Walk the Dog Newsletter - Winter 2010

Dear friends,



‘Tis the season to be merry and for snuggling down with our pets as we look forward to some festive fun. We’ve got a bumper packed winter issue with advice on ensuring your four-legged friend stays safe over the festive period and we meet fitness guru Andi Vincent-Jones, who shares her top tips for avoiding injury from dog walking - advice we follow at Walk the Dog. Plus, we’re delighted to launch our very own cartoon series created exclusively for Walk the Dog by artist and illustrator Ellen Tozer. And, we have all our news and a great Christmas recipe for your furry friends. Thank you for your support this year, we’ve had a blast working with you and your pets. We wish you a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year for 2011.

Click here to read the latest copy of our Walk the Dog newsletter for Winter '10.

New book for dog owners Playing With Your Dog

Nurture the playfulness of your pet dog! Walk the Dog founder and award winning dog behaviour specialist Hanne Grice’s new book is out in time for Christmas Playing With Your Dog, you will learn how playing enhances your pet’s natural skills.

Playing can benefit both humans and dogs in several ways.  For humans, playing is the key to developing the coordination that lets them perform their daily activities—may it be physical or social.  Playing can also help dogs in other ways. It allows a dog to use its natural behaviours by boosting its fitness and cognitive skills. This book will help any dog owner work out the games that are best suited for their pet to play throughout his life, from puppyhood to old age.


Playing With Your Dog also shares some tricks for all ages, group activities, and recommended toys that dogs will enjoy. Owners can also learn a few tips from this book to keep their pet tame while having fun. A useful guide, this book is a must-have for dog owners and lovers alike.

Click here to read an excerpt from Playing With Your Dog

Available to buy from Amazon, Tesco and most online resellers.  Or contact the Walk the Dog office to get your copy in time for Christmas.  RRP £6.99. 

***Special offer for WTD clients*** Pet Photo Shoot and Canvas

How cool would it be to have a professional photographic shoot with a top photographer and have that photo of your beloved furry friend mounted onto canvas? Well, now you can have it, thanks to Ian Waldron Photography.

Top rated photographer Ian Waldron is offering an EXCLUSIVE deal to all Walk the Dog clients; a professional pet photo shoot and your chosen photograph printed onto canvas for just £125.



For more information about this fantastic offer, call Ian Waldron Photography on 0845 225 1771. Email: info@ianwaldronphotogaphy.com or visit www.ianwaldronphotography.com/main.php

Moving house - a pet's survival guide

Moving house can be an incredibly exciting yet stressful time for us, and it can affect our pets too. Dogs and cats like status quo and they’re incredibly intuitive; so, a combination of their environment changing and picking up on our frazzled emotions, this can lead to our pets displaying unwanted behaviours after the move. Below are some helpful tips for a safe and stress-free pet!

· Check the property for any potential problems such as holes in the fence, dangerous items being left in the garden and so on.
· Introduce your cat to his new home gradually; restrict him to one or two rooms at first. Place the litter box, bed, scratching post, food and water in the room with it. This gives your cat the chance to get used to the new sounds and smells, and provides him with a ‘safe’ place to use later as a refuge or if he feels uncertain. Place your pet’s favourite bed, blanket, toys or any item that’s familiar to them in that room. This helps him feel more secure in the new surroundings.
· If your cat will be allowed outside, keep him indoors for at least two weeks, so your home is familiar to him. After two weeks, take the cat outside with you, let him explore a bit. After ten minutes bring him back inside. Each day increase the time until he feels safe and knows the area.
· Ensure your pet is properly tagged with your new address and phone number.
· If possible, allow yourself some time before you go back to work. This enables you to help your dog adjust. During this period of change, practice ‘Gesture Leaving’ - where you spend time coming and going from the house, building up in small increments (from a couple of seconds to minutes) to see how your dog will respond. This helps reduce separation anxiety and with practice and repetition your dog should adjust to being home alone in the new environment.
· You should also take your dog straight into the garden of the new property on moving day. Ensure he is on the lead and allow him to explore his new environment. Practice some heel work and general obedience requests to get him focused onto you too – this keeps his pulse rate steady and avoids over excitement. Introduce your dog to his new area very slowly. Explore the area one street at a time, so he can ‘suss out’ who else lives in the neighbourhood. Strange dogs can pose a threat and cause your pet unnecessary stress.

