Puppy with seemingly endless energy?

This isn’t a puppy, it’s a Duracell Bunny!!

Sometimes it can feel like your puppy is always on the go, never wanting to settle quietly and chill out. They are either asleep or awake causing chaos 

It can be tempting to want to get your puppy out for long walks as soon as possible to tire them out, because who doesn’t want a bit of peace and quiet!

We do need to consider the type of exercise we provide our puppies with, as we don’t want to cause any longer-term permanent damage to our puppies developing bodies.

You can read more about why carefully considered exercise matters in Morag’s recent Canicross blog.  

So, what can you do while you wait for your puppy to be ready for lovely long walks?

At home:

Be inventive with your puppy’s daily food ration, you can;

• Use it in food activity toys, have their meals take longer than 20 seconds
• Scatterfeed their food outside now that Spring is here, let them hunt for every last piece
• Use some of their food in your training sessions, tire their brains out with a short clicker training session to practice what you’ve been learning in class. 

Chewing is a great way to provide your puppy with an activity that not only keeps them out of trouble but tires them out too, consider.

• Meaty chews can be a great long lasting activity for you pup, you can get fish, chicken, lamb, beef, pork chews and plenty more besides
• Vegetables  - Summer my Flatcoated Retriever  loves to chew on raw carrot
• Stuffed Kongs  - you can even freeze them to make them last longer!

Play

Tug Games  - a good game of tug can be a brilliant way to tire out a puppy, check out my video on playing tug with puppies

Hide and seek games can be great fun. Run off and hide and encourage your puppy to come and find you. Great for recall practice, be sure to reward your puppy generously when they find you

Ball play - Make sure you’re playing on soft ground, to reduce any impact on growing joints. Short sessions are best, just a couple of minutes so there isn’t too much repetitive play.

Scentwork

Food based scentwork is a really great way to tire your puppy out without lots of physical exercise

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We have probably  introduced you to the Sniffing Game using cheese in your puppy class, but you can play it absolutely anywhere!

If you want to learn how to harness the power of the nose for good you can book a 121 intro session if you’ve not done any sniffing with us yet

Introduction to Scentwork Session

If you and your dog know the sniffing game (you have a word which means the dog immediately starts looking for cheese) join us at Sniffing School Level 1, you'll learn to work as an effective search team and learn ways to make searches more challenging for your dog. 

Sniffing School Level 1

Out and about:

Match your walk to your puppy’s needs, size, breed and age. Your walks don’t have to be super short but do make sure your puppy is going at their own pace.

Take lots of breaks to allow your puppy to  stop and sniff, explore and observe the world around them.  You can also carry your puppy  some of the way if they are small enough and happy with it.

Buzz being carried in a bag on his walk

Consider where you walk your puppy, softer ground is better for growing joints than hard ground like concrete.

Play sessions with other carefully selected dogs with good social skills can be another appropriate way to provide some physical exercise, while at the same time teaching them some valuable social skills. 

Include some settle practice in new places on your walks, being still on a mat is hard work and very tiring, plus it's a great skill to teach your puppy. 

Happy Training

Clare and the Gang

The unanticipated side-benefits of training (or, why you should just listen when Morag tells you to do something…)

So last week Laura sent me a draft blog article.

It's always nice when I get a wee break from writing, and it's even nicer when the title is basically - do what Morag told you to in the first place!

And though I might claim otherwise, it's not really because I have all the answers. But it turns out some of the core skills that are important to me actually help with a whole range of other potential challenges.

For background, remember that the first dog all of my very own that I adopted (Finn) was a beautiful but troubled border collie. We had to work through baring and lunging at dogs, biting people and children, and much more.

So it was essential that we had good lines of communication, Finn needed to be able to focus on me and respond quickly, plus my sciatica meant that walking nicely was non-optional.

Does loose lead walking and obedience training solve everything? Heck no!

But when your dog understands

• it's important to check in
• that dragging you down the street isn't a good choice
• calm behaviour pays dividends of cheese....

then suddenly life in general can become much easier to deal with.

Read all about how some simple training games helped Brian and Seamus cope with seeing other dogs AND two cats on their walk two days after the session - it's the closest we can get to a magic fix!

I have to start this blog with a small confession – I have never really got round to training my dogs to walk nicely on the lead.

This isn’t to say that it hasn’t been on the training list but, fundamentally, I have small(ish) dogs who I do like to pull for some activities and the fact that they pull at other times hasn’t really bothered me.

So it keeps getting pushed back behind other priorities.

Recently though, Brian and Seamus have been getting quite barky on walks when they see other dogs – Seamus just wants to be friends with everyone and Brian has had some unfortunate encounters this year that have left him a bit suspicious of bigger dogs that he hasn’t personally vetted.

