PAWsitive Pursuit

16/02/2022

11/02/2022

Some clips of Yoshi and the progress he’s made with his reactivity ✨
Yoshi used to be reactive to many things and had generalised anxiety outside, resulting in him fleeing on walks.
Yoshi stayed with us for a board and train and comes to stay with us for refreshers when his parents go on holiday!
Today we were confident enough with Yoshi’s abilities to take him to a central London park where he greeted and recalled away from dogs he’d never met before.
We had no worries with him being on the long line around people, children, bikes or any other distractions that used to be “triggers”.
Thank you to Yoshi’s parents for continuing all of our hard work even though you’ve just welcomed a beautiful new addition to your life. Yoshi was a puppy farm dog that was very unwell and missed all of his socialisation period. It just shows that despite a hard start in life, Yoshi can have an amazing time!! Well done to Yoshi and his humans! ❤️🙌🏼

11/02/2022

Board & train review 🙌🏼 “When we rescued Leroy we were mildly catfished when it came to his 'manners', little dude couldn't go anywhere near a dog without loosing it 😬 When he came to live with us we felt sooo out of our depth trying to help him. Then we found Fran. Having a reactive dog is haaaaaard so it was a real life line to have found someone who knows what they are doing! When Leroy came back from his first 2 weeks of B&T his engagement with us and his settle work (things we know now to be the building blocks of working on reactivity) were soooo much better. The 3 months between his stays with Fran allowed us to build on this so that when he went for his second stint of B&T he was ready to learn how to play with the big dawgs. 2 weeks in and Leroy is bossing it, pretty sure fran is a magician, the way she works with dogs is 👌 Pawsitive have given us some really solid building blocks to work from when we felt really lost, they for sure have helped make this abandoned rescue pups life so much better, for which we are very greatful - its what this adorable gangly boy deserves ❤️🐾”

08/02/2022

Kylo is an online client all the way from America 🙌🏼🤩. Here we have worked on building his confidence closing the door. We’ve done this because Kylo is especially sensitive of noises and doors closing and opening! Massive congratulations to Kylo’s wonderful owner for all the hard work and excellent training she has given him, to help him become a much more confident pup 🥰👌🏼
“Kylo has always been a hesitant/nervous pup and living in a large city makes everyday life stressful for him. Online mentoring with Fran has given us the encouragement, support, and guidance need to progress with Kylo and make the world a little less scary for him. Even after a month of training we noticed many small changes and after a few months of implementing training we noticed larger, fundamental changes in Kylo's behavior. Kylo is still reactive and nervous but we're now hopeful he can get to a better spot with scary, city stuff. In addition, our relationship with Kylo is better as a result of the training we've been doing and Kylo is coming out of his shell even more. Kylo is slowly transforming into a more confident dog and I couldn't be happier. Overall, training with Fran has been exponentially more helpful than any other training we've done (even in person!) I highly recommended it to anyone looking for guidance with dog training.”

06/02/2022

This is a story I like to call “opening the fridge”
My Doberman has a baseline of being a medium drive dog, with the ability to get to very aroused, high drive states at times. When she was a puppy and I opened the fridge, one or two times she probably tried to sniff or put her head in the fridge. All I used was my body language to block her. This was enough for her to “get the message” and now she politely stands a good few feet back from the fridge as it’s opened. That’s not to say she might not “air sniff” to check out the goods!! I never rewarded her for not putting her head in the fridge, despite being a “PAWsitive Pursuit” based trainer.
Enter my very high drive Malinois puppy who is now 6 months old. Her baseline, let's say, is “cracked” at all times. When I open the fridge, she has near enough strength to bulldoze me out the way if she tries, and wow, the fridge smells good, so there’s a lot of desire to get into it!
Now, there are a variety of management techniques (keeping her out of the kitchen, tethering her, stay on a place etc), but it doesn’t completely solve the issue. If I reward her for a sit stay (in position, or throwing the food away from the fridge), I might create expectant behaviour and condition; fridge opening noise = treat.
Milder body language like standing in the way is less effective, her desire to override my signals is strong! How far am I willing to go? Mildly verbally correcting her (“ahh-ahh”) might not be enough and I'm unwilling to escalate to intimidating her by shouting. I AM willing to hold her back as she tries to bulldoze. This technique will work and it’s clear communication that the fridge is out of bounds. She may find this frustrating and if she gets a little spicy, I'm patient, fair and understanding about this.
So why might a balanced trainer be more ready to correct a high drive dog? I think it’s because their desire is so strong, that often they dismiss subtle body language signs we can give them, that other dogs might listen to readily.. A positive trainer doesn’t have to be permissive, but maybe we don’t have to correct either.

