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🐶👧👶 Aim for co-existing rather than being besties 👶👧🐶

When we have dogs and children in our homes we sometimes aim for too much with their relationship. We want them to be best friends, we want them to do everything together.We expect too much.We expect our dog to know how to act around a tiny human, we expect them to understand that their shrieks and cries aren't anything to worry about, we expect them to understand what are human toys and what are dog toys.We expect children to know to use gentle hands around dogs, we expect them to leave a dog t...

Calmness is key!

Taking your dog out for fun and adventures is important, but just as important is teaching your dog to relax and be calm whilst out and about. Can your stop and enjoy being in an environment? Or do they have to be constantly on the move, being hypervigilant about what is going on around them? Calmness is one of the most important things you can teach a dog. Having the ability to enter a new environment, explore it (we don't want to stop that!), then calm down, is essential. It stops a lot of unw...

The Arousal Bucket

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Stop Behaving Like A Toddler

As many of your will know, I have an 18 month old daughter.She is going through the ‘no’ stage. It feels like her answer to so much is ‘no, no, no’ It’s can be seriously frustrating!! No, you don’t want to have water?No, you don’t want a drink at all?No, you don’t want that cup?No, because you need a straw?Honestly sometimes it’s working through 20 questions to guess what it is she doesn’t want. Now, I know that the reason she’s doing it is to do with her knowing she doesn...

Why is rest important for your dog?

Dogs should be resting 12-14 hours a day. Puppies, seniors and unwell dogs need more! Just like us dogs can get cranky if they are not getting enough rest!Signs your dog is not getting enough rest:Unwanted and unpredictable behavioursLower tolerance and increased irritabilityIllness and itchiness How to encourage your dog to rest: Comfy places to sleepMinimal disturbances in a quiet and peaceful areaCalm chewing and lickingTeach them a calming behaviour such as boundary or crate workNatural reme...

Train FOR the situation rather than IN the situation!

This is one of the most important concepts in training. Aim to get yourself and your dog prepped with the skills you will need out in the real world, by practising them at home or in a controlled training environment first. If you were a rugby player, you wouldn’t just be thrown out on the pitch as an All Black. You would have to attend lots and lots of practice sessions first to develop your skills. You would practice so much that those skills become like second nature to you.If you were a pl...

Getting Ready For Baby

I’ll be honest, I was meant to write this and have it up before Chloe arrived, her due date was 21st January.  I was finishing for the year on 21st December, giving myself a full month to get things organised and write this. BUT little miss decided to arrive on Christmas Eve instead, best Christmas present ever!! So now I’m catching up and writing down how I prepared my dogs for Chloe’s arrival. The key thing for me was that I wanted the dogs to be used to as much as possible, before ...

What would happen if you just stopped walking?

You’re out walking your dog and they’re off leash, if you were to just stop walking, stand still where you were, no prompting, no nagging, no calling your dog back to you, what would happen? Have you ever tried it? Where would your dog be?Very quickly this is where my dogs would be: ...

Canine Enrichment

Canine enrichment is the hot topic at the moment, the buzz phrase! But what is it? Simply enrichment is additions to an animal's environment with which the animal voluntarily interacts and, as a result, experiences improved physical and/or psychological health. There are so many types of enrichment and all animals can enjoy it, especially dogs! Now food is the most obvious, and usually the easiest, way of introducing enrichment in to your dogs life. If you haven't already ditched the bowl, I hig...

Wedding!

On 4th January 2019 I got married!! The most incredible day marrying the most incredible guy!...

Accept the blame!

Just the other day I got home to this:...

Backyard Boredom

If you want your dog to stay in your garden without destroying everything make sure they have plenty to do, so they don’t get bored or uncomfortable....

Walk = Adventure = FUN!

A walk shouldn't just be a walk...it should be an adventure!Your dog relies on you to take them out, you are their source of fun. When you take them out try to remember it's not necessarily about the distance covered, but more the fun you have on the way. ...

Your Dog's Name = They Should LOVE Hearing It!

Your dog's name is one of the most important things to teach them and to keep positive. When their name leaves your lips, you want them to look at you with complete adoration and anticipation. ...

I Got Engaged

Sorry there hasn’t been any blog posts for rather a long while, lots has been going on!Firstly I got engaged! Here’s a few photos of the perfect moment:...

Team Work

Dog training is all about team work. Your dog and you are a team working to live the best life together....

Fair Isn’t Always Equal

Recently I have started taking Kai to ‘school’ (dog daycare). He is a very active 3 year old, who is occasionally socially awkward.  I’ve found an awesome place that does everything at his pace and that I trust to let me know the second he is no longer enjoying it. He is thriving and really enjoying making all these new friends! Recently I got asked ‘don’t you feel mean that Kai gets to go to school but Keira doesn’t!?’ This really made me think about how often people with two...

Dogs Aren't Preprogrammed

Dogs can learn very quickly that us using certain words or actions means we want them to do something in particular. However, they do not come to us pre-programmed with these behaviours, they have to learn them. Sometimes I get asked what is the word to make my dog do this or that. The answer is simply: the word can be whatever you want, as long as you teach the dog what you expect them to do when you give them that cue.  It is important to realise that, no matter how many times you shout �...

Fireworks!

It’s nearly that time of year! Soon we’ll hear fireworks going off on a nightly basis. While we often find them spectacular to watch, many of our pets find them VERY scary. Unfortunately, we can’t explain to them that it is just a firework and that they can actually be quite pretty to watch. Our pets just don’t see them that way. There are a few things you can do that may help your pet. Remember it’s not a one solution fits all. You may have to try a few things before you find one that...

Don't rush your dog; give them a moment to think!

Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think’ – Albert Einstein Don’t rush your dog; give them a moment to think! You will be surprised with how much they can accomplish. As humans we can be very impatient. Think about how annoying you find it when your email takes longer than 2 seconds to update or a video takes forever to buffer (forever being 2 seconds)...I know I get frustrated! The issue is our dogs are not machines being given commands to do things. T...

Ditch The Food Bowl

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Can Your Dog See What’s On TV?

The most common answers given to this question are ‘No, dogs can’t see 2D or flat objects’ or ‘No, dogs can't see colour’. Both those answers would be incorrect. It appears dogs can see what is on TV; it just depends on whether they choose to pay attention to it. So where does this difference of opinion come from? Of course dogs are allowed to react differently to things, they are different in many ways, but after talking to other dog owners with dogs it seems that the younger dogs are...

Getting Your Dog To Come Back

Recall is getting your dog to come back to you when you call them, sounds simple right? Unfortunately many dogs and their owners struggle with this skill, quite often people find themselves wondering, why doesn’t my dog want to come back? In truth, it’s not that the dog doesn’t want to come back, it’s just that they want to explore the world and play with their friends more.Think about when you were younger and you were out with your friends and your parents would call your name to tell ...

Welcome!

Welcome to Constructive Canines!  Our aim is to bring the FUN back to dog training! This will be in our training classes as well as some of the fun things and ideas we will share both on here and our Facebook page We all want to have the dog that comes back as soon as we call and walks nicely on walks...well lets achieve that through fun games that both you and your dog will enjoy. No more attending old school training classes and going through drill after drill (yawn!) inste...