Dogs may bark at people or other dogs for a variety of reasons and usually this behaviour is always lumped into the label of ‘reactivity’ – meaning your dog ‘reacts’ to people/dogs but in reality all dogs are reactive, because if they didn’t ‘react’ to stimuli, they wouldn’t interact with their environment and wouldn’t survive! […]
Most puppies come from a litter of several puppies, and even if they have been split from their mum for a while, they will still have been used to being with their littermates 24/7. When your puppy comes into your home, she leaves everything she previously knew behind and enters a whole new world. And […]
As a dog trainer/behaviour consultant, I’ve offered remote/online sessions for some time, and I have been attempting to move my business more online for a while due to health issues, but I have always been met with scepticism that it could work like this. Until now, most of my work was usually done in person, […]
I have been struggling for a while now for inspiration to write a blog post, and it just wasn’t coming to me. Lots of excellent articles already out there for tips during lockdown, challenges to do with your dogs, ways to keep your dogs occupied etc. It occurred to me, that I won’t be the […]
The phrase on everyone’s lips right now is ‘social distancing’ – we know what it means for us, but what does it mean for your dog? I know there are a lot of people who are concerned about the lack of ‘socialisation’ their dog will get, not being able to meet up with fellow dog […]
One of the first lessons you learn when you get a dog is not to anthropomorphise your dog. That is, to credit her with human qualities. And with good reason, dogs simply cannot rationalise like we can – their behaviour is impulsive, uncalculated for the most part, and without plan for the distant future. They […]
Recently, I was asked to do a piece regarding grief in dogs after one of the other dogs in the household passes away. Having only recently lost my beloved Takara, I understand this only too well. It’s hard enough for us when we lose a dog, after all they’re a member of the family. However, […]
I used to have a rule that my dogs didn’t approach other dogs if they were on the lead. It’s a fairly common rule of thumb amongst dog walkers, though unfortunately, lots of people don’t seem to have heard about it! You see lots of memes, infographics, social media posts, etc. stating that dogs may […]
Okay, so the title is a little deceiving – many of us don’t really mind you knowing, we just don’t make a habit of telling lots of people! For the purpose of this article, ‘we’ refers to myself, and some other dog trainers I know – I can’t speak for all dog trainers! Perfect Dogs […]
As a pet owner, there are lots of decisions you have to make that are not easy or straight forward. From whether you should crate train your puppy, to what food you feed, kennels vs home boarders, to that ultimate decision at the end, you will never find the decisions involved in dog ownership easy […]