Contact me if you want this poster emailed to you for posting near you or passing on!

J cosy at home with the vacuum cleaner!

I wanted to share with you one of the responses I have had from the last blog, it is the real stories of dog owners out there that need to be heard! I am sure the people with the dogs rushing up to ours don’t really want to upset our dogs, they just don’t know the impact they are having! Please send in your story?

“I wanted to agree with what you’ve said. You may remember J – chocolate lab with epilepsy, very nervously aggressive around other dogs after being attacked a couple of times by off the lead dogs when he was a puppy just after he started having fits. Sadly and the aggression / anxiety around other dogs just got worse with age. Training didn’t help, and eventually I took the decision to let him have a happy life away from other dogs. He is off the lead only in large, deserted fields. On the lead problems only arise if an off-the-lead dog comes up to us. I see a dog off the lead I call to the owner to get them to call their dog back before trouble starts, then walk in the opposite direction. This, amazingly, doesn’t always work, and about half the time I get a “oh, he just wants to play” response and the owner virtually encourages their dog to come to mine!

I have since found lots of other dog owners in the same position as me: we are often made to feel guilty about not letting our dogs off the lead around other dogs, or not having other “doggy friends”. It really is a bit much! When I walk J, I end up having to shout at other people’s dogs to get them away from him. Walking dogs off the lead with a “he / she won’t hurt your dog, they just want to play!” comment is totally irresponsible. Your off-the-lead dog may well want to play, but mine doesn’t! My dog is terrified of anything on four legs and is a nervous wreck if anything gets within 10 feet of him. I had some classes from you about this, where you advised me to shout at the approaching off-the-lead dog and walk the other way. This almost always works, but I end up with plenty of abuse from the other dog’s owner. My dog is only ever aggressive when other dogs approach him, and I want to protect him and these other dogs from each other. If dogs stayed on the lead around other dogs, it would be so much easier and dog on dog attacks would be much rarer.

Unless owners have absolute control over their own dog off the lead (and in my own experience, that is rare as hen’s teeth!), dogs should be on the lead around other dogs. It is, frankly, arrogant to make the assumption that your dog won’t attack mine, or be attacked by mine: they don’t know each other and you don’t know my dog. Thank you for making this a New Year’s Resolution, and I hope everybody follows the advice.”

 My new years resolution

Lucky and happy christmas! (I think)

My dog training wish for the new year is for us all to educate the dog walkers out there, to realise it is not okay, for their completely strange unknown dog to run up to ours and hope they get on!

This means I want all of you to explain to every dog owner you meet, that a new dog is a new pack and dogs take 14 days to establish pecking order, if they are never going to meet again, why would anyone even consider risking a dog getting bitten.

As soon as I hear the word hope in a sentence connected to dog behaviour I get worried, “hope” translated, means “I don’t know, but I hope it will be okay”. Good training is about learning to read dog body language and responding accordingly, the dogs tell us without risk, if we take time and space to let them, making for knowledge rather than hope!

In the latter months of 2011 I heard of more and more dog on dog attacks, in Highlands Park and from clients in Villages around me, these can be made rare occurrences by educating the dog owners out  there! If we all resolve to take action this year we can change this human behaviour!! Please help me?

Feel free to copy any part of this blog and forward to other dog lovers!

Thank you!

Thank you to the many who have subscribed to my blog  and more thanks to those that have taken time to add their comments! I have put the blog stats up so that you can see who you are! if you hit the subscribe button on the site it does help me to get my word out there even more, as the number of subscriptions and hits does mean higher ranking. So please do so if you haven’t already?

My best wishes for a happy, prosperous and peaceful new year!

 Dates for 2012

Training day 

A full day devoted to training your dog, whether you are keen to improve your dogs general obedience or are interested in trying some obedience tests this promises to be a fun day out with other dog lovers!

