Nutley Dogs Training and Behaviour

06/06/2026

Adolescent moments- long post sorry folks. I am sharing with you how I am approaching a potential Adolescent moment.

I have really begun a rethink about behaviour patterns that I am observing in our teenager.
This is a process of new learning for all of us as I work through new studies in Canine Adolescence Diploma.

So I am giving you a before and after scenario

Orla is 8 months - walks take a long time, due to pauses. Very similar to the picture below- sometimes she may sit, stand or lie down or even rigorously roll in grass and then lie there.
Generally, there is interest in the environment triggered by smell, visual, auditory or tactile stimuli.
So I am kindly working through my support to her.

Before I started the Adolescence course with Canine Principles- when one of my teenage dogs stopped; I would have probably introduced an engagement and focus activity to bring them back to me.I am not saying this is wrong - however I am trying a different connection way.

At the moment approaches- I am basing the support I am offering on my learnt knowledge applying brain development/ function information.
Orla as an adolescent has a developing (immature) pre frontal cortex. So, I am providing her with time to process the stimuli she is seeing, smelling, hearing and touching.
I am trying to avoid flooding her brain with my noise as she slowly processes environmental information on a walk.I am hoping by giving her time to take in information, when she chooses to engage with me she is present. On connection ( her timing) I give her lots of cuddles and verbal praise. I am choosing the tactile and verbal connection, as also continuing to work on partnership and our bond.My feeling is in these reconnection moments, food has less value or is almost unconsciously swallowed.
Whilst my connection with her through physical and verbal kindness seems to be registered via her body language reactions. eg curving into me, open mouth, happy Orla wagging tail
She likes touch and verbal praise especially at these "oh hello mum you are here with me "

What Orla is not doing is .......
😀deliberately being awkward
Or
😀 planning to annoy her human family

She is....
😀offering new behaviours
😀interested in the world
😀happy
And
😀trusting us to support her in learning about the world when her brain is somewhat foggy when trying to process information
😀there are no arguements

I am not saying I am right as on a new learning journey.However, my understanding is that the previous puppy learnt cues are less likely to work at present in this situation, whilst time and relationship with support will.

Really interesting to share and reflect with you.Thankyou.

05/06/2026

🌳We have recently added a new dog field to our list of places to visit.Canine Country Park.
https://share.google/6MkwZYjFIHamk5f0q
It is fabulous.

🐾Dog notes- adolescent theme....
Orla is an enthusiastic greeter and has dive bomber characteristics.Very much the happy greeting style of her breed. However, in dog language jumping on another dog can be rude/ overwhelming/ scary and may lead to the start of overarousal in play with our girl.Also can be upsetting to another dog.
Add in outdoor environments and this can escalate any patterns of behaviour that lead to over enthusiastic greetings.

Orla as an 8 month old adolescent needs support and kind experiences to make good socially safe decisions around other dogs. Mum and her family are supporting her to learn to make choices, and sometimes we have amazing moments and other times life is just too exciting. Risks are adventures in her brain and therefore she needs our help to receive positive learning experiences and avoid getting in situations where she could get an unpleasant telling off.
Her brother and sister are fabulous teachers and are developing their strategies to tell her enough is enough.

What is beautiful and a little overwhelming is that i am observing us all turntaking with our support to Orla.I know i am not explaining this very well, but we are in a dance with intervention timings worked out each time between each other.Always with love and kindness.Humbled by the wonder of doghood.

26/05/2026

A fabulous day on Sunday learning about Canine First Aid.
A great teacher Amanda from .
So many great nuggets for good practice, loads of practical experience and a fabulous booklet to take away to remind us all of good practice.
First Aid kit stocked up with some extra bits and bobs.
Thankyou everyone for contrubuting to a great day and also working as a team putting the hall furniture back at the end of the day
We are now covered for 3 years.

23/05/2026

New term for Scentwork
Foundation Beginners class.
Date: Thursday 11th July 2026
4 lessons
Time: 6 30 pm
Venue: Nutley Training Paddock

A great opportunity to build your partnership.
Have fun together
Buold confidence
Balance arousal and motivation

22/05/2026

New term details
Foundation Fun Gun Dog at Nutley
Please email or message me for booking details.
Both classes 50% full
Email: [email protected]
Or Whats app Tel 07717 893087

21/05/2026

I am on a new journey of study around Adolescence and whilst doing some background reading this quote from "Wildhood" really resonated with me.

13/05/2026

First time as a family of 3 in our dogs favourite place- 6.25 acres of doggy sniffing fun.
Sylvie and Brawdie absolutely love it here -and Orla says its a "yes" from her too.

To share with you our care for the youngster in such a large environment.
Orla had 2 x 3 minutes off lead when with the family and then some off short off lead time with her big Sister. Brawdie with Dad in sensory garden.
Reasons:
♡ Supporting her settling in to a new environment which was causing great excitement to the rest of the family.
♡ Promoting a group calm pattern avoiding over arousal and dive bombing ears and tails
♡avoiding her trying to over reach on her running to keep up with the big dogs ( Thankyou to Roz Davies for her teaching here earlier this year)

We practiced:
❤️ calm food sniffing yup back to those calming signals ( Turid Rugas)
💚 2 small recalls with the best jackpot party ever to come back to
💜 a couple of sit check ins
💛 and being a 🐕 dog

The weather was a bit mixed but cool, damp and wet so ideal for these 3 😁

12/05/2026

Many of you wonderful folks will be aware that Teenage dogs/ Adolescence is one of my absolute interests.
The message below is really important as we progress and grow our understanding about adolescence/ our canine teenagers.

Background

I wanted to share Holly's quote with you. Our growing knowledge bank regarding Adolescence is proving so incredibly wonderful in not just sharing information about this developmental period but how we support it.
However, I appreciate context is everything and some people who read this have had situations in the past including me where chemical castration/ castration has been needed in their male dog.
Guilt has always been attached to that action for me because of the risk of impacting on the maturation process. However, the guilt emotion is because I/we care and love my/our boy so much.
Others of you wonderful folks will have rehomed dogs or brought dogs into your families who are not entire males or females and then we provide love, support and care for those wonderful family members - maturation may be slower/ delayed/ altered because of this. ( Actually loads more complex than that - would be typing a long time for full picture).
We do our best with the knowledge we had at that time to help.

We are at the beginning of our Adolescence journey with our girlie Orla - so hoping to step together on our journey - hopefully supporting you too.More to head your way

09/05/2026