New Puppies Everywhere!

There are puppies everywhere! As people went into Lockdown they thought it was time to bring a dog into their life. And now they’re enjoying their puppy . . . or perhaps not so much.

Now we know that many puppy purchases are made on the spur of the moment. That is sad, because it means no planning will have been done - no research on breed suitability for their home, no knowledge of breed/type proclivities, no idea what to feed or how to turn this new scrap into the companion dog they want. (Search in our extensive blog to find the answers to these important questions.) So it’s only a matter of time till it all comes apart.

Here’s a great starting place to get your new puppy to become your Brilliant Family Dog!

And there are those who think deeply, plan ahead, prepare, acknowledge that they don’t know it all, ask all the right questions (I love these people!) . . . but they still get stuck!

My inbox is always full of questions, and at the moment the questions are mostly about puppies. I’m happy to help, and that often includes pointing them to one of the multitude of free resources here at Brilliant Family Dog.

There is SO much information available to us on a daily basis. We are under a continual barrage of knowledge! They say that there is more information published in two days now than from the dawn of time up to our century. It’s impossible to keep up with it.

What you need to do is find someone who suits you and your style of interacting with the world, and stick to that person. That doesn’t, of course, have to be me. While I have masses to offer you - hundreds of articles, nine books, two premium courses, and a plethora of free classes, workshops, courses and guides - it’s for you to choose who YOU think works best for you.

If your inbox is crammed daily with missives and sales letters from all the people you’ve followed in the past, the time has come to take the axe and unsubscribe from most of them.

They’re confusing you!

And what do we do when we’re confused? N-O-T-H-I-N-G.

If you take the axe to me as well, so be it. You need to be selective who you listen to. It’s your life, with your dog, so don’t expose yourself to all that information without strong filters!

So how does this affect your puppy?

Many of these emails have come about from confusion. “I read that you shouldn’t do xyz,” “I’ve been told not to do this or that,” “I’ve been following your suggestions, but when I add in [fashionable new thing] it all goes wrong.”

This is what happens when you try to grab information from everywhere you see it! And so often it’s from inappropriate sources.

Unless she’s qualified in canine behaviour, the woman next door (however nice she may be) can’t help you. And unless she’s qualified in canine behaviour, neither can your vet (however brilliant she is at operations and broken bones). You wouldn’t ask your postman how to craft a business letter just because he carries them! And you wouldn’t ask me how to treat pyometra just because I know about dog behaviour . . .

Horses for courses!

These folk who email me are keen to do their best for their puppy. But their continual trawling through the internet is confusing them so that they muddle up all the suggestions and end up confusing their dog as much as themselves! This is always made worse when they are beguiled by “balanced trainers”, tv personalities, and people who routinely use punishment and intimidation in their so-called “training”.

A what trainer?

I know it can be hard to spot these people when you’re not an expert yourself. One give-away is if they use anything other than a soft collar, a long lead, and a harness, on their dog. No need for chains, spikes, electronics - all those extra gadgets are there to make money for someone!

But often what they say gives it away. “Show him who’s boss,” “Be the leader,” “Be the alpha,” “Lead the pack,” “Keep him in his place,” “Eat and go through doors before your dog, to push him down the pecking order,” and so on.

Still not sure?

So ask yourself, would you adopt any of these ideas with your family?

No?

Of course you wouldn’t!

You do know, deep down, what’s right!

So no need to do it with your dog either, your little puppy, who you have chosen to become your friend and companion down the years.

Check out our free Workshop right now - you can be watching it within minutes ...

Dogs love the familiar

And by that, I don’t mean they love witch’s cats (though they may …)!

I mean that dogs love what they know. They love familiar walks, familiar houses, familiar foods, familiar people. To keep things familiar may mean restricting the size of their world. But the pay-off in terms of a relaxed dog can be well worth it.

Dogs love to know what’s happening next. This is why they make such great stock-herders. They know that when a ewe twitches her ear or looks away from the flock, she’s about to leg it! So the dog anticipates this movement and flies into action to thwart the sheepy escape plan.

You know the flurry of activity that ensues when you put on your coat or shoes and head towards the place where the leads are kept? Same thing.

Dogs are expert at stringing events together so that they immediately know that the first event in a series means that the rest is likely to follow. This anticipation can land the clever performance dog in trouble, when he tries to perform his whole dance or obedience routine at once!

BUT … the clever dog-owner uses this knowledge to his or her advantage!

Here I explain it in more detail, so you can come away from this free Masterclass Workshop working with a new skill

What does this mean for the family dog?

It means that you can set up your own series of events which you want your dog to follow.

Each thing you do is a predictor of the next thing - all culminating in something really good!