Puppies – the secret to having a happy and well behaved puppy

Wild dogs raise their offspring into perfect wild dogs. So, when humans raise puppies into dogs, they run into trouble. Why?

Well, we don’t allow our puppy to get the natural upbringing they’d receive being brought up by other dogs, and we expect the dog to respect our human rules. These are meaningless to the dog, and we fail to take into consideration the dog’s age, developmental stages and its capacity. So, as a result our dog fails to meet our too high demands. This month we’ve listed below some key rules to help you and your pup on the road to success.

• Lower your expectations. In the wild dogs are allowed to grow up naturally in a pack, they learn self-control gradually.


• Adolescence. Around 4 months of age, the puppy moves into adolescence. They get bored easily and have no self-control, they like action and speed. This is where patience and consistency with your puppy is key. Set some boundaries (e.g.) is the puppy allowed on the sofa by invitation only? Is the dog allowed upstairs?


• Avoid long training sessions. The puppy’s ability to concentrate over long periods is poor, and you need to help teach him self-control. Keep training short, fun and easy. Teach in steps, like the ‘sit-stay’ - build from one second to three seconds, five seconds and so on.


• Have fun with your puppy. Play with your dog! This teaches him to focus on you and builds the association that you’re fun to be with! Playing helps build a bond with your dog too. Focus more energy into playing than walking the puppy. Playing gives the dog mental exercise, as well as, physical exercise.


• Allow the puppy breaks and rest if he looses his concentration while training.


• Slowly introduce new experiences, environments, noises, machinery, clothing, animals and people to the puppy. Take it slowly! You must not put pressure on your puppy or yourself. Stay calm. Your behaviour dictates the behaviour of your dog. If the puppy is scared by something move away in a calm manner, do not make a fuss of the dog (this will only re-enforce the dog’s scared behaviour). Show you are not bothered and there is no need for concern.


• Never hit, shout or punish the puppy. Aggression only begets aggression.


• Toilet training. This is where ‘consistency’ is your friend! Look for the key times the puppy will go, typically upon walking, playing and eating. Pups will sniff and circle. Encourage the puppy outside into the garden. As the puppy goes to the toilet say a word like “be clean”, this build the association of that word to that action. In time you will be able to say the word and the dog will eliminate. Once the pup has finished, walk up to the puppy and treat with food reward immediately and give lots of praise. This increases the repetition of the ‘good’ behaviour. Don’t go inside the house straight after the pup has been to the toilet – if you do, the puppy may learn to hold on for longer, as they want more time to explore the outside. If the pup goes to the toilet inside the house and you haven’t caught him in the act, simply clean it up with no fuss (say nothing and no eye contact). If you catch the puppy about to go or mid-flow – pick it up gently and take outside (repeat as above).


• Start grooming early. Teach your puppy that grooming is a pleasant experience. Brush the puppy when he’s sleepy, gently touch his ears/teeth/paws to enable him to get used to being investigated in these areas. This will help when he has to go to the vets, or when you need to clip his claws or brush his teeth!


• Learn to communicate with your dog. Speak to Hanne Grice about puppy training and the Amichien Bonding method – we’re here to help you. Learn the dog’s language and you’ll understand each other and have the relationship you deserve!

For more information call us on 01442 878628 or email us at info@walk-the-dog.net You can find out more about Walk the Dog Puppies, our puppy classes by visiting our website; http://www.walk-the-dog.net/

Who's walking who? Teaching your dog to walk to heel

Walking a dog that pulls on the lead can be a stressful for any owner and may be even be dangerous. Taking a dog for a walk is supposed to be a pleasurable experience, however we often see many owners literally ‘skiing’ down the pavement with their dogs, or repeatedly saying “heel” to their dog, while getting increasingly frustrated, jerking the dog back on its lead. Having a dog that pulls and an unhappy owner is far from the relaxing ideal of ‘going for a walk’. But, have you ever considered what causes this behaviour in the first place?

