Campbell K9 services

25/01/2025

“Sit!”, “Down”, “Off”, “Heel”, “Come”, “No!”, and the most egregiously abused… “Leave it!” 🤪

These are just a handful of the usual suspects. (There’s plenty more!) But, even though we’re having some fun here, this is about education, not finger wagging.

Here’s the thing, the words you’ve heard trainers use are words that have been paired repeatedly and consistently with trained actions and valuable consequences — which is the only reason you’ve seen these words create what likely appear to be magically fantastic responses.

But I promise there’s zero magic occurring. It’s the typical outcome of a proper training process applied properly — one which you too can enjoy the fruits of.

Simply decide what commands/behaviors you want to teach, what markers you want to use, what words you want to use to for your commands and markers, what training approach and tools you prefer, and what positive and negative consequences you’ll share to teach both what you do and don’t want.

Stick with it, build it all patiently, incrementally, and fairly, and you’ll be rocking some true magic words that create some true magically appealing responses.

Or, you can keep hoping your dog has been watching as many online training videos as you have, and maybe just maybe, they’ll surprise you by becoming the first dog to interpret the English language all on their own. 😅

PS, if you’re ready to actually train your dog, and actually have a working communication system with them, my YouTube channel has all the free “How To” videos you’ll need. Search “The Good Dog Training”, and then find the “How To” playlist. 😀

23/01/2025

Saturday training classes at 23 link Rd Waterfall 2-5pm🐶

In the lovely Shampooch Doggy Parlour garden🌳

Whatsapp for further info 0641852727

23/01/2025

22/01/2025

22/01/2025

💫Humpday Wednesday training activity 💫
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22/01/2025

Behavioral suppression is an absolutely critical component of life which enables us humans to live socially as harmoniously as possible.

We have laws, law enforcement, social pressure, and personal awareness of the consequences (both external and internal) when we deviate from what we know or have been taught is appropriate.

And while we might not agree on all of the rules/laws/norms, we have a clear understanding of them and what consequences we face when our behavior doesn’t align with them.

Our dogs depend on us to create the rules, the rule enforcement, build the awareness that consequences are tied to unwanted behaviors — and by doing so we create clarity for them as to how to behave in our world successfully, safely, and harmoniously.

And whether we like it or not, creating this reality for our dogs DOES involve behavioral suppression — from us — because our dogs absolutely won’t do this on their own… because they have no understanding of it.

That said, there’s a vast difference between comprehensive suppression of all that your dog is and how they enjoy life, and smart, healthy, measured suppression which helps them: be enjoyed, have bigger and more included lives, remain safe in an unsafe world, remain in their homes, stay out of shelters and avoid euthanasia.

While none of us enjoy suppressing our dog’s behavior, we’re fooling ourselves and doing our dogs a grotesque disservice when we withhold the necessary information they require to live in our human world successfully — in the same we’d be doing our children a grotesque disservice by not teaching them how to properly be in society.

Dogs who: bark endlessly, who engage in destructive behavior, who run away, who knock people down, who break out of crates, who drag owners around on walks, who blow up at every dog they see, who resource guard, who bite strangers and owners, who attack other animals, all require behavioral suppression… if we wish to help them.

Do they also need proper outlets for exercise, play, affection, and training for what we DO want? Of course. That should be terribly obvious. But it’s not a one way street of just fun, play, and “do this!”, it’s also about DO NOT DO THIS, EVER! AND HERE’S THE CONSEQUENCE FOR BREACHING THIS RULE!

For anyone grounded in reality, appropriate behavioral suppression is critical (and obvious) to helping our dogs flourish; but with our current cultural leanings towards viewing laws and rules — and punishment for their breaching — as tyrannical, oppressive, unhealthy power dynamics, this leaning has painted this crucial component of living well with our dogs, and our dogs living well with us, as something only the uncaring, unkind, unethical, and un-evolved engage in.

What a pity for these creatures who depend on us to properly guide them, and to do the hard stuff so they can live their very best lives.

22/01/2025

🐾✨ Wednesday Wisdom ✨🐾

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19/01/2025

17/01/2025

Let’s go one by one.

1/ On leash meetings with other dogs. By now most have seen video clips of owners attempting to create a positive social interaction with their dogs, only to watch it all go terribly wrong. Why? Leashes create restraint and cause unnatural interactions, fraught with tense, friction-filled, possibly guarding, possibly overwhelmed, possibly bullying behavior. It’s the perfect setup for pushy dogs to push softer dogs and for softer dogs to become overwhelmed and defensive… and middle of the road dogs to leave the middle of the road.

2/ Poorly supervised doggy daycare. Once again the hopes are that healthy, comfortable, and “happy” social interactions occur. The reality in many daycares? Just like with on leash meetings, pushy, bratty, dominant dogs apply unwanted and unhealthy pressure to soft, timid, and even fearful dogs. And without proper human supervision, these dynamics play out over and over — and do so in environments which the overwhelmed dog cannot escape, and the pushy dog can push over and over.

3/ Dog parks. I’m sure we’ve also seen and heard countless horror stories of dogs bullied, attacked, and even killed in dog parks. Once again we have the restricted, “I’m stuck with you, you’re stuck with me” environment. And once again the overly aroused, pushy, bullying dogs clash with the soft, timid, fearful dogs — which encourages the bullies and traumatizes the soft ones.

All 3 of these share certain dynamics. 1/ forcing incompatible dogs to interact. 2/ the dogs have no way to escape the pressure. 3/ the pushy, bratty, bullies are encouraged (by allowance and payoff) to become even more problematic, and the timid are repeatedly overwhelmed and freaked out. 4/ this translates to the pushy ones being even more pushy/bratty and thus when on walks they become reactive because it feels good to do so and they’re used to doing what they want — and the timid ones become even more fearful and defensive, and thus reactive on walks because they’re so scared, and are used to not being able to keep themselves safe.

The upshot? These environments encourage the bullies to become bigger bullies, and the fearful to become more fearful. So you create a vicious cycle where one kind of dog learns to enjoy bullying and the other loses their trust in other dogs. And just to be clear, you can have less pushy dogs who will become more so simply by experiencing the thrill of doing so. And you can have dogs who aren’t timid but are more sensitive who become fearful simply because they’ve experienced nasty, traumatic interactions repeatedly.

It doesn’t take a genius to see how if we encourage and allow these negative interactions repeatedly, building bullies and creating defensive softer dogs, that this behavior is inevitably going to surface on walks.

4/ You. You can have a dog who’s never had any on leash meetings, never been to daycare, and never been to a dog park, and absolutely still have serious reactivity issues. How? Through a permissive, unaccountable, leadership-free overall lifestyle and walk. Just by allowing dogs to behave in a fashion which is chaotic, pushy, bratty, disrespectful — or chaotic, nervous, worried, fearful — this leadership gap we create invites all manner of poor choices. Without the proper guidance, many dogs will slide into serious reactivity problems simply because no one has taught them how to properly respond to seeing other dogs. And a proper response, regardless of your dog’s personality (pushy and confident, or soft and insecure) should be a neutral one. But that only comes when owners step up, take the lead, and show their dog’s how to properly respond.

PS, even if you’ve done 1-3 and have unwittingly created reactivity issues, you absolutely can reverse these problems by tackling number 4 properly — by properly leading your dog. We do it all the time. But it’s far easier if you skip 1-3 and just do number 4 correctly.

13/01/2025

Come join our 2025 class on the 18th of January, for socialising and trick training fun with your doggo. At 23 Link Rd Waterfall Shampooch Doggy Parlour 4.00pm
☎️Whatsapp to book your spot 0641852727