Happy Easter for your dog too! Easter can be such a lovely time of the year celebrating bringing in new life and spring, lambs in the field, rabbits on the grass and chocolate eggs - perfect! ... unless you're a dog! Lots of things this time of year can actually be quite difficult The post Happy Easter for your dog too! appeared first on Positive Pet Training ..read more

New dog owners We work with lots of people at different stages with their dogs, people with new puppies, rescues and older (including elderly) dogs all the time. And some of these people might be working with us with their second, third, (and often even more) dog. Changing what you’ve done in the The post New dog owners appeared first on Positive Pet Training ..read more

Changing your mindset When your first start looking into force-free training for dogs it can feel difficult. Especially if you’ve used other training approaches in the past. Changing your mind about anything can be a real hurdle, but the fact that you’re looking into it is a huge step in the right direction. The post Changing your mindset appeared first on Positive Pet Training ..read more

My dog has a lump What is it? You may be brushing or fussing your dog when you notice they have a lump or bump where there wasn’t one before. Sometimes they appear overnight or gradually get larger and more noticeable. A lump could be one of many things: An abscess The post My dog has a lump appeared first on Positive Pet Training ..read more

Collecting a pet’s urine sample Sometimes a urine sample is extremely helpful to diagnose your pet. But often people panic when asked to collect one! There are many reasons you may be asked to collect one. To check for evidence of urinary tract infection or bladder stones To assess or monitor The post Collecting a Pet’s urine sample appeared first on Positive Pet Training ..read more

Is residential training a good idea? To save you scrolling down here’s the short answer; no residential is not the best option for you and your dog. But we completely understand why you might be thinking about this route, so we want you to understand all the reasons we don’t recommend it and also what you can do instead. Avoiding aversive trainers – As with all our training (link to ethos here) we strongly recommend that any training you do with your dog is force-free and avoids any pain or fear. Unfortunately there are still many people calling themselves trainers who continue to ..read more

Hot Dog! When it’s hot outside you and your dog might love it or hate it, but either way you’ve got to ensure you keep your dog safe and cool. Heatstroke Heatstroke from dogs over heating is a very real concern that unfortunately still kills many dogs every year. We don’t get many very hot days a year but when we do we often struggle. Now imagine walking barefoot on the hot pavement, wearing a big furry coat and not being able to sweat to cool yourself on those days and you can see how much more difficult it is for your dog than it is for you. We always recommend not to leave your dog unat ..read more

Muzzle That Dog! When we mention muzzles everyone gives us that same look. “Not my dog!” And it’s because as a society we all have the same perception of muzzles. The are ghastly contraptions reserved for only the most horrible dogs around! Aggressive, nasty dogs should be muzzled to keep us and our dogs safer. Whereas actually there is no such thing as nasty or even “aggressive” dogs. Some dogs might exhibit “aggressive” type behaviours when scared or threatened. That doesn’t make them nasty. Think about the time you were at your worst, would you want the world to judge you based on your ..read more

Pain and Behaviour When our dogs do things that we wish they wouldn’t most people want to focus on stopping the behaviour. This is a really short term view though. If we don’t address why the dog is doing it you aren’t actually getting to the route of the problem. How we work: We don’t try to suppress behaviours we don’t like. Instead we try to change how dogs feel in the situation. Emotions control behaviour just like with humans. If you’re scared or frustrated you will act out in ways you wouldn’t if you were happy and relaxed. But did you know that the primary course (in potentially up ..read more

Raising Two Puppies At The Same Time Firstly, we wouldn’t recommend having two puppies (especially siblings/litter mates) in the same household. You can read all our reasons why not in our blog here. But if you’re reading this you probably already have two puppies (whether litter mates or not) and want to know the best way to raise them avoiding, or limiting, those issues. So whether you have two of the same breed, genetic litter mates, of the same sex or one of each we want each dog to mature into a happy solo dog who just happens to live with their sibling. For this to happen each dog mu ..read more