Alldogs Brighton

Coco’s vlog 2. Learning to Feel to Safe. An update on Coco’s learning to deal with separation anxiety. Sophie’s and Ian’s dedication to this rescue dog and their families’ support in looking after Coco in their absence is starting to show results.

Never too old to learn, Cooper’s quality of life has been transformed by Sheena’s dedication.

Big cheers for Sophie and Ian who adopted a rescue dog Coco who is about 12 years old and suffers from separation anxiety. It will take a while but Sophie and Ian are putting in the work. More to follow...

Never too old to learn. At 12 years old Iris learnt to recall and enjoyed her first run off the lead since she was rescued. Of course she ran in a circle.

We had a great session last Sunday, everyone made big progress in their training. The focus was amazing and the atmosphere relaxed. These dogs were aggressive to others before training and not able to be close to other dogs. They are now socialising well in a controlled setting. Still work in progress but behaving so well here. Well done everyone, your hard work is really showing.

A short video from my group for anxious and reactive dogs. These are mostly rescue dogs that used to be reactive to dogs or people or both in varying degrees. The dogs and people have made great progress and this video illustrates them completing an exercise without reacting to each other in close proximity and being attentive and relaxed.

A dog's body language is the key to communicating with them and understanding their emotional state and possible reactions rising from it. As it's especially important for children and their safety I'd recommend trying this App as it is child friendly and easy to understand. If you know about another app or a website you are using please let me know in the comments.

I'm observing an increasing number of rescue dogs from Europe here. I currently work with dogs from Bulgaria, Greece, Spain and Romania imported via rescue sites in those countries. I have therefore focused on the specific behavioural issues surrounding these and British rescue dogs and working with the adopters to make the adoption process a happy one for all.

I am planning to run an all-day training and meeting group for anyone thinking of getting, or recently acquired, a rescue dog. I will be covering topics such as selection tips, delayed reactivity, environment change effects, training needs, anxiety, reactivity issues and nutrition and health. Previous clients with rescue dogs, including from abroad, will present their dog and discuss their experiences and training results and there will be a specialist speaker from a rescue organisation to point out the pros and cons. It would be useful to know if people are interested in this type of event and would be grateful if anyone who is interested would mention it here so I can gauge interest. Many thanks in advance.

A thought about dog training.

A video of Flo walking pass a labrador in a crowd. Flo joined the last Reactive Group because of her reactivity triggered especially by labrador type dogs. Sandra took Flo's issue seriously and really worked on it. As she said: 'I would say the major difference in Flo's behaviour is me. I am more relaxed and understand her more'. Thank you for sharing this with us Sandra.

Cubby is a rescue dog with reactivity issues. Today was her first swimming lesson as part of her one to one rehabilitation programme. Apart from the joy of swimming which adds to her new positive experience the point is for her to learn to focus on and engage in a mental and physical activity near people and dogs without reacting to them. There were people on the beach and in the water and we passed several dogs to get there but she was able to focus on swimming instead. Only short swims at this point as she needs to gradually gain her confidence and stamina.

A new course is now open for enrolment. Aimed at dogs who are not able to mix freely with others and may have anxiety issues that show in antisocial behaviour.

Few more pics from the last Training for Reactive Dogs. We went for a walk to practise for an everyday situation. Everybody did great, the dogs were able to walk near each other and still respond to their humans who got nicely relaxed. The start of the process.