Support dogs that need space poster!
January 12, 2012
If there is one thing that would help all dog owners is if other dog walkers respected that dogs on the lead need to be left alone! This poster, sent to me by Sue, sums this up in a fun way!
Contact me if you want this poster emailed to you for posting near you or passing on!
My new year’s resolution!
January 2, 2012
Happy new year! To ensure your dog training gets off to a great start come to the training day in January!
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 16th
Avril on BBC Essex
Steve Scruton sound advice phone in on dog training and behaviour
January 20th 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 25th
Saturday February 4th
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 24th
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)
Guilt is over rated!
December 10, 2011
We all have days when we are not our own idea of the perfect dog owner, yes me too! I guess I base my definition on those times in my life when I have given my dogs the maximum amount of training, spent loads of time at home and/or been able to take my dog with me, if I have gone out. Not a very realistic window in time, well it might be if I didn’t have to work for a living.
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!
Great dog photo’s!
November 28, 2011
You may or may not agree with dressing up dogs, but you have to admit these are very funny? Personally I believe that dogs love to make us smile and always enjoy attention!
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!
Which pooh bag do you recommend?
November 17, 2011
The Thursday morning class are always a fun group to work with and we often have the most enlightened conversations about dogs and life! This week the pooh bag came under the spotlight! I am not joking, for dog owners this is a serious subject, we all use pooh bags often enough for this small item to have a major impact on our day-to-day lives!
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?
New dates!
October 11, 2011
Brodie (Tuesday night puppy class)
Events
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
19th October Wednesday and Saturday 29th October
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: November 7th
Harley keeps cool in the October sun!
A frequently asked question!
October 4, 2011
Dog training classes have an issue that other evening class don’t experience, at least not that I know of? How many soft furnishing course tutor’s have students ring them to say, “I can’t get there this week, can I send my husband instead”? Or cookery tutor’s asked “I am poorly, is it okay if my son/brother/aunt/neighbour comes this week”? 🙂 I know you are smiling now! But however often I tell people that they are the ones learning, they still think the dog is being trained! And yes I have had a request for all of the above surrogates to bring the puppy to class!
I know that Mum’s get fed up with taking responsibility for everything domestic, believing that at least someone could get involved with training the puppy! The reality is it really is the handler I train, and this dog training lark is a skill, it is learning to communicate with another species and teach them to be obedient and good mannered! In fact the more people involved in the training the more the process is slowed down! For every person involved in the training, the poor puppy has to learn yet another set of physical and verbal commands, how hard is that?
The truth is that if one person takes on the job of training the family pet it will all work out fine, promise! The dog gets trained faster, everyone in the house gets to learn through observation, (there is nothing like a bit of successful dog training to get everyone mimicking the able dog trainer). I have witnessed first hand how, when my clients stop wanting involvement from the rest of the family and get on with the job themselves, success comes rapidly, the dog suddenly starts to get it! As a result the rest of the family want to walk or train the dog, because they are a joy to take out!
These photo’s feature the Thursday class, theyhave taken on all the training and are very successful in their dog training!
Edna and HarleySid is perfect!
Badger
Badger and Lucky
New puppy groups this month! And honestly dogs do not speak english!
September 28, 2011
Evie (a miniture Schnauzer ) started puppy class last week!
It doesn’t matter how often I say that dogs don’t speak english I know that not everyone will hear me! Even clients who have been coming to training for some time tell me they forget, so it not surprising, for those new to dog training,take a while to really appreciate that dog language is body language and even if their puppy is a good guesser that is all it is guess-work, the puppy doesn’t understand words, it takes a lot of time and effort for the to learn words. Next time you find yourself repeating a word to your dog over and over again, stop talking and think movement and action! 🙂
Not watership down!
September 6, 2011
It is sadly that time of year when the rabbits have Mixie again! I luckily saw Betty “playing” with a mixie rabbit in the garden this week, lucky because I was able to let her know that I didn’t like her doing that! I would have liked to have put the poor creature out of its misery, but sadly I cannot find that ability in me.
There was no way I want Betty to learn how to kill any creature, she won’t know the difference between a healthy and an unhealthy one. Plus once she learns to enjoy the kill her recall for me would be come unreliable and I would be concerned that she could end up chasing a rabbit across a road! by seeing the bigger picture I can avoid creating problems later on.
By viewing all dog behaviour through a magnifying glass many of the dog behaviours I am asked to help with never have the chance to develop!
Butter wouldn't melt!
Avril Munson's Blog 