Manners 'n' More Companion Dog Training

31/08/2026

One of the biggest game changers when raising a puppy isn’t teaching more commands.

It’s creating a realistic routine.

A routine helps you plan for:

🐾 sleep and quiet time
🐾 toilet breaks
🐾 meals and enrichment
🐾 play and training
🐾 safe social experiences
🐾 time for you to shower, eat, work—or simply breathe

Without a plan, it can feel as though your puppy needs something every minute of the day.

With a routine, life begins to feel more predictable—and predictability can help both puppies and people feel safer and more settled.

The goal isn’t a rigid timetable or a “perfect” puppy day.

It’s a flexible rhythm that works for your puppy, your household and your real life.

A good puppy program shouldn’t just teach your puppy what to do.

It should help you understand what comes next, prepare for the difficult moments and build a routine that makes everyday life together easier.

Because when the puppy person feels supported, the puppy benefits too. 🐾

28/08/2026

You can love your puppy and still wonder whether you’ve made a terrible mistake.

Both things can be true.

The puppy blues can look like:

🐾 feeling overwhelmed or trapped
🐾 crying more than usual
🐾 missing your old routine
🐾 worrying constantly about getting everything right
🐾 feeling guilty because you aren’t enjoying every moment
🐾 wondering whether you’re really capable of doing this

Bringing home a puppy changes almost every part of daily life—and often it happens overnight.

That emotional adjustment is real.

Feeling overwhelmed doesn’t mean you don’t love your puppy. It doesn’t make you a bad person, and it doesn’t mean the relationship won’t become everything you hoped it would be.

You may simply be tired, overloaded and in need of some support.

Please don’t struggle silently because you think everyone else is coping perfectly.

They probably aren’t.

You and your puppy are learning how to do this together. 🐾

27/08/2026

Headed back to Wagin this morning.

27/08/2026

Nobody talks enough about the sleepless nights.

The crying.

The toilet trips in the dark.

The uncertainty about whether you should comfort your puppy, ignore them or take them outside again.

And then morning arrives—and your puppy is ready to start the day while you feel as though you haven’t slept at all.

Sleep deprivation affects our patience, our emotions and our ability to cope. Even the smallest puppy challenge can feel enormous when we’re exhausted.

If you’re struggling with sleepless nights, please know that you aren’t weak, you aren’t doing everything wrong and you certainly aren’t alone.

This stage can be genuinely hard.

Having a clear plan for bedtime, overnight toilet breaks and gradually helping your puppy feel safe can make a tremendous difference.

Sometimes the puppy needs support—but sometimes the puppy person does too. 🐾

27/08/2026

🐾 More Than a Dog and Handler: Our First Operational Search

Earlier this week, Team Bear—alongside Team Puck and Team Freya—was deployed to assist in the search for a missing elderly loved one.

Our role was to help develop points of interest based on the information available.

Search work can feel like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle: following clues, considering possibilities and trying to understand how each piece may fit into the bigger picture.

It’s intriguing. It’s emotional. At times, it’s frustrating. It’s rewarding to be able to help—and it’s incredibly tiring.

This was our first search as an operational team, and I learnt so much. Every time we go out, Bear and I learn more about each other and how to work together. Our wider team also continues to develop as a passionate group of people who simply want to help our community.

We often talk about the search dogs—and rightly so—but a working search team is much more than a dog and handler.

As Bear’s handler, I need to remain completely focused on him: watching where he is going, being aware of where I am going, reading the environment and interpreting every change in his behaviour. My job is to help him do his job and give our team the best possible chance of success.

That is only possible because we have a support person beside us.

Our support people monitor traffic and environmental hazards, communicate with base, follow the map, record points of interest and maintain a bird’s-eye view of the search. They carry responsibilities I simply could not manage while giving Bear the attention he needs.

They are the unsung heroes of our search teams.

Without them, Bear and I cannot deploy. In fact, our searches simply don’t happen without support people—and K9 Trackers of Perth needs more of them.

You don’t need to handle a dog to play an essential role in helping find a missing person. If you’ve ever wondered whether you could contribute to something like this, please reach out and have a conversation with me.

You may be exactly the person one of our teams needs beside them.

K9 Trackers PERTH

25/08/2026

24/08/2026

On call out.

K9 Trackers Perth on callout in Wheatbelt area, with K9 Bear, K9 Freyja and K9 Puck