kims canines Archives - The Stray Ferret

Kim’s Canines: Holidays- fun for you, stressful for your dog

This column is written for the Stray Ferret by Kimberley Metcalfe. Kimberley has an MSc in Applied Animal Behaviour and Welfare. Her company Pooches Galore is based in Harrogate and specialises in dog training and resolving canine behavioural problems.

This year more than ever we are going to be staycationing, and for many dogs this might be their first holiday. For those of us, myself included, who usually take our main holiday abroad or without our dogs, this year might be the first year that we holiday with our dogs.

Here are my top tips for stress free holidays with our dogs:

If your dog is crate trained, but maybe you’ve not used it for a while, now is the time to dust off the crate. Reintroduce the crate and get your dog used to it at home. This helps to give your dog a secure space where they can feel reassured. This is also a requirement of many holiday homes, so starting in a safe environment is much easier.
Work on your dog’s settle behaviour – being out in cafes, pubs and restaurants has been a rarity for most of our dogs over the last year. Although many dogs will love being out and about around people, (these are known as disco dogs!), others will find this much more challenging (we call these dogs library dogs!). I recommend to all my clients to work on teaching their dog to settle on a mat in easy environments and then work up to settling outside of café before sitting for long periods inside.
The basics – no matter what we are going to do with our dogs on their holidays, recall and loose lead walking are going to make your life a lot easier. Take high value treats on your walks and work hard on rewarding these basics. Even if you feel your dog already has these, there’s no harm in brushing up their skills around high level distractions such as picnics!

Packing for an easy life would be in my top tips too, so apart from the obvious bed and bowl, this is what else I would be packing:

Chews – lots of healthy chews to help settle dogs in lots of different situations.
A settle mat – somewhere comfortable for your dog to lay on when they are out and about.
A drying coat – if you have a dog that loves to be in the water, a drying coat will save you so much time.
A travel bowl – always handy to have in your bag, so if you get stuck without access to a water bowl you have one to hand.
A first aid kit – these are always useful to have on you when you are out and about.
Contact numbers for local vets in the area you are staying in.

Hopefully these hints and tips will help you to have a happy holiday. And of course, if you are struggling with any of the above please do not hesitate to get in touch!

Kim’s Canines: Has the last year made our dogs more reactive?

I’m not sure if it is a consequence of the severe restrictions we have been living under with our dogs, the increase in the number of dogs on walks, lack of socialisation or something else altogether: but I am seeing more and more reactive dogs.

Reactivity is a bit of a catch all term we use for dogs who bark, lunge, and even bite at other dogs or people. I normally see it come from a place of fear or uncertainty. And one thing we know is that the last year has been uncertain for us – and I’m sure it has also been uncertain for our dogs.

We have spent a year keeping our distance from others and we might even have tightened up on the lead to move them out of the way, which has meant that our dogs have also kept their distance from others. Many dogs will be fine with this and will bounce back with no problems at all. However, many dogs will have picked up on this and will have developed some anxiety in certain situations.

Reactivity normally comes from a place of fear, with the dog’s behaviour escalating gradually resulting in barking and lunging at dogs or people. Normally the dog’s behaviour begins with very subtle signs, often so subtle you have to be really looking for them to notice. These behaviours include lip licking, yawning, scratching at the collar – see how subtle they are?

Because they are so subtle, they are often missed. When they are missed or ignored, the dog then has to increase their behaviour to make the signs more obvious. Eventually the dog has to continually increase the intensity of their body language until they reach barking, growling, lunging – and even biting. These much more obvious signs almost always work to remove the threat.

When we work with dogs who are stressed in different situations, we need to look closely at behaviours they offer us from a distance to help them feel more secure and that the other dogs or people are not a threat to them. Ultimately, we need to change their underlying emotions when they see their trigger, from a place of fear, anxiety or uncertainly, instead teaching the dog that good things happen. The trigger predicts something good!

There is a very subtle art to this science, and timing and distance is everything. If your dog is struggling, please reach out: we can help you to have a happier life with your dog.

Kim’s Canines: things to know when purchasing a puppy

I recently recorded a podcast with Marc Abraham, the TV vet and more importantly the animal welfare campaigner who worked tirelessly to introduce Lucy’s Law last year.

