Management is a word that you may not be familiar with in dog training but it is so valuable! In essence, management means setting up the environment that your dog lives and plays in to prevent them from practising things you don’t want them to do. It’s an especially useful and important technique, particularly when rearing balanced puppies and throughout adolescence. It has an important role in welcoming a rescue dog too, to support them in creating new habits.

Barking is not really the problem in domesticated dogs. It’s stopping problem barking when you’ve had enough that causes the headaches!
Barking is natural for dogs. It’s a signal to the rest of the world and they often enjoy doing it. They use it to communicate with other dogs and with people …

It’s firework season again!
Diwali, November 5th and the New Year will all bring plenty of bangs, whizzes and crashes to light up our skies.  This is the time of year when thousands of our household pets will be cowering in terror or running away in fear from all these noises and lights that they just don’t understand.

As the owner of a Westie who had to undergo several periods of enforced crate rest because of spinal surgery, I know how hard it is for dogs to accept this kind of confinement. When you are not allowed to move except to relieve yourself, life is VERY boring and I had to wrack my brains for lots of ways to keep my little Arthur sane, entertained and safe during his long weeks of rehabilitation.

According to several sources I have checked out recently, more than 50% of dog owners have never taken their dog to any kind of formal dog training event. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the remainder of them are completely untrained, but it certainly made me think…