06/02/2022

And wow, how she has grown! This video was taken a few weeks ago and I wanted to post it to show; play skills & engagement around dogs!
I will do a post on whether you should use food OR/& toys during training - I have a lot to say on this!
But for now, let’s discuss a little about Méduse’s journey. She is very high drive, so her feelings are naturally big about things! At first, she was very nervous and reactive towards dogs. We worked on this by giving her social interactions and letting her build social skills.
Naturally, this caused her to find dogs exciting! When the interactions you have with dogs are playing, you will find them highly motivating and reinforcing.
Our toy {KHALEESI or KHALEESI5} is very motivating too! We’ve used this to gain increased focus and neutrality towards dogs. We will not correct her for finding dogs motivating, and there is more to be said on the TYPE of reward you use to train engagement with you instead (more on this later)

03/01/2022

Hope you all had an amazing holiday and wishing you all the love & happiness in the new year 🤩
We’ve been quiet on our business page as Lawl’s Dad passed away unexpectedly just before we had to leave the country for a few months. When we returned we had a lot of things to deal with including sorting out Lawl’s dad business and some of the other sadder things that come when you lose a loved one. It’s taken a while for us to settle in and we’re still not feeling entirely back to normal.
This means we had to cut some of our board & trains short and will be catching up on handovers, board & trains and behavioural assessments shortly. We’re also starting back our online mentoring service but won’t have any new slots available just yet.
As well as that, we’re back down to 2 members of staff for the time being so that means we don’t have as many hands available as usual 🙈
You might have noticed that we have a new addition that you can follow along with on my personal page we’re trying to keep things as normal as possible so that it doesn’t the impact the puppy.
All emails will be replied to within the next few weeks and we can advise on timeframes then. Thank you so much for being patient with us and wishing you all a lot of love ❤️

31/10/2021

We are so excited to show you some bits from the most recent training session with Méduse 🐊 the newest family member! Serpentine
We are having such a wonderful time getting to know each other. This is our 4th full day together; after a very long 13 hour drive and a big sleep 🥰🙈
We have taught the verbal cue for SIT already and her recall to name is great 😍. Other than that we are working on conditioning the clicker, cuddles, engagement, backing up, jumping up, food luring skills, food manners, toilet schedule, routine and maybe some more… I am tired 🤣 but having a great time with her!!
She is very spicy & shows natural aggression and possessive behaviours 🌶
Very different to raising Khaleesi and I can talk more about that later ☺️
Big thanks to the breeders for raising and producing such beautiful puppies 🙏🏼

15/10/2021

IS A BOARD & TRAIN SERVICE RIGHT FOR MY DOG 🧐👇🏼 & see the comments for some information on Ranger’s progress
There are so many services available for your dog 🥰 e.g you can choose online mentoring, 121 coaching, intensive in person training packages or a board & train service - sometimes maybe even a mixture of all of them 🥰
Not every trainer will offer all types of services, and that’s okay too 🥰🙏🏼 there are so many benefits to each type of service, and not all of them are right for each situation
In Ranger’s case, his owner is dedicated to continue the work with him when he returns - this is the most important part! A board & train for maybe 4-8 weeks is usually not long enough to completely reverse severe behavioural issues like generalised anxiety.
However, it does give your dog a head start with a professional that knows how to work with these issues, can give your dog the right setup & access to training in order to start the bulk of the work!
Often just being in a new environment, that is suitable for the dog, can enable them to push past certain limits that they couldn’t at home. We personally also give so much credit to our dog Khaleesi - she is such a great teacher for the other dogs!
As well as this, it enables us to assess the dog, see what they’re capable of, get to know more about them and give the owner an in depth personalised behavioural modification plan to follow.
This is often not discussed, but living with a dog with intense behavioural issues can also drain you a little of your energy. Some owners really appreciate the break, and often the ability to focus on themselves whilst their dog is away.
It’s important to remember that this is a journey for both the dogs and the owners. They also need coaching on mechanics & how to handle their dog when they return home. Luckily with the improvements in technology, we can offer ongoing support via video reviews too 🥰
Remember to discuss with your trainer what the best option is for you and your dog ❤️

