Recognising the importance of consent in our daily interactions with our dogs - from petting to playing and from husbandry procedures to training - is an essential first step to a better relationship with your dog.
We've won an Award!!!!
Very excited to announce that we have won another Award 🎉🎉🎉🎉
🐾 'Best Canine Behaviour Consultant 2024 (Southern Sweden)' at the Scandinavian Business Awards.
🙏 A massive thanks to all my wonderful clients who’ve taken the time and have left me great testimonials which hugely impacted on the judging panel’s decision.
🐕 And the biggest thanks to the one and only, Miss Wolfgang. This one is yours my little golden nugget ❤️
Setting up your dog for training success
How to create a good dog training environment:
🐾 To begin with, train in a non-distracting environment to help your dog stay focused, then generalise the behaviours to more distracting environments.
🐾 Train when your dog is motivated.
🐾 Break behaviours down into small easy to learn steps.
🐾 Always allow your dog to opt out of the training when needed. For example, you may find your dog starts to sniff the floor suddenly, that’s her asking for a break.
🐾 Minimise opportunities for your dog to choose an incorrect response, providing you with repeated opportunities to positively reinforce all of your dog’s correct responses (mark & treat).
THIS WAY
THIS WAY..for when you need to direct your dog in a general direction but don’t need them to come to you.
I use this verbal cue when the dog is off-lead to let her know “to come in my general direction” as well as for on-lead, as an ‘emergency exit’ behaviour to quickly get out of a potentially tricky situation.
Loose Leash Walking Tips
Leash Walking Tips - whether you are starting from scratch with a puppy, working with a bouncy adolescent or adult dog or even a rescue dog who’s not used to a leash.
🐕🦺 Good equipment is key: I’d opt for a well-fitting harness but there are, as always, exceptions to the rule. Get a long leash and/ or a training line (3m - 5m, depending on your long leash handling skills).
👩🏻 Understand that you, the human, are a bit boring when it comes to walking. You walk in straight lines, probably a bit too slow or fast (depends on how your dog sees the world), you never stop to sniff or wee. Look at it from your dog’s perspective and allow for all the sniffs and exploration they need.
🌭Get your dog used to good things happening when moving with you (NOT by your side but moving with you). You can use pattern games for this, capturing (mark/ reward) check-ins and more.
🐾 When outside; start practicing in an area where your dog has the option to move more freely.
🩺 Don’t forget that underlying medial issues can feed into leash walking behaviours.
Things I tell my clients to make their puppies’ and adult dogs’ day to day the best they can be
Everything starts with and is influenced by learning to ‘talk dog’ and understanding your dog’s needs (both physically and emotionally).
Good quality socialisation and habituation, working at your dog’s pace, is so much more important than teaching traditional behaviours such as sit, down, etc.
On that note, a ‘sit’ isn’t as important as you think it is. And can matter of fact become an aversive for a dog with physical ailments. Don’t make it a default part of other behaviours you teach your dog.
Be your dog’s safe place and provide as much choice and agency as you can for your dog.
A happy tummy and gut makes for a happy dog!
Be more dog, you fur friend will love you for it.
Teaching a harness or collar hold
Most dogs find it intimidating when you suddenly reach for them to grab their collar or harness and can become mouthy to keep your hands away from them or shy away from your reach.
Hence it’s important to teach them that this can be a positive experience, so you can then use it in potentially stressful situations.
How to teach your dog to ‘leave it’ without frustration
Quick tips for....
Set your dog up for success by starting this exercise at a distance and in an environment that is super easy and non distracting for your dog
Your dog doesn’t need to fail to learn. In fact, errorless learning will provide much quicker success. Plus, this ensures your dog doesn’t get frustrated by the learning process and instead builds confidence and a positive association with training
Remember training with your dog should always be fun, for the both of you.
Dog Training Tips
Why a trusting relationship with your dog is worth a million times more than any ‘obedience’ training
Yesterday, Wolfgang got a special, big treat (‘cause she’s the best!) in form of a sausage. And whenever she gets too big a piece and it needs dissecting, she usually finds herself a quiet spot to attend to it.
But we were all cosy on the sofa and I saw in her little face how she was ‘debating’ over whether to pop down or how to go about it.
So I offered my cupped hand and said ‘Do you want Mami to help?’. And she immediately dropped that juicy sausage on my hand and sat back, looking at me in anticipation while I broke it up into bite-sized pieces for her. Patiently waiting for me to feed her every delicious bit.
And these moments of trust are what it’s all about (for me, at least).
For a dog to let go of such a high value food without a worry in the world (and no, I’m not in her head but she looked blissfully zero bothered).
I use the ‘can I help’ cue for all sorts of situations including:
When she stepped into something and can’t get it out of here paws (I walk to her or she hobbles over to me).
When there is a little poo stuck and she can’t bum-shuffle it off (and gets quite freaked out over it).
When she tries to get to the end of the Kong but can’t quite get that last bit right at the top out.
If she tries to get to something but can’t quite reach….and much more
A few tips on how you can build a trusting relationship with your dog:
Learn to talk dog so you can understand and communicate with your dog, and within this….
Allow your dog choice and control over their environment
ALWAYS be your dogs safe place
Don’t mess with your dog’s resources, AKA what’s important to them.
That includes simply letting them eat their meals rather than making a whole song and dance around waiting for five minutes, then reciting the alphabet before they can dig in.
Accept your dogs personality: teach them cues so you can easily navigate this human world together but also accept that they might not want to allow strangers to pet them and that they, too, have crappy days where they might react to the environment.
Don’t use aversive methods!!!!
MULTIFUNCTIONAL CUES - WHAT, WHY & HOW 🤓🐕
Let’s face it, us humans are prone to be a little lazy (me included!) and what’s not to love about a cue that you can use in all sorts of different scenarios and for a variety of different behaviours.
