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Did you know that just like humans, dogs go through a ‘teenager’ phase? It’s called canine adolescence. Between the ages of around 6 months and 3 years (depending on the breed) dogs go through various physical, brain and hormonal changes. Just like human teenagers, these changes can have a significant impact on behaviour. Perfect…
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I often meet clients who have taken their puppy to a class but are still having issues with behaviour. Sometimes their dog seems to have ‘lost’ the basic obedience skills covered in the class. Sometimes they feel their dog never successfully achieved these skills in the first place! This can be frustrating as an…
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Many of the owners I work with want to improve their dog’s recall. Here are 3 tips for improving recall which can really make a difference. 1. Be more interesting What do you do on your dog walks? This may seem like an odd question. Many people’s answer when I ask them is: ‘well,…
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I often work with dog owners who are trying really hard to train their dog, but it just doesn’t seem to be working. These are some common reasons why and what you can do to get better results. 1. Expecting your dog to respond the same outside as at home “I promise she can…
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If there is one thing all dog owners should know, it’s how to ‘speak dog’. Unlike humans, who mostly communicate through speech, dogs mainly communicate visually. They are constantly using their bodies to communicate and they rely heavily on visual signals that can tell us how they are feeling – if we can read…
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Training our dogs can seem simple. The techniques are not complicated, and we can see some great results with a bit of practice and patience. Yet sometimes it can be a struggle and we don’t understand why. Having worked with many dogs and their owners, these are the most common mistakes I see, and…
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There is a big debate in the dog training world: should you train your dog positively or punitively? And which method is more successful? These concepts are loaded and their definitions will differ depending on whom you ask. Put simply, positive methods heavily rely on positive reinforcement. The idea here is that by rewarding…
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Imagine if you just let your dog run free, and do whatever they wanted for a week…. Think about all the things they might get up to. They might roam, scavenge, play, bark, sniff, dig, chew, make a den, chase smaller animals… the list goes on. However we put a lot of limitations on…