Time To Say Goodbye

An update: Things have developed quite a bit from when I first started this page and blog to share life and insights from life with a pair of blue merle boys. In light of that, and to streamline life a little, from this point all of my work will be via the Good Guardianship site and Facebook page.

I want to thank everyone who has read, shared and commented on the articles here and hope you will come with me to Good Guardianship where I will be sharing the same insights into living with dogs and how to help you have the best possible lives together.

What is Your Dog Trying to Tell You?

 

There is a tendency among dog guardians to think of the behaviours we see in our dogs as being either ‘good’ or ‘bad’. There are the desirable behaviours, the things that we want our dogs to do, and the undesirable ones, those behaviours we may call misbehaving, being naughty, behaviour problems, and so on.

The thing is that these labels of behaviour are not really either accurate or useful.

When looking at the things our dogs do, what we need to be asking ourselves is ‘What is my dog trying to tell me?’

Don't Feel Guilty For Grieving The Dog You Wanted

 It’s ok to grieve for the dog you wanted.

When thinking about adding a dog into our homes and families, most of us picture how it will be. The fun things we’ll do. The long walks we’ll go on to enjoy the world around us. The family trips out to places, long relaxed days of enjoying ourselves with our canine companions by our sides.

That’s the ideal, the thing that most of us want for us and our dogs.

The difficulty is that’s often not how it turns out.

Controlling Canine Connections or the Need to Stop Micromanaging Our Dogs

 

We currently have a puppy in the house, a Border Collie who at the time of writing is just coming up to 15 weeks old. Anyone who has raised a puppy knows how much work is involved, and the need for careful socialisation to allow them to feel comfortable in the world around them as they grow.

The Power of Scentwork for High Energy Dogs

It is no secret to many who have visited this blog that, when it comes to dogs, the Border Collie has completely stolen my heart. My history with them goes back to childhood – my very first dog as a kid was a Border Collie x Shetland Sheepdog, and he was absolutely the best dog (as they all are, but there was something about him that made him my perfect canine childhood companion) – and continued through into adulthood with working sheepdogs. I adore the breed, their intelligent brains and drive to work with their people.

What Does Success Look Like With a Reactive Dog?

Any of us who have found ourselves sharing our homes and lives with a ‘reactive’ dog, one of the sensitive souls who needs empathy, understanding, and (most of all) space in which to feel safe, knows that it can feel very tough at times. This is especially true in the early stages of finding out what is going on with our dogs and what we need to think about to help them. It can feel like an impossible task, to get to a point where we can enjoy walks.

Why I Don't Apologise For My 'Bad' Dog

This is my dog, Finn. He pops up frequently on my various blogs and social media accounts as a) he’s gorgeous, and b) he is the inspiration behind what I do. He is a fearful and anxious boy, who is reactive to other dogs, to people he doesn’t know, and to wildlife and livestock.

Aversive training: more consequences than you may realise

This is perhaps a slightly more technical article than many I post but it's an important one, considering as it does the connection between training methods and welfare.

 

Despite the efforts of many canine professionals and widening body of scientific evidence, aversive training techniques remain in use. Discussions surrounding the use of these tools are often acrimonious and highly divisive. Supporters insist some dogs need them, some breeds apparently too stubborn or high drive for management any other way. Reward-based training is denigrated as ‘cookie-pushing’ or permissiveness, allowing the dog to be in charge, when what dogs ‘need’ is to know their pack leader. This is despite the fact alpha theory is outdated, based on observations from the 1940s now recognised as flawed.

 

Using aversive techniques carries significant risks to the physical health and well-being of dogs, and the human-canine relationship. By definition, aversive methods are things dogs actively try to avoid. They find them unpleasant, painful, or scary, and want to reduce the likelihood of encountering that stimulus again. This raises serious ethical questions. In addition, if we are causing distress or pain to dogs, what effect will that have on their view of us?

Can We Sometimes Miss an Opportunity with Enrichment?

Enrichment is a word that is coming into ever wider usage in the dog world. Adding enrichment into the lives of our dogs means adding value and enjoyment to their days, letting them carry out normal and natural dog behaviours.

The Key to Effective Counterconditioning to Help Fearful Dogs

One of the most important techniques available to us, particularly when working with fearful and reactive dogs is counterconditioning. Doing it correctly means the dog’s response to the thing that is worrying them changes from a negative reaction to a positive one. Doing it incorrectly will either not improve the situation or could even make the situation more complicated.  