For instance, your sequence may be

1. Say dog’s name

2. Dog looks at you

3. Give dog a reward

If you teach this unwaveringly, you will guarantee an ever faster response from your dog to his name! You’re pleased, he’s pleased, happiness all round!

In the same way, if your sequence is

1. Say dog’s name

2. Dog looks at you

3. Ignore dog,

how long is it going to be before your dog stops bothering to look at you when you say his name? You are effectively teaching him that this particular sequence is not worth following. The inherent reward (be it a food treat or racing to cut off the sheep) is not there.

This is at the basis of everything I teach, and nowhere is it more important than with the Growly Dog.

So what does this mean for the Growly Dog?

Your Growly Dog (your reactive, shy, anxious, aggressive, dog) has set up a load of event sequences in his mind.

It may be that if you go for a walk he thinks he should be on edge because other dogs are going to appear in front of him. It happens every time, so it’s bound to happen again, in your dog’s mind. So he has to take the action he has found works to keep these dogs at a distance - bark and lunge and generally look ferocious.

It may be that when visitors come to the home things are not following the script. He feels he needs to act to keep these people out, because they don’t belong here.

And for some, the growliness is focussed on cars, or children, or cyclists.

Barking and lunging temporarily gives relief from the tensions and anxieties your dog is feeling. So it becomes his go-to response. This is now his sequence! So this is where we need to change things.

The very first thing is to remove the trigger entirely - the thing that kicks off the sequence in the first place. Once your dog can experience life without the upsetting thing at all, you can monkey with his sequence and change it so that the presence of another dog / visitor / cyclist actually predicts good things!

While you teach this, keep in mind that the familiar includes your local, regular walks. Save the outings to busy places and new territories for special occasions. The comfort of the familiar will help your dog relax.

There are many articles on this site that will get you started with this major change in your life. You can make that start here.

Better still, watch our free Masterclass and learn new strategies and techniques and start using them today!

Back to the Family Dog again

One of my favourite practices is to teach all my dogs matwork from very early on. They learn to lie on their mat whenever it appears, and relax.

Their sequence becomes

1. Mat appears

2. Lie on mat

3. Do nothing

Can you imagine how useful this is?! It translates easily to any other parking place you want to put your dog - a bed, a chair, a step - and your dog knows the sequence.

Puppies can learn this from a very early age like young Bailey here, on Week 3 of our Puppy training. And any dog can learn it fast.

You’ll wonder how you ever managed without this skill! The ultimate off-switch for your dog!

You’ll find the whole program laid out, step by predictive step in Calm Down!

The winding path - for our dogs and for us!

Wandering footpaths are a feature of my photos. And they're a feature of my life too, as well as yours. We are all on an endless journey. And we all have choices to make.

Our dogs take everything in their stride. They put their noses down and they explore their surroundings. They find what they like and they discard what they don’t like.

We can do the same!

We can look at our surroundings, our circumstances, and we can pick and choose. We don’t have to take everything life throws at us, or what gets thrown at us by other people, governments, natural and not-so-natural events!

We can decide what we want to keep in our life, and we can discard what we don’t want.

If you are burdened by expectation, guilt, or a desire to fit in, you’re not going to be able to make the choices that are right for you!

You have to choose yourself, from your heart, what aligns with your values. What is acceptable to you, not to society, family, colleagues …

What does the future hold for us?

We have no idea!

No-one can know what will happen tomorrow, next year, later today . . .

The best we can do is to keep our minds open, and explore - just as our dogs do - and find the hidden delights that are strewn across our path, but which we so often trample over in our hurry to get . . . somewhere else.

I love finding surprises on my walks. And I’ve been finding lots of hearts recently! Here’s a nice one that Coco is inspecting.

You may think it’s just a stone.

Aha! Nonono!

It’s a sign that love is everywhere. Beauty is everywhere. But it’s easy for us to miss it in our hurry through life.

Driving through the Burren - a magical limestone pavement in Ireland, full of flowers which grow nowhere else - a friend asked of a farmer on the road where he may see the flowers.

Slowly and deliberately, the old soul replied, “You’ll not see anything, hurtling through at thirty miles an hour.”

So true!

The beauty of the world is there for us. Our task is to look beyond the humdrum and see it.

Am I on the right path?

You may have been racing along your path for so long that you’ve forgotten to check that it’s the right path for you!

Does it fill you with joy, every day? Does your heart sing when you wake in the morning and see what your day holds? Or do you get a sinking feeling, a feeling of dread, as you contemplate your day?

Sometimes we need a little nudge in the right direction, to ensure we don't go off track. Sometimes we can give ourselves that nudge. And sometimes we need someone else to do it for us.