Plus, we often forget our dog’s cues when we are caught up in a stressful situation, so having one or two words to fall back on will make every day management delightfully smooth.
Here is how to teach your furry friend these cues.
Why Dogs Bark & What You Can Do About It
First things first, dogs bark! It’s a dog, it’s what they do. You wouldn’t ask a lion to stop roaring.
However, the fact that dogs live in our homes makes this often an issue for us humans. And of course we often expect our furry friend to behave perfectly, in all sorts of ‘human’ situations.
This article is about understanding why your dog barks and how to deal with it, including teaching alternative behaviours, providing outlets so they don’t need to bark in the first place as well as preempting, managing and, let’s say, tone it down a notch, or two.
Before I delve into the different types of barking and how to deal with these, here are some things to consider that can impact on most barking behaviours:
The Ultimate Dog Christmas Gift Guide
Naturally, we don’t need an excuse to spoil our dogs and especially at Christmas. Here are some ideas or you and your furry friend:
The Underdog International Calendar for you and your pooch to keep abreast of all those important doggy dates. This sustainably produced calendar features 12 wonderful images of some of the charity’s rescued dogs, now living their very best lives.
The Underdog International Charity’s ethical online shop also offers fashionable bandanas for your dog and some very cool tops and bags for the non-furry family members. Everything is made from up cycled fabrics or donated stock so the products have virtually no impact on the world’s resources. Plus, 100% of sales goes directly to their life-changing projects helping children and dogs.
Buying Christmas presents while doing good, mission accomplished!
How to make the festive season stress free for your dog
The festive season is well and truly upon us. The tree is going up, decorations shall be hung and soon the house will be filled with an abundance of visitors and the smell of delicious food.
It’s important to remember that the festive season can be a stressful and unsettling time for your dog so check out our top tips to help keep the festive season merry and stress free for your dog.
Plan ahead
It is not always possible to take your dog to visit friends and family, always plan ahead and book your dog walker/sitter well ahead of time. It’s not fair to leave your dog with just anyone so choose carefully and make sure that your dog is happy and comfortable around whoever you choose to leave them with.
Try to keep your routine (as much as possible)
Dogs thrive on routine so it is important to keep their routine as normal as possible over the festive season. Even when you’re full of Christmas feast, your dog should still get their evening walk. Maintaining their feeding and exercise routine will help to keep them calm and happy.
CHOICE MATTERS TO YOUR DOG!
Let’s face it, our dogs have very little choice and control over their day to day existence. They have no say over when they want to eat (or how much!!) or how much time to spend in the park. Whether they actually want that stranger to pat them on the head (while they can’t get away ‘cause there’s that thing called a lead that renders them stationary) or if this really is the ideal time to go to bed.
So whereas there are some things that we of course do no need to decide and manage on their behalf, in order to ensure they stay safe and healthy, providing choice for your dog wherever possible will make a huge difference to their overall wellbeing and will certainly improve the relationship you have with your furry friend.
Choice as well as being able to predict what happens next, whether that is via a routine or offering choice, make dogs feel safe. And feeling safe means less stress and more contentment; resulting in a confident, healthy and happy dog. What’s not to love?
11 Tips to Create a Dog-Friendly Yard, Straight From the Pros
The accidental therapy dog
It’s fair to say that Wolfgang has never been quite so keen on kids. Totally at ease with any children passing or being close by and ignoring her but not so happy with kids approaching and trying to interact. And considering she still looks like the cutest puppy most kids want to cuddle her and pick her up…..not knowing that deep inside this little Jack Russell Terrier mix’s soul, there is a big wild wolf!!
Coming from a home with a toddler who, as I could tell when we picked her up, was quite full on with her as a very young puppy (AKA chasing after her, throwing toys at her, etc) to not being exposed enough to children when young. it can be difficult to get hold of kids when you or your friends don’t have any at hand for socialisation purposes, just sayin’….
In addition, her rather sparkly personality to choose ‘fight’ over ‘flight’ when given the opportunity (the ‘fight’ being a surprisingly loud and rolling bark, for such a little furry person, combined with a moving toward rather than retreating) never quite helped the overall situation.
Post Lockdown Syndrome is a Thing, Even for our Dogs!
As lockdown is easing across the UK, our puppies and adult dogs are faced with plenty of lifestyle changes that can be both stressful and plain scary. Understanding your dog’s fears as well as helping them to prepare for ‘the unknown’ is crucial to their wellbeing and to preventing unwelcome habits and behaviour issues from developing.
A problem area I’m working with a lot at the moment is people welcoming guests at their homes once again as well as heading out to busy public places such as busy pubs and restaurants, all with their dog in tow who simply can’t cope.
For all those pandemic puppies who’s never had a stranger visit their home these new experiences can be incredibly disruptive. As is for our adult dogs who’ve enjoyed a year of anti-social bliss and forgot what it’s like to be around more people than their closest family members.
Communication is the key to success
If you want your dog to learn and understand your language, then it’s only fair you can talk ‘dog’. Communication should always go two ways and understanding what your dog is telling you will result in a strong, trusting bond, which should be the basis of any training.
To talk ‘dog’ you have to look at your friend’s entire body (eyes, ears, mouth, tail, body stance, etc) as well as listen to the sounds he or she makes. Context and looking at the bigger picture is equally as important; for example a dog who yawns in the morning when he wakes up is tired, whereas a dog who yawns when a dog runs up to her in the park, is worried and potentially stressed.
Some subtle signs of communication to look out for when your dog feels stressed: eye blinking, lip/ nose licking, yawning, averting face/ gaze, lowered or tucked tail, frozen body posture, tightly closed mouth and much more.