just don’t see how.

Which is why we focus so much on both sides of the coin—and often for the highly anxious ones, we focus even more on the stillness/off-switch than anything else. Learning to see what your dog, or the dog you’re training truly needs, rather than just blindly following training traditions or what the cool kids have to say, is the first step. Then, do a little test: simply check and see if you teach your dog Place or a Downstay if they can actually hold it, with distractions and life going on around them, without melting down with shaking, whining, obsessive licking/chewing, and without constant breaking.

And if you do decide to focus on training your dog how to be calm and relaxed and still, check in in a few weeks or so and see if some of the behavior issues you were struggling with have simply disappeared. My guess is that you’ll be very surprised. We see this all the time.

Remember, a dog who can perform all the obedience work flawlessly, but who cannot be calm, still, and relaxed flawlessly, is a dog who is trained in a very superficial and lopsided fashion. A fashion which serves the owner’s perception of accomplishment, but does not serve the dog’s needs.

30/08/2023

Be there or be square!

25/09/2021

Commitment and passion for our pups goes a long way.

17/09/2021

Did you see this great article in YOU magazine, written by Co-owner of COAPE, Karin Pienaar? Follow her great tips on how to greet a dog!

• Don’t rush in to say hello.
• Avoid direct eye contact.
• Don’t stroke their heads or raise your hand above their heads.
• Ask the owner for permission.
• Let the dog’s sense of smell guide him.
• Respect their space.
• Pet them, don’t hug them.
• Avoid them if they seem nervous.

🐾

12/09/2021

Come rain or shine we are out here putting in the time to give our pups the best possible start to life.

If you are interested in joining our basic obedience classes we are just a message away.