To combat this, we’ve been working on switching their brains on at the start of walks with a combination of nice lead walking and focused attention.

Today, we went for a twenty minute toilet walk and used our strategy as usual, with the result that we were able to be calm with all 10 (!) dogs that we met on route.

Then, as we left the little nature reserve that we walked in, we saw a cat dart across the road.

Seamus and Brian’s usual response to cats is best described as horrendous.

They forget anything else exists and it involves a lot of barking, squeaking, scrabbling and straining on the lead because WANT TO HUNT THE CAT - it is deeply obnoxious.

So, I steeled myself… …and they both just stared.

Intent focus, yes, and a little bit of squeaking from Seamus, but with their brains pre-switched on, there was none of the usual cat-related chaos.

They were both able to check in with me (ish) and even walk almost-nicely past the spot where the cat had run into.

Then we turned the corner and I watched as Brian saw a second cat ran away from us down the street and just sat down, while Seamus stood next to him and visibly shook with the effort of holding himself back.

A few more check-ins and we were even able to carry on walking nicely all the way home.

Self control is a muscle, not just for our dogs, but for us as well. It would have been so easy for me to just not bother with the training regime this morning (“eh, it’s only a short walk for toileting and I’m tired, what harm can it do?”).

But then I doubt we’d have been anywhere near as calm with the many dogs we met on our way round, so by the time we met the cats Brian and Seamus would have been wound-up and already frustrated.

I guarantee we’d have had all the usual chaos, and I’d never have had the chance to see how calm and controlled my boys can be if I set them up right.

And really, if that’s not motivation to carry on with the training plan, I don’t know what is!  

Laura, Brian and Seamus

 

What’s on at Well Connected Canine in York?

New 5 week class blocks starting on Mon 8th and Wed 10th April covering sports foundation skills, good companion obedience, sniffing school, parkour AND bodywork plus relaxation.
You can see the full programme here:
grab a weekly class!

And if you’re not sure what’s right for your dog just email me to chat it through (morag@wellconnectedcanine.co.uk)

Or if you’d rather opt for a short, sharp focused set of lessons, why not try a three week intensive to concentrate on nice walking (Stay By My Side), coming back (Baby Come Back), and polite behaviour (Mind Your Manners).

These have been really popular so make sure to book on early or you might miss your chance!

3 week intensives here


Want to try out a new sport?

Why not check out our evening Taster Workshops in Parkour (urban agility for dogs of all ages and breeds)

Getting Started with Parkour


Or enjoy running with your dog as a team!  Canicross really is for any breed (over the age of 1yr)

Canicross Introduction (evening)

Are you ready to dip your toes into breed specific training?

Try our half day workshops (Gun Dog Games or That’s Not A Sheep – for herding breeds)

Gun Dogs and Herding Breeds - Oh My!

Does your dog ONLY come back when you have their kryptonite handy? Laura has a plan!

“Find it!”

My own voice sounds pretty loud in the quiet of the icy field, and I’m pretty certain that the teachers in the school playground next door think I’m a bit strange, but I don’t care, because I have two dogs who are off lead and 100% focused on me and there isn’t a tennis ball in sight.

Why is this important?

Well, my boys have something of a variable relationship with recall – they are both mighty, mighty hunters and the training that works so well in the classroom and in the garden can wobble when it’s faced with the amazingly alluring smells of cat, or bunny, or squirrel, or deer, or…well, you get my point.

Tennis balls are our safety net, because Brian loves tennis balls.

But between moving house and Christmas and everything else the new year has brought, we’ve started relying on tennis balls too much. The problem with that is that when the squeaky is available, Brian doesn’t really care about me (so there’s always the risk he’ll just bog off with the ball, and take his brother with him!).

So, we’re back to using a whole range of other strategies to make sure that Brian and Seamus want to remember we’re walking together, rather than taking the first opportunity to disappear into the distance.

Check-ins and parkour and chasey games and tuggy toys and cheese trees are back to being staples of our walks and we’re already seeing the difference.

More importantly, our walks are already back to being more fun for me, and when I’m having fun, it’s much easier for the boys to have fun as well.

And isn’t that the entire point?

Wishing you happy, excited and engaged walks!

Laura and the troublesome twosome. 

P.S. Need help to get your training back on track after the chaos of Christmas? We have spaces coming up on our three week intensive courses for recall, nice lead walking and manners to give you a real push in building those skills!

Get your 3 week super boost booked

P.P.S. If you haven’t yet introduced your dog to the joys of cheese trees, why not come along to one of our Introduction to Scentwork sessions – I promise your dog will thank you!

Scentwork workshops and more

And don't forget, if your dog already graduated from Sniffing School Level 1, you're eligible for any of these advanced modules!