Do you have a safe someone? Contact me if you are still searching.

Learn a new way to interact with your dog which you will both love!

Your dog and hot weather

It’s not that hot in England right now. But it is June, which means there is the possibility of a hot day. And the trouble is, we’re not that used to the heat.

Friends in the US and the Far East and Australia tell me that their heat is frequently up in the 90s, so they’re adept at managing their homes and their lives to accommodate this.

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But it can be very easy to think that how you experience the heat is how your dog will experience it! How wrong can we be?

You’ve met young Coco Poodle … well, he hasn’t time to stay still and rest. And he certainly doesn’t have time to think in the moment! So if Cricket the Whippet, with her thin coat, huge heart and lungs, and lean form specially adapted to losing heat as fast as possible takes off after a rabbit, Coco will hurtle off with her!

He’s very, very fast - which is why so many miniature poodles do well in agility competitions - but he can’t clock 35 mph like Cricket can without something going amiss.

A cautionary tale

Recently - on a pleasant, sunny but not particularly hot, day - this is just what happened. They took off after a rabbit.

They both came back soon enough - a quick chase is what they enjoyed. (Don’t worry! They don’t do anything with the rabbit when they overtake it, they just leave and come back, knowing the fun is over.)

Cricket panted lightly for a minute or two, but Coco was panting heavily, his tongue a large spoon shape that showed just how much heat his body was trying to lose. Back on lead again I expected him to recover quickly as usual.

But this day, over the next few minutes, he gradually got worse.

As we headed homeward I was looking out for waterways without blue-green algae, and which were accessible.

Coco started to hang back and plod.

I hunted more urgently.

Coco’s legs started to splay, he was gasping, and he became unable to walk.

So I had no choice but to scoop him up and race to clean water as quickly as possible. Once I found some we could scramble down to, I attached 10 feet of lead to his harness and lowered him in at the edge. The water was over his ankles, the harness holding him upright.

Gradually I moved him further into the water, in stages. I knew it was important not to rush this bit.

Eventually the water reached his ribs. After standing him shoulder deep in the water for about 5 minutes, he became perkier, slowed his panting and took a drink.

He was able to do the last part of our walk back to the car on his own four feet.

Phew! What a relief!

The cooling episode could have been speeded up a bit if I’d been able to reach him and splash some water on his head and back, to accelerate heat loss through evaporation. But slowly does it is the way to go.

Is your dog like Coco?

It’s important to know how to manage your individual dog. While Cricket recovered with absolute ease from her burst of speed - this is, after all, what Whippets are brilliantly designed for, and also why they feel the cold so much - Coco naturally has a warm tightly-curled coat. I keep it short most of the year, and take care to shear him more frequently in the summer months.

The other two dogs who hadn’t taken off chasing were fine. In fact they’re older and more sensible than Coco and can manage their body-heat pretty well.

But Coco … aaahhh … Coco! He’s in too much of a hurry to think a lot of the time. So I have to manage things for him. Now that I’m aware of how easily he can get beyond himself heatwise, I can ensure it doesn’t happen again. As my students know well, one of my maxims is “If you don’t want something to happen, don’t let it happen!”

So if it’s warm or close and there are rabbits about, young Coco stays on lead till it’s safe. Though I always stay aware of where we can find water, just in case!

What to do?

There are some useful suggestions here to help you manage your dog in hot weather.

Always remember that what seems ok for us may absolutely NOT be ok for your dog! Err on the side of caution. Things can go wrong fast.

The answer lies in prevention, management, and knowing what to do.

Of course, as that article shows, heat can also affect your dog’s mood. Learn how to access and influence your dog’s state of mind easily in our free Workshop

Watch our free Workshop and learn how to communicate effectively with your dog or your new puppy, right from the start!

What can our dogs teach us about life?

We seem to think it’s up to us to teach our dogs everything. I get questions all the time along the lines of “How can I make my dog do such-and-such?” “How can I stop my dog doing xyz?”

But how about looking at what our dogs can teach us?

One of the greatest realisations in my time on this planet is that

It’s not about us!

We see things through our own individual set of goggles. And those goggles have very smeary, scratched lenses!

They’ve been smeared and scratched by years and years of our life experiences, what we’ve been taught, what’s acceptable in our society, how we think we ought to behave.

Often we have felt that life is happening to us, without us being able to do a thing about it. We may have accepted everything we’ve been told or taught without question.

Where is the truth?

But, you know, the only thing you can be sure of, can trust, can know is truth, is your own reaction. Your own thought. Your own feeling.

For some of us, even those spontaneous thoughts have been crushed and buried because we thought they didn’t fit in with what we’re meant to think. It can take a little digging to find out what your true values and feelings are. We can cast aside the interpretations we put on the things that happen, we can stop meeting trouble halfway by our assumptions,

And this is where your dog comes in.

