Speak Dog with Ruth Haynes

07/09/2025

📢 Only Two Spaces Left – Puppy Life Skills Classes - 11th or 12th September

Early training and socialisation are the foundation for a well-adjusted, confident adult dog. Puppies have a limited critical socialisation window, which typically closes around 16 weeks of age. During this stage, their brains are especially receptive to new experiences, people, dogs, sounds, and environments.

Introducing your puppy to the world in a safe, structured, and positive way during this time helps prevent fear, anxiety, and behavioural challenges later in life. Once this window closes, it becomes much harder for dogs to accept new things as “normal.”

Our puppy classes are designed to:
✅ Provide positive social experiences with people and dogs
✅ Build confidence through age-appropriate training and games
✅ Teach essential life skills that last well beyond puppyhood

With just two spaces remaining, now is the ideal time to secure your puppy’s place and give them the best possible start in life.

Please book via my website!

07/09/2025

Did you know I keep a record of all the trails my mantrailing dogs complete?

After a session, I come home and write a little bit about each dog's trail.

How it went, how I could make it better for them, what they need to practice, and how to make the session more successful for them.

I do this because with nearly 30 teams of mantrailers, it's hard to remember everything. Also its really nice to be able to look back and see how they have progressed.

06/09/2025

Here, we are putting the dog's brains and noses to the test!

🫂 Multiple missing people!

👥 Multiple decoys!

🧪 Scent experiments.

The best thing about Mantrailing is that we learnt something from every session 💡

Do you want to join in the fun? I can guarantee you and your dog will love it!

Drop me a message for more information 📝

05/09/2025

I can't believe these puppies are coming to the end of their 'classroom classes'

The first five weeks of my Puppy Life Skills classes are held in the village hall and garden. Their final two sessions are held out and about practising our new skills in the real world.

Remember, Puppy Life Skills Classes are just the beginning of your dog training journey.

04/09/2025

Two of the golden oldies from our Mantrailing group..

Flint is 9 and is loving all the interaction from these lovely humans, the food reward is pretty amazing too!

Gus is 14 years old and is losing his sight and hearing but is still an amazing trailer. It's so lovely to see his enthusiasm for Mantrailing.

03/09/2025

I always write posts about how proud I am of the dogs I work with. I sometimes mention I'm proud of the humans too!

There are a few photos from this week's Social Club Classes. These people who give up their Tuesday evenings to make their dogs lives better are just the best!

They are so kind and thoughtful to the others in the group. It can be really lonely if you have a nervy dog or an over exuberant dog. Dog walks can be tricky, stressful or just not enjoyable. It's lovely to see the kindness we show to our dogs being shown to the other people in the group.

Thanks for being the best!

02/09/2025

For me the most important thing is finding the root cause of your dogs behaviour. It maybe be something simple or it maybe something that takes a lot of time to change. But if you never investigate the underlying issues you will never change the behaviour.

I'm not going to fix your dog. Together we are going to work out what's going on for them and how we can make them feel better. You will have my support, advice, knowledge, guidance and commitment. But you must do the same in return. We will make your dog feel better together.

01/09/2025

🧡

It takes a long time to change our inner mantra to a kinder one. But we should be reminding ourselves every day that we are doing the best we can. After all, our dogs think we are amazing and we trust them right?

30/08/2025

For dogs, sniffing isn’t just curiosity — it’s biology. Their olfactory system is extraordinarily advanced compared to ours:

👃 Olfactory receptors: Dogs have around 220–300 million scent receptors (we have ~5 million).

🧠 Brain power: The part of their brain devoted to processing smells is proportionally 40x larger than a human’s.

🌬️ Specialised breathing: Dogs can separate air for breathing from air for smelling, allowing them to continuously analyse scents.

🧪 The vomeronasal organ: Dogs also detect pheromones, giving them social and emotional information invisible to us.

📊 Research findings:

Sniffing activates the parasympathetic nervous system, helping regulate heart rate and lower cortisol (stress hormone) levels.

Studies show “sniffy walks” increase mental wellbeing and reduce anxiety in dogs compared to structured, no-sniff walks.

Scent work has been linked to increased optimism in dogs — in one study, dogs allowed to engage in nosework made more positive choices when presented with challenges.

👉 In short: Sniffing is not optional enrichment — it’s fundamental to canine health, cognition, and emotional balance. Denying sniffing is like putting a blindfold and earplugs on a human during a walk.

So next time your dog lingers on a patch of grass, remember: they’re not wasting time. They’re exercising their brain, reducing stress, and engaging in the activity nature designed them for.

28/08/2025

Amazing recall from 🖤 Timber 🖤

Having the opportunity to practice out and about around distractions whilst having guidance from me is one of the many reasons to join my Puppy Life Skills Classes.

We practice our new skills in the safety of the village hall/garden, and then for your final two lessons, we go out and about and put things into practice.

These are definitely some of my favourite classes to teach as they are so beneficial!

27/08/2025

Have you signed up for your Life Skills classes yet?

All Life Skills classes between now and Christmas are now live on my website.

Murdoch says you won't regret it!

26/08/2025

Check out Rita's first ever Mantrailing session...

What a girl! Well done 🙌🏻

If you haven't tried Mantrailing, you need to come along and give it a go. You will be amazed at what your dog can achieve and how quickly they pick it up and understand the game.