09/10/2021

Always eternally grateful for my job & my wonderful clients 🥰😭🤩

26/09/2021

👌🏼 So proud of 😎
She has territorial and reactivity issues towards people. Therefore, anyone walking past would have previously put Sparrow over threshold & she would have likely reacted.
We love to make training opportunities out of things rather than see them as negatives! We were setting up to feed Gandalf in view of Sparrow within 5 metres or so - this would assess how far she has come with her prey issues & cat reactivity.
We also got to work on making her feel comfortable with people walking past, lingering & talking loudly! This was a great assessment & view into how Sparrow can behave in the future.
When we opened the truck door and fed Gandalf in there, Sparrow definitely saw him! Despite the fact she has worked around Gandalf at our house; she did not know we brought him with us in the truck! We thought this might put her over threshold as it’s back in an area where she has previously been very reactive to cats and triggers. She did so well 🥺🎉 well done Sprewski!!

24/09/2021

Is dog training sexy? 🤣😝
{Also, are wolfdogs harder to train? What do you think?}
Dog training definitely can be sexy! However, you’ll mostly find me with my hair scraped back, stinking of dog food & other undesirable things… it’s okay to be a little unsexy sometimes 🙈 all for the dogs!
My belt makes it SOO much easier to train 👊🏼 so grateful for it

23/09/2021

🤔 “DITCH THE BOWL”
𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻?
Ditching the bowl is often used in reference to giving your dog more opportunities to eat in "enriching" ways - food enrichment toys or games & hand-feeding!
𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗱𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗴𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗻?
We often give this advice to owners who need more engagement from their dogs as it can improve the value of the food. It is especially useful for dogs working through behavioural issues, but it's also enriching and helpful to train your dogs every day anyway! Food is a more accessible reward to use, and most dogs like food as a reward straight away! Hand feeding is a great way to bond with your dog & to teach them new, useful behaviours. Maybe you need to save some of their calorific intake for training, and therefore, it makes sense to "ditch the bowl" and feed them by hand instead for their meals.
𝗜𝘀 𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗮 𝗯𝗼𝘄𝗹 𝗯𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴?
Simply giving your dog their meals by placing them on a "silver platter" all the time is not really akin to how they would eat if they were to use their senses. Humans don't often forage, gather or hunt anymore, is this linked to a reduction in mental wellbeing? It makes sense that dogs would prefer to use food enrichment toys to eat (there are also creative ways to enrich your dogs without buying expensive food toys - try a cardboard box or rolled up teatowel), sniff out or find food hidden in the grass or around the room, etc.
𝗥𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿
Hand feeding your dogs their entire portion of food every day can have a downside too. We want to give our dogs "free" opportunities to eat food without having to work with us - even if your dogs enjoy working with you! The opportunity to use food toys, especially foraging (finding/sniffing) or licking (try a kong!) can relax your dogs and improve their mental wellbeing!
👉🏼 What’s your dogs favourite food toy or food enrichment games?
🤩 Try giving them one tonight!

