A&S Dog Walking & Pet Visits

07/06/2026

So today during a training session with a clients dog we introduced a prey dummy. I had forgotten the value in introducing one of these to a dog who may not be motivated to search, find & finally retrieve the item back to us.

The reason why a prey dummy works so well is because there is a zip on the side of the dummy where you pop some food in to make the dummy smell more interesting. Today I used dried rabbit. This is a great way of introducing simple searches into your daily walks. I highly recommend this for working breeds such as spaniels & retrievers.

If you wanted to introduce this into your walks, start by introducing the toy at home first. Let your dog see you place some food into the dummy. Something yummy but not too high value. You don’t want your dog to want to shred the item to get the said food out!

Let your dog play with the item just to spark some interest or sniff it.

Ask your dog to wait or gently hold their collar if you haven’t yet taught a wait. With the dog in front of you throw the dummy out and then release your dog to go and retrieve it by saying ‘find’ Most dogs will go to the dummy and sniff where the food is. Praise this heavily. Some will then bring the dummy back to you. This is the beauty in the dummy as you now start to share the joy with your dog by opening the dummy and rewarding them with the food.

If your dog runs around playing with the dummy rather than bringing it back, don’t chase them just wait and encourage your dog back. Reward when they do.

Practice this 2/3 times a day in your house, garden and then you can start to hide the dummy in and under things which is where the magic really happens as using their nose is what dogs are bred to do.

Eventually you will be able to take the dummy out to a nice grassy area (preferably long grass) throw the dummy and ask@them to find it.

This simple game will support focus on you, recall, having fun with you amongst competing distractions. It will fulfil many of your dogs instinctive needs & will help support and develop a positive bond between you both as you learn to play and more importantly hunt together.

23/05/2026

I offer 3 separate services to help you train your puppy/adolescent puppy.

One to one puppy classes (foundation) up to 8 months of age

One to one adolescent classes 8 months to 2 years

The social puppy club - 8 weeks onwards to 6 months

I offer foundation one to one puppy classes so you can learn how to teach your puppy valuable life skills. All positive reinforcement training. Book a course of 4 or 6 sessions. Great if you need flexibility with support training your pup. Up to 8 months of age.

After 8 months of age I offer adolescent one to ones and you can access this training even if you never went to puppy classes when your pup was very young.

The puppy social walk club is a weekly walk where you can meet with myself and other puppy owners and learn all things puppy.

This is a small group of up to 4 guardians and their one puppy. We can discuss the how to’s of training, some might be how to focus on you, coming back to you, being calm, not jumping up, teething, & crate training. £20 for an hours walk & talk

Www.smallpetservices.co.uk

21/05/2026

12/05/2026

I wanted to share that our beautiful, quirky sweet Hend has very sadly been diagnosed with an aggressive cancer which is no longer curative just palliative.

It’s been a really tough 5 months with various vet visits with inconclusive results from his first fine needle aspirate. We decided to have further CT imaging & another biopsy where it was confirmed he has salivary gland cancer and it’s sadly spread to his lung. Salivary gland cancer is extremely rare in dogs. Hend you always dared to be different!

There are surgical & medical options available but we feel these are invasive & could create more issues in a 13 year old dog.

It feels an out of control place we have been placed in right now but we will always have Hends welfare at the forefront of any decision making.

Right now he is a happy boy enjoying his walks & food like he always has but we do understand his time is now very limited and decisions will soon need to be made.

We are seeking options from the holistic sector with the hope we may be able to keep the tumours stable for a little while longer. It’s a dreadfully sad time right now for us. The thought of losing him feels very overwhelming.

05/05/2026

One to one puppy classes

One to one puppy classes are perfect if you have a busy work schedule and can’t fit in a group class at the same time weekly. They also benefit owners that prefer a one to one approach for many reasons.

Choose from a one off problem solving session or a course of 4 or 6 weeks to learn the basic foundation behaviours. These foundation behaviours will start the process of teaching you the understanding of how to train your puppy using positive reinforcement training. We use rewards such as food, toys and environmental rewards to teach life skills over obedience.

Some of the skills we can teach are recall, leave, drop, wait, down, middle, touch.

We also teach how to crate train, settle train, handling and how to deal with puppy biting & what to expect when you bring your puppy home.

We can also teach these life skills to adult dogs.

Also starting soon - The puppy Social walk club. A weekly puppy walk meet up for all puppies from their first vaccination up to 6 months of age.

Here we can discuss all things puppy, including training, sleep, teething, and the ‘what to do’s’ to give guidance & advice when you most need support.
Please visit www.smallpetservices.co.uk

19/04/2026

A busy few weeks of solo dog walks, training one to ones and puppy classes.

The training one to ones were providing support with building confidence which would then support being able to relax & focus.

Some of the other areas we looked at were excessive barking, over arousal & worry.

The puppy social walk club is still trying to gain new members. This will take some time to get going, but I feel this will be beneficial to many puppy owners who want to go out in a small group of up to 4 guardians and their one puppy once a week and learn about being out and about with your puppy & how to deal with issues that may arise. The age group for this walk is from 8 weeks to 6 months.

The socially distanced dog walk club met at Quarrendon last week & this week we went to Pitstone Hill. Both were wonderful walks with a mix of dog breeds & ages.