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.
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.
Adolescent Dogs
Working with adolescent dogs is a wonderful, and also often challenging, training category on its own!
The key to the kingdom is to help the human understand what their dog can and cannot offer at this developmental stage.
Patience and managing the dog’s environment is a large part of it, while continuing to reinforce the right behaviours and provide outlets for what your dog needs during this tumultuous time (we’ve all been there after all, I know I have…..sorry Mum…).
If you need help with your teenage dog, I offer an ‘adolescent dog survival’ training programme to help you and your dog navigate this developmental stage.
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
Caring For Your Senior Dog
My little girl Wolfgang is about to turn 11 and, well, things are changing for her in terms of what she’s physically and mentally capable of. So, as she is the inspiration behind everything I do, I thought we’d share some tips on what to look out for as our dogs age and what you can do for them to ensure they continue to live their best life possible.
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.