Monday Times: 10am – 4pm

Fee: £75 includes tea/coffee

Venue: Barbary Cottage

Date: January 16^th

Avril on BBC Essex

Steve Scruton sound advice phone in on dog training and behaviour

January 20^th 2pm – 4pm

Recall Training sessions

These 2 and a half hour sessions focus on lead walking and recall. Foundation training takes place in the safety of the fenced garden at Barbary Cottage, once the building blocks are in place we take the training to the outside world, the paddocks and fields surrounding Barbary! There are a maximum of 5 dogs and handlers in a group.

Fee: includes Tea/coffee £50

Times: 10am – 12.30pm

Wednesday January 25^th

Saturday February 4^th

Dog behaviour/psychology course(Theory course without dogs)

For those that want to know more about how the dogs mind works and what they are thinking!

Date: Saturday March 24^th

Times: 10am to 4pm

Fee: £75

Tricks  Workshop

Date coming soon!

Fun Agility x 3

For anyone wanting to enjoy some fun agility with your dog!

April – Dates and time to be confirmed

Fee: £75 (for 3 sessions)

Happy Christmas to all my clients, friends and family!!

Please send in your dog Christmas photo’s for the blog?

Special thanks to the Friday morning puppy group for dressing up for their last class! The weather was wicked hence we retreated into my utility room for our session, the planned games were replaced with behaviour theory. As you can see from the photo’s,  it was a very serious session

All my groups know they are special and unique, the Friday pups are now the special dressing up group!! I think there will be a queue to join them!

Wilbur the Pointer belongs to Jane, he loved wearing his hat! Ozzy the Cockerpoo belongs to Louise! Chips the Border Terrier belongs to Amy, both these guys loved being dressed up!

I won’t go into what makes the other groups special here, all I can say is they know who they are!

Thank you to everyone for giving me their support this year, I look forward to seeing you all in 2012!

The reality is that on a working day Pie and Betty do not have the perfect existence, by my standards. I wonder what they think ?

They do have a warm home, plenty of food with all of their needs taken care of, the least sign of sickness would find them at the Vets having the latest medical treatment (much faster than I would get myself, in all likelihood!). They also have an owner that knows that they do not speak english as a first language or a 25th one, an owner who reminds herself regularly that they are dogs and therefore will do stuff that I don’t like, things like be opportunistic by stealing food if it is available, recycle pony pooh just because they can, chase wild life if left to their own devices and generally not read my mind, though I am

Betty with (Dad) Pie and (Mum) Gracie!

working on that one:)! I am an owner who is accepting of behaviour that must be managed and behaviour that I am wasting my breath moaning about, much better use my energy to put food out of reach, or shut my dog away from the opportunity!

I do not, generally, nag, moan or give my dog a hard time for just being a dog. I do praise my dogs when they get “it” right and thereby increase their confidence in themselves and me.

I do notice when I feel guilty and rather than give myself a hard time, I take the few minutes I do have to play, train, groom or be with my dogs, and if I really can’t find those few minutes I buy them something nice to chew on!

Many thanks to Nicola for these photo’s of the Thursday morning class, I am sure you will all agree that Nicola should be doing more photography!! Please?

Please send me a friend request for face book if you haven’t already? There are some great dog video’s for you to see!

thank you Nicola for sending me the photo’s and to Michelle for the ones of Roxy, our own superstar!

Our own Roxy ready for Christmas!

Roxy and Michelle!

Jasper

Many of you will have met Jan Johnson and her Labrador Lady! A short while ago Jan lost her old lady Amber and has been looking to increase her pack again. This week I heard of a litter of a working strain nearby, Jan and I went to check them out! Jasper is the out come, and Lady thinks she is his Mummy! Have fun with your new boy Jan!

Daisy! A new recruit!

We all reached into our pockets for a sample to show to the group, and 7 dog owners and we all had different versions! How many versions are there and which is your favourite?

Happy birthday November 5th to Nessa! two years old and a grown up girl!

The photo’s show Nessa at various ages and bring back some great memories for me as I have had the privilege of being a part of most of Nessa’s training life!

Even Nessa can't get this ball in her mouth!

What hole?!

Nessa shows her disgust at West Ham's result!!