Our teacher - our dog!

When did he last read the paper, watch the news? When did he last ruminate over what someone said, asking himself endless questions, whywhywhy? Does he worry whether he is good enough?

(I’m talking here, of course, of the companion dogs in our homes, who are being given the Five Freedoms.)

Dogs are truly spontaneous - when we allow them to be so. They experience something, and they react. Or respond. Or ignore.

They don’t analyse it. They don’t ask endless questions - “Why did she look at me like that?” “What can he be meaning?” “Is it something I said?”

They just experience - and react.

So, as dogs live entirely in the present, this keeps their lives comparatively simple. For example, they see something new on the ground:

“Can I eat it?”

“Can I climb on it?”

“Will I roll in it?”

“I’ll pass by …”

Nowhere do they say,

“What is the meaning of this thing?”

“Is this to do with what happened last week?”

“This means the world as we know it will disappear.”

“Why do these things always happen to me?”

Listen and learn from our dogs

So how about taking a leaf out of their book? When something happens, take it at face value. No need to let your imagination run riot when something goes slightly amiss, “This means the end of everything I value!” or “I will end up dead in a ditch!”

As Confucius apparently said, “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”

Uncomplicate yourself. Be a dog. Live in the now.

And if you’d like to learn just how you can approach your life with pleasure and not trepidation, just ask me!

Want to learn more how to relate to your lovely teacher, your dog?

Watch our free Workshop and learn how to communicate effectively with your dog or your new puppy, right from the start!

How can I get my dog to Listen?

This is the single most frequent request I get from readers: “How can I get my dog to listen?”

Sometimes it arrives in the form of “My dog doesn’t listen to me,” “He never listens,” “You’d think he was deaf!” and so on.

But in every case it’s the owner complaining about her dog’s fault.

How about turning that around????

How about looking at what you’re doing first, then look at what your dog is or isn’t doing in response?

You actually have to teach them first!

I find that folk arrive with me, complaining that their dog doesn’t listen, then they’re surprised when I ask them how they have taught their dog to listen.

They haven’t, of course. They expect the dog to arrive with Listening-to-Owner installed. They don’t realise they have to make it worth their dog’s while to listen to them - every time!

We spend a lot of time with our friends, family, even a prospective spouse, teaching them how to listen. We all want to be heard. And there are different levels of listening. We want the very best!

Your dog is the same! He needs to learn that listening to you is good, listening to you is worth his while, listening to you always results in good things.

And there’s a very real danger that if you don’t teach him what you like, then he’ll teach you what he likes!

In every relationship, one person is shaping the other. Sometimes it gets horribly one-sided, like in an oppressive marriage, or an unequal friendship. But that isn’t necessary. A little careful groundwork can start a relationship off right. True choice in a relationship comes when both parties can express themselves fully..

And that’s what we want with our dogs too.

We want a companion dog who enjoys our company, chooses to hang out with us, is alert to our needs, and eager to please. Note that this doesn’t imply slavery, grovelling, or self-abasement! We want an honest relationship with our dog, the same as with everyone else.

I know the frustration your dog’s apparent ignoring can cause - when you do your best to do what you’ve been told in training your dog - only to find it doesn’t work. It causes the opposite of what you want! Antagonism, distrust, loss of love.

There is a better way. A way which works.

And, importantly, a way which does not involve any force, coercion, or intimidation. The same way as you choose to treat your family and friends.

I love my dog, but he just doesn’t listen!

Would this be you? Have you got a dog who simply doesn’t listen to you? Well, you’re in luck! I’ve just made a new training workshop with exactly you in mind!

You can find it here - it’s free, by the way, as is so much that I give you.

Why do I give so much away for nothing? Some suspicious people even say “What’s the catch?”!

Well, there are two reasons:

1. I am passionate about changing the lives of dogs, and this means changing how their owners are with them. Getting these folk to dip their toe in the water of Choice Training is a great start!

and

2. I know that a number of those people I help will want more - they’ll want to work with me in person, through one of my programs. Hooray! Now I get to help them in depth! That’s the fullest expression of my passion to help dogs be understood.

Understanding leads to harmony.

As Carol, one of those students, put it just recently,

“I’m amazed at how much me and my dog have changed, and what we’ve now become. A proper team.”

Don’t lose another minute!

Register for this free Workshop here and get stuck in! You’ll come away with solid strategies you can put into practice TODAY, to change things in your life with your dog, remove that conflict and frustration, and build an unbreakable bond.

Start the change with your puppy or dog with our free Workshop packed with ideas and strategies -

all force-free!