Lucy’s Law was a landmark law in many ways, it was brought in to protect the rights of the breeding bitches who have often been neglected and used purely to make money, ending the third-party sake of puppies to try and eradicate puppy farms.

Often in these situations, potential puppy buyers do not meet the pup’s biological mum and are sold through brokers. This ultimately results in poor welfare for the dogs, unsanitary conditions for raising dogs, diseases, poorly puppies, and potentially behavioural problems.

The law came into effect in April 2020, just after the country was plunged into a lockdown, meaning puppy owners could not go and see their pups in their home environment with their mum as should be the way. Instead, unscrupulous breeders were still able to find ways around Lucy’s Law, delivering puppies to owners, and sending videos of puppies in their home environment without prospective owners having any way of checking the validity of these videos.

Over the past year, when regulations should have been tighter around purchasing and collecting dogs, I have heard many horror stories, including of dogs being passed through windows of cars in service station car parks, and dogs being sold on the understanding that they are 8 weeks old when they have actually been 12 or even 16 weeks, as well as many others.

The demand for puppies over the last year has been extraordinary, with the price of puppies reflecting this. If you are looking to bring a puppy into your home there are a number of very important checks you need to do.

Meet your puppy at their home. The puppies should be in the breeders home, getting used to the sounds and sights of the home environment – not in a garage or stable outside.
Does it look like a dog lives there with a litter of puppies? There should be a whelping pen that the puppies have been living in.
How is mum? Is she there? Is she friendly? What’s her personality like? Is she interested in the puppies? Is she still with the puppies? If not, when and why did she leave them?
Are the other litter mates there? How many were in the litter? Have any of them left to their new homes?
How old is the puppy? By law they have to be 8 weeks before they can come home with you.
Has the puppy been weaned, and are they eating solid food and not reliant on their mum? Puppies should be weaned from between 3 weeks to 7 weeks of age, but certainly before they go home with you.
How old is mum? She should be over 1 year old before she has her first litter.
How many litters has the mum had? Really, we don’t want the mum to have had more than 4 litters and once she is about 5 she should be retired from breeding.
What is the puppy eating? Is it a good quality food? Is the breeder going to give you some food to come home with feed the puppy when they get home? Are they fed on raw food, kibble or a home-made diet –and is this diet going to work for you?
What are the conditions of the sale? Can you breed from this dog should you want to? Will they take the puppy back if you are unable to keep them? Have they put any other conditions on the sale of the dog?
Is the breeder interrogating you? They should be asking questions to check your suitability – asking about your home, who lives there, your experience of owning dogs, why are you choosing this breed, is your garden secure, how much time do you have to dedicate to your new dog.

This is a big commitment you are making, so don’t be afraid to ask as many questions as you want, making sure that this is the right dog for you to bring into your home for the next 10-15 years.

It can be difficult when we are caught up in the excitement of finding a new puppy, but always take a step back and look objectively at a situation.

Kim’s Canines: Social distancing is not just for humans

As we are in the midst of another national lockdown one phrase that we have heard over and over again is ‘social distancing’. The thought that we cannot be close to others is an alien one to us. And the same goes for dogs: we spend a lot of time when our puppies are young encouraging them to be friends with every dog they see. Unfortunately, not all dogs grow up to want to be around other dogs – it makes them feel anxious or scared and this anxiety manifests as aggression.

As a behaviourist, I work daily with dogs who cannot cope when other dogs invade their personal space. For the owners in this situation the sight of another dog bounding over towards them is terrifying. This over excited, bounding dog, is often paired with an owner calling out “it is ok, they are friendly!”.

Unfortunately for the anxious dog, their brain is unable to compute this as friendliness. Instead their fight or flight system has been activated, and being trapped on a lead often leads to only one outcome: fight. The sympathetic nervous system releases several brain chemicals to help with the survival of the animal and the dog is no longer thinking rationally.

As a dog owning community, we need to help these anxious dogs by keeping social distanced not just from a human standpoint but for our dogs too. This is especially true when we see other dogs on a lead.

For most of us, our dogs leads are for keeping them next to us when we are on a walk, however, for owners of reactive dogs they can feel like the only way to have control over situations.

