Perth Canine Craft

11/09/2026

🐾 Mellow’s first groom!

Today was Mellow’s first proper groom, and it is a good opportunity to talk about something that can easily get treated as cosmetic:

👉 Grooming is part of your dog’s wellbeing.

Regular grooming isn’t simply about having a nice-looking dog.It gives us an opportunity to keep an eye on things like:

• Coat and skin condition.
• Nails and paws.
• Lumps, bumps or injuries.
• Parasites.
• Areas of sensitivity or discomfort pointing to injuries or illness.
• Changes that might otherwise go unnoticed.

👉 When we are talking about an Assistance Dog, the standard needs to be even higher.

A Public Access Test isn’t just an obedience test.
One of the standards being assessed is physical health and appearance. The dog is expected to present as clean, well-groomed and healthy, because an Assistance Dog is accessing shops, cafés, public transport and other places alongside the general public.

🐾 Important note: If your dog’s poor hygiene or lack of grooming creates a genuine public health or safety risk, you may lawfully be refused access to some public places. For example, a café or restaurant may refuse access where the dog’s condition presents a hygiene risk.

That means health, hygiene and grooming aren't an optional extra that we worry about just before the PAT.

They are part of the lifestyle.

We can spend hundreds of hours teaching beautiful obedience, tasks and public-access skills, but underneath all of that is still a dog whose physical needs must be properly maintained.

👉 We are asking these dogs to do a premium job.
Therefore owe them a premium standard of care.

And part of Mellow learning how to work comfortably in the human world is also learning that being handled, brushed, washed, dried, having feet touched and being professionally groomed are simply normal parts of life.

So today wasn't merely a haircut.

It was another small piece of preparing Mellow for the life we're asking him to live. 🐾

Good Assistance Dog training isn't only about what the dog can do for us.
It also matters how well we care for the dog doing the work.

29/08/2026

😁 And then I have to remind myself that everybody was new at some point.

My recommendation is for someone to become a foster carer for SAFE Inc and get some experience (a build some good handler skills of different dogs) under their belt to see if they really want to commit to a high drive dog!

When pet owner's see a movie with a working dog, and they say they want one- this is the scene playing in my head!!😅

28/08/2026

When pet owner's see a movie with a working dog, and they say they want one- this is the scene playing in my head!!😅

24/08/2026

Just a few things we've been working on with Mellow the last 2 weeks

18/08/2026

There have been so many sessions that make it worth doing my job; this photo sums it up when I'm able to "coach both ends of the leash"

17/08/2026

Hahaha - very funny, and I have to admit; this is what I had to do back when I started my dog training career in South Africa.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=saved&v=228546925487452

17/08/2026

🤯Not everything needs to be exciting. Some things just need to be normal.👇

😅 A lot of people want a dog they can take to cafés, markets and out into the community, so when their puppy is young they try to “make everything a good experience.”

Good intention — but there can be an unintended consequence.

If every new place, person, dog or environment predicts excitement, interaction, treats and entertainment, your dog can start to believe that going out means something is always about to happen.

Then we wonder why they struggle to switch off.

🐾 With Mellow here, we’re teaching something different:

This environment is neither exciting nor scary. It’s just there.

👉 He doesn’t need to greet everyone.
👉 He doesn’t need to investigate everything.
👉 He doesn’t need constant entertainment.

He can observe the world and simply be neutral in it.

That doesn’t mean trying to protect him from every unpleasant experience either. Outside these sessions, we deliberately work on resilience — coping, recovering and learning that he can handle things when life doesn't go perfectly.

Because the goal isn't a dog who has only ever had “good experiences.”

The goal is a dog who can enjoy the good, remain neutral about the ordinary, and recover when something goes wrong.

That is a much more useful dog to live with — and a much more useful skill for the dog to have.

14/08/2026

I could not have said it any better!

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=saved&v=478341296895882