We are meeting up in Bristol on Saturday January 10th at 11am! Here's the plan. We'll meet initially at Ashton Court Church Lodge Car Park. As there will be some reactive dogs in-tow we'll do an on-lead walk for around 25 - 30 minutes and then we'll head down to the The Ashton pub which is just around the corner for post-walk drinks. The pub is dog-friendly but I'll leave it to your judgement as to whether you bring them in or leave them to rest in your vehicle. This is free and is open to everyone - even lurkers! Just let us know if you're coming 👇

Just got back from a week away for work, so I’m not counting any of those days in the total. Is it even a real day without any dogs? I’ve decided to experiment with Kairo’s toy play, aiming for more engagement to help build an activation behaviour. Not really sure how to explain what I tried today, so it’s easiest to watch the video. Is this even a real/valid play style? Kairo seemed pretty excited about it!

So I realise my lack of consistency is with posting and not actually my training. We had an interesting walk yesterday. The first part of our walk was along a very narrow path and yesterday there happened to be a small white fluffy dog the other side of the fence lining the footpath. I actually took it as a good opportunity to practice heeling past it with no reaction and he did it! The other dog didn’t really move or make a noise which helped but I just kept reminding Bentley to heel so he knew what to do and he was ace. Then at the end we were walking behind a lady with an on-lead dog. Coming towards her was a lady with an off-lead dog. The dog in front of me started baking at this dog but the owner of the off lead dog shouted ‘he’s friendly’ 😂 so even though the other dog was barking she still let it approach. I continued walking thinking this again, could be a good opportunity for Bentley to meet another dog if the owner wasn’t worried about a bit of barking. But she clocked me (and the Doberman) and decided that maybe her dog wasn’t THAT friendly and put it on a lead 😂😂😂

training has been super low key to start the year, as we’ve all had horrible colds, my truck blew up again and Toddler has started school. It’s been a rollercoaster. We’ve been steadily increasing intensity with reduced proximity to other dogs doing exciting things and it’s paying off really well, he’s working really nicely very near other dogs, better settling while watching them play and we’re going to start doing some very calculated off lead walks with other dogs soon. In anticipation we’ve been training a “move” command using spatial pressure (tbh we do this naturally anyway) to calmly move him on from whatever he is up to, this will be used if he lingers sniffing too long, ignores a cue from the other dog etc. without recalling him and increasing arousal because he’s super snappy with it or putting him in an emergency down and putting him in a vulnerable position. We’ve also been working more at recall to front, and a flip into basic position. Looooads to work on but we are chipping away at it all which is the main thing. Think I’m going to revisit some hind awareness and pivot target work to get this better - I’m back in work from Monday (sad) so we’ll be more into the the accuracy training sessions in my breaks then which will be good for him after a lot of drivey sessions lately! I’ve also got terrible fomo about the meet up tomorrow and not training with anyone in a while. Hopefully my truck is sorted soon 😥

Looking forward to seeing some of you tomorrow! We had a slightly longer walk today, just on the flexi. I had my hands full with a horse in each hand, her on the Flexi and a flag for a 2 mile walk 🤦‍♀️good job they are all well behaved. We also met a neighbour with his two hulking great labs straining towards her. She hates them so did her usual hackles up and bark but I sent her past quickly, I wasn't in the mood to be trying to do anything more than that with horses in tow! I swear she went slightly lamer after her outburst. Quite interesting. Im sure that she holds tension in her tail - does anyone know anything about the tendancy for dogs to nibble a tail and associated tension? I've still not heard back from physio yet but good question for them I guess. Here's Snoost enjoying her new bean bag bed. She makes a beeline for my neice's any time it comes downstairs so I thought she would appreciate her very own ❤️