Of course, there are other reasons that dogs are on leads: they could run off when the owner unclips the lead, they could be in pain or be injured, they could be old or in season. However, for any or all of these dogs, having dogs run up into their face can cause a lot of frustration or anxiety and this in turn can become aggression over time.

So, let’s make a promise, if we see another dog off the lead, or an owner who is working hard to keep their dog calm in the presence of others, we help them out – keep our dogs close to us, under control, increase social distance. With reactive dogs it often takes a village – or in our case a town.

Kim’s Canines: a dog is for life, not just for Christmas

We’ve all heard the saying “a dog is for life, not just for Christmas” and it is one I wholeheartedly believe in. As someone who did get their first-ever dog as a Christmas present after 13 years of begging, a well thought out Christmas present can bring many years of joy and a dog can be both for Christmas and for life.

For many, getting a puppy at any time of the year has taken a lot of forethought whether a Christmas present or not. My job as a trainer is to help you ensure that when your puppy comes home with you, there are many happy years ahead. I have two top tips for a happy life with your puppy:

Management

Management is my number one tip when you bring home a new puppy. If you don’t want them to eat your shoes… put them away! Want them to toilet outside? Watch them like a hawk. Don’t want your new sofa chewing? Shut the door. It is impossible for anyone to train their puppy for every eventuality, so to prevent unwanted behaviours we need to manage situations by setting things up before problems arise.

Training

Secondly you are going to have to invest in a significant amount of training. As a dog trainer, of course I am going to say this! You have to teach your puppy to live in a human world. They don’t know that they can’t toilet in the kitchen and they have to go outside. They don’t know that biting isn’t the best way to get you to engage with them. They don’t know how to walk on a lead. There is such a long list of things to teach them, so work out what is a priority for you.

We also want to train our dogs in a specific way, known as positive reinforcement. This means that we reward the behaviours we like so we see them more and more. Rewarding them for toileting outside, coming back when called, and walking nicely on a lead will encourage all these behaviours. What we don’t want to do is punish our puppies, as they don’t know they are doing something wrong; this will only break down the relationship between you and your new puppy.

My biggest tip for a long and happy life with your puppy is to ask for help from a qualified APDT dog trainer before your problems become too challenging for you. Whether that is someone with you from day one or someone you bring in when you have problems – it is what we are here for!

Kim’s Canines: supporting our dogs out of lockdown

Lockdown has been a strange time for all of us, and our dogs included. I think though for them it is more of a positive change, having their owners around is most dogs’ dream! However, this change has also caused a number of problems for our dogs.

As we come to the end of our second lockdown, we need to check that our dogs are coping with these changes.

The primary concern that we have seen coming out of the first lockdown, is dogs getting so used to us being around that when we started to leave them home alone, they just couldn’t cope. Although this second lockdown has meant that we have been able to leave the house more, for the majority of us, we are spending more time at home with our dogs.

It is important to ensure that our dogs are fine home alone, and to know this we can record our dogs when they are home alone. Hopefully, what we will see is our dogs curling up and going to sleep.

What we don’t want to see is our dogs crying, howling, pacing around, toileting (if they are fully housetrained), not eating treats that you’ve left for them or destroying your home (you’ll probably not need a video for this one!). Although these signs don’t necessarily mean that your dog has separation anxiety, it does mean that we need to help them settle when they are home alone. If a dog is struggling with separation anxiety, it is important to build up departures very slowly to allow our dogs to get used to being home alone.

Other problems that we have seen have been around people coming into the home. As we haven’t had people into our homes, many dogs are finding it very strange when people are coming in. Hopefully for many dogs, pairing people coming into the home with a tasty stuffed kong or a nice chew will mean that your dog looks forward to people coming in rather than being fearful! It is the positive association which we want to encourage.

The most important thing to bear in mind with our dogs, is that in every home in the land there is some level of underlying stress due to the pandemic. This will have an effect on our dogs, as they pick up on the changes in our hormones and pheromones, and can detect stress and fear. This will have an overall impact on our dog’s behaviour. These might be subtle, where they sit a little closer to us, or through larger behavioural changes such as separation anxiety or aggression. No two dogs will react to advice in the same way, so if your dog has developed aggressive behaviour, it is important to get specific advice from a professional.

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