Dogs not only want to explore their environment with as much freedom as possible using their incredible senses of smell, hearing and sight, but a dog that pulls on the lead is a good indicator of a dog who’s confused about its position within the hierarchy of its pack. In the wild, the alpha pair lead the hunt and the rest of the pack follow. There is no debate, the rest of the pack follow out of respect for the leaders as the decision makers. If you’ve got a dog that perceives himself to be the decision maker in your domestic pack, it makes total sense that come the times when the pack go out ‘on the hunt’, where shall leader be? In front!

A dog that’s being yanked on the lead or even shouted at receives mixed messages from us. To be the good leader for our dogs we must always ask ourselves ‘Am I happy and am I in control?’ Being a good leader stems from the three C’s: being calm, consistent and convincing. If your dog gets over excited at the mere sight of the lead or you have to struggle to even get the lead on the dog, you haven’t just got a problem walking outside, you have a problem before you even think about going for a walk! To understand dog behaviour we observe wild dogs as this is where we see true dog behaviour in their natural environment.

In the wild, dogs do not walk in unison or ‘to heel’, and they certainly have no concept of the lead – where in the wild do you ever see a dog taking another dog for a walk? In fact, wild dogs such as wolves, jackals, kayotee, dingoes, dholes, painted dogs, hyenas and foxes, never ‘go for a walk’. The closest a wild dog gets to going for a walk is with the hunt. However, they don’t go out through choice, they have to leave the den in order to find the food they need for survival. In the wild, dogs may only hunt once every three days.

So, we have to teach our dog where we want him to be – by our side, and that has to be done without shouting, violence or force. So, let’s look at the most effective way to teach your to walk to heel.

To teach your dog good manners, you must begin at home, where there are no distractions.

1. With your tasty treat in your hand (sausage/cheese/meat strip), turn your back away from your dog, put your hand containing the treat to your side to show your dog where you want him to be, call his name and ask him to ‘heel’.
2. If your dog appears at your side praise him and give him the food reward. If he doesn’t, leave it an hour or so then try again.
3. Build this process up by walking a few steps, while treating and praising as he gets it right. Intermittently you may say ‘heel’ – but remember you’re showing your dog where you want him to be with your body and movement, this action speaks louder than words!
4. Walking to heel doesn’t come naturally to the dog, so you have to build up your and your dog’s confidence and trust in you, so you must stay calm. If your stress levels rise your dog will pick up on this, so stop your heel work practice. This is like the good diet, you should practice this ‘little and often’ and only for 5 to 10 minutes, so you and your dog have fun and stay focused.
5. With practice you’ll be able to move freely around your home and garden with your dog following you in all different directions – forwards, backwards, in figures of eight and so on! You should practice this off the lead first, and then once you and the dog have the hang of it, introduce the lead.
6. Get the dog used to seeing the lead being moved about, this breaks any associations that the lead equals ‘going for a walk’ and helps calm the dog down. If he gets over excited once you’ve popped on the lead, take it off, go and sit down and wait until he’s settled.
7. Practice moving to the door regularly, if he pulls just stop and wait for the lead to go slack, as this happens say "good dog" and take a step towards the door. You may only get one step before he pulls again, but you must be consistent and keep a steady pulse rate. If he pulls again, you can take off the lead and abandon the walk altogether or stand still until the lead goes slack once more.
8. Once you’ve got out of the door you need to keep practicing with the principle of ‘slack lead’ equals ‘move forward’; ‘tight lead’ equals ‘stop’. Consistency is the key to success here. The reward is the moving forward, praise and treat, so if you keep going when the dog is pulling, you’re actually rewarding the dog for pulling!! Use treats to get the dog focused back on you. If the dog pulls you stop, wait for the dog to look up, change direction and reward the dog for being in the right position.

This exercise does take time and a lot of patience but it really works!