The Secret to Successful Socialisation

If you have added a puppy to your family at any point in the last few years, the chances are that you have seen something like a ‘socialisation checklist’. A whole collection of different objects and long lists of types of people guardians must introduce puppies to as soon as possible, beginning immediately on getting them home. However, does sticking to these types of lists guarantee that a puppy will grow up to be a well-adjusted and well ‘socialised’ adult dog? To consider this question we must start by asking another.

Pick Out Positives to See Your True Progress

 

I have never been a believer in sharing only the good when talking about life with my dogs, my complex and sensitive ‘reactive’ boy most of all. He has been doing really well in the last few months, and I probably shouldn’t be surprised that we ended up having one of ‘those’ walks last week.

‘Those’ walks can happen to all of us, no matter how knowledgeable and experienced we may be. We can do our best to avoid getting close to triggers but, in all honesty, as soon as we step out into the wider world, there are factors that are beyond our control. This happened to us the other day, and resulted in Finn having a mini meltdown.

Because We Always Have is Not a Valid Reason

I was reading a post the other day on empathy and consideration in dog training, following the growing movement towards recognising and acknowledging the emotional capacity and experience of dogs. I’ll admit it is something I have become passionate about myself, especially since encountering a dog who has such a need for the people around him to understand how he is feeling in any given situation. This particular dog’s needs have set me to learning how best to support and work with dogs, and discovering the ways that give dogs the best and kindest experience of life with us.

Behaviour Suppression vs Behaviour Modification

We see posts from time to time (ok, far too often in reality) from the ‘balanced’ trainers, the ‘pack leader’ and ‘alpha’ theory followers. These trainers frequently say things about humans needing to be the boss in the household or their dogs are going to dominate them. They make glib comments about using ‘all the tools’ available to them and that their methods work, and work fast.

But do they? Do they really?

The Privilege of Trust

I have talked before about how in some ways my reactive dog has been the best thing to ever happen to me. I owe my current career to a complicated, complex, sensitive soul, who has needed me to learn (and keep learning) as much as I possibly can about dogs. I have talked before also about the emotional impact that living with and loving a reactive dog can have, the things that become tricky because they take so much more thought. It’s safe to say that, over the course of my writing, I have mentioned both the ups and downs of life with a dog who needs so much more from the people around him.

The Magic of Management

Something I’m sure my fellow canine professionals will no doubt hear a lot from clients is ‘How do I train my dog to stop…’ or ‘How can I train my dog to not…’ Often these things are normal and natural dog behaviours that don’t really fit in to human societal expectations of how a dog should behave.

The Bond is the Most Important Thing

Recently I was watching a panel discussion broadcast from a number of speakers at one of the big dog behaviour conferences (in this case the Lemonade conference). This was one of the free broadcasts put out over the length of the conference, and the topic was the future of R+ training.

It was an interesting discussion, with the participants describing their journeys into reward-based training. Like many trainers and dog pros, including me, two of the speakers described their path as ‘crossover’ trainers, from the older compulsion-based methods. One of the speakers in particular said a couple of things that really hit home with me. They have had me thinking, not so much about the future of training, but the future of our relationships with our dogs.

Rehoming Isn't Always Failure

 

The splodgy one supervising me working as a cheerful start

‘Arrogance and ignorance go hand in hand.’ Metallica, Holier Than Thou.

I’m going to be tackling a topic that many people can find difficult here, and it can be a real taboo topic in many places. It’s a subject that has become intensely personal to me since I encountered this situation for the first time last year. Today I want to talk about rehoming.

Every dog that has entered my life has stayed with me for life – or in the case of one working dog we had when we left the farm went to live and work on another farm with a relative, as she really loved to work. Until the one that didn’t.

Why ‘It’s All in How You Raise Them’ is Failing Dogs

 

Something seen frequently is the idea that a young puppy is a blank canvas, implying that how the dog will develop as they grow into an adult is the responsibility of the people raising that puppy. Anything that occurs with the dog that does not fit into the human idea of a ‘normal’ dog is the fault of those people who must have done things wrong. According to this thinking, if raised correctly, any dog should be able to fit into almost any home, any family. This insistence causes so many issues, for people and for dogs.

One of the most debated questions when it comes to biology and development is ‘nature or nurture?’ Which has more influence on the development, genetics or learning? If ‘it’s all in how you raise them’ then the answer must surely be learning, right?

Let Them Sniff

What if I told you that you do not need to run and run your dog to exercise them? That exercising their brains while out on a walk can do wonders for tiring them out. What’s even better is that it requires no equipment, other than maybe a long line if your dog’s recall isn’t as good as you would like or (as in the case of my dog) it’s safer to be able to gather them back in closer to you if something worries them?