Winnie is a big barker. She probably thinks barking is her job. They adopted her six months ago. She’s is mix of Dachshund and, probably, Jack Russell. The first three and a half years of her life she lived with travellers. She would have been an excellent warning system. They Read more…
Siblings Ronnie and Reggie were found dirty and starving at four weeks old. At eight weeks they came to live with my clients. The brown Springer Spaniels are now two and a half years old. The couple have done amazingly well. Without help or previous experience they have trained the Read more…
Today I met a blind dog, a wonderful thirteen-month-old German Shepherd called Bear. He lives with Stan, an equally lovely young Golden Retriever.
Both dogs are a real tribute to their owners. It was lovely to be greeted so happily and politely by both dogs.
Blind Bear occasionally but increasingly feels threatened by certain other dogs on walks. If this weren’t the case they wouldn’t need me at all.
Aggression towards other dogs when out on walks might be the problem but the causes probably have tentacles in other areas of her life.
Reactivity is always as a result of some sort of stress – fear being the most likely. Stress isn’t a thing that is there one minute and gone the next. The surprise or shock may be sudden, but the effects linger. We know with ourselves that once things start to go wrong nothing seems to go right. We get into a progressively touchy mood. Stress builds up. (more…)
It’s hard to imagine they could have stressful walks or any trouble at all with Badger. The two-year-old Border Collie quietly watched me walk towards his house through the glass door. He greeted me with polite interest. A Border Collie could be a challenge for a first dog and the Read more…
They had two German Shorthaired Pointers, Douglas and Gracie with which the couple did Canicross. Sadly, Gracie developed cancer, had to have a leg amputated and can no longer run. Four months ago they adopted two-year-old Louie. They want to run with him also, but his reactivity to certain other Read more…
In the photo the Romanian street dog is in a kill shelter. Then a lady the from a local rescue saved the Romanian Mioritic Shepherd, in the nick of time. One day before execution. Some weeks later Balou came to live with my client – into a very different world. Into Read more…
Bruce is a very big dog, probably a mix of Rottweiler and Great Dane and ten years old. Seven weeks ago Bailey came to live with them. The two dogs get on brilliantly. Rottweiler Bailey has a lovely temperament which is quite amazing really. He had been found chained to a fence, Read more…
I have just had a DIAL conversation, a one-hour chat with a couple about their two-year-old Red Fox Labrador, Saffy. I wasn’t there in person because they live too far away, but it was doable because the problem is straightforward. (This is in the days before Zoom). Some questions unearthed Read more…
What exactly is punishment? This is not the place to get all technical with semantics and the definitions of punishment. It’s enough to say here that it’s anything the dog doesn’t like, done by us, in order to stop him doing something that we don’t want him to do. Correction. Punishment Read more…