11/11/2020

Let’s talk... dog toys! 🤘🏼
What’s your favourite dog toy? For what reason?
So, as you know, the benefits that come from playing with your dog are just endless; obedience, recall, behavioural issues.. you name it!
But there are dog toys for different reasons. Some are good to play tug of war with, some are good for throwing. Some cannot be left with the dog & some are described as “indestructible”
Personally, for so many reasons are the ones for us! (USE KHALEESI OR KHALEESI5) I can throw them, I can play tug of war with them. I can use them to mimic prey and whip them around by my ankles. Smaller ones can fit easily in to my pocket. However, leave them with your dog, and the sheepskin is likely to be shredded, and handles torn off within a matter of minutes. They are not to be left with your dog, and are for engagement and interactive play. They are truly special toys, that your dog will value.
✨ TOY SWAP ✨ ask us about toy swap in the comments!
Indestructible toys? Other than a good solid Chuck it ball, I probably wouldn’t leave any toy alone with a dog that wanted to destroy them.
Personally, for dogs that want to destroy toys.. I think something else is at play 🤔👇🏼
Shredding and consuming prey is a natural behaviour for your dogs and can be replicated with toys. We should allow and celebrate this behaviour... but not with toys. I am guilty of letting Khaleesi destroy some toys, but then work hard to encourage a retrieve after her victory lap. If you care about the cost of toys it’s not a viable option, and if your dog consumes the pieces it can be dangerous to say the least! Instead.. try these options;
👐🏼 A special room and phrase to destroy cardboard boxes and paper (the special room removes the association where they might think “destroying” is on the table at any time, any place, any object!)
👐🏼 Chews! With hair (also a natural dewormer) can easily mimic prey destruction
👐🏼 Frozen kongs and enrichment toys etc!

01/10/2020

Everything the light touches is our kingdom 🌅
As you may know, our new board & train, Coco, arrived a few days ago. When I look at her and her behaviour, I can fast forward in my mind what she will be like in 6 weeks 🥰
She doesn’t enjoy training, to be honest. I don’t blame her when she has had such a bad association with it. How can she trust humans? When they have not understood her (not aimed at her owners, talking about the trainers she had previously).
One thing I think that DOES bother me about some “balanced” training; is that, mostly they don’t think about the antecedent, why is the behaviour occurring, can we fix and address that instead? What are ALL the options, and how will they all look or play out?
Patience is a virtue. Knowledge is power.
Now, not all balanced training is quick to go to corrections, but unfortunately, Coco’s trainers were. I guess there are three ways this can go:
- the dog takes the corrections and changes their behaviour
- the dog is quite hardy; the corrections, therefore, don’t work; they might become even worse and escalate their behaviour, be shut down, distrustful & confused
- the corrections do work, but the dog is left confused, potentially shut down and distrustful
I guess the only thing I wish is that there was more understanding about dog behaviour. We will be discussing how Coco was trained previously, in the hope that people can avoid doing the same.
Spread a little light & love on everything around you ✨🌅

16/09/2020

MULTIPLE BITE HISTORY / TERRITORIAL AGGRESSION 🤬
Say hello to beautiful girl Luna. A rescue who lived on the streets for six months. Had little desire to engage with people. Was absolutely petrified of everything and anything. Refused to eat readily at home & in pretty much all situations outside.
Not to mention - territorial aggression with a multiple bite history 😱
So.. how does work if the dog doesn’t have any drive for toys or food? Well.. we build it! We work on a bond, trust and communication. The dog is motivated to work with us because they enjoy it. We do not rush this process and use aversives to motivate the dog when positives don’t work. The goal is to change their CER to things that trigger them, not suppress.
‼️ No hate to other trainers - it is your choice how you train. We think friendship with all trainers is useful for advancing our understanding of dogs. This is simply our style based on the scientific evidence (the fallout with aversive training, suppression rather than fixing emotions) & our moral decision.
Luna has been with us for just four weeks and already has had a considerable change in her behaviour in all areas. Of course, we are ecstatic about her territorial aggression which was a big issue. But, it’s a holistic approach. I’m also ecstatic that she WANTS to train and enjoys it. The first time she wasn’t shut down outside and could take food, I was over the moon!
There seems to be some kind of myth going around that aggression is very different from reactivity, and can’t fix it or won’t work? I only hope to show you other options from the ones you traditionally see to work through aggression issues.
Here at we work with all types of dogs. We work with bandogs, giant mastiffs who have got bites where they shake and cause tears (quite a severe bite history in comparison to most dogs) & dogs that just need obedience.
If you are interested in getting help with your dog's behavioural issues 👇🏼
💌 [email protected]
For board & trains, we book 6-12 months in advance and have a waiting list so please contact early rather than waiting 🥰

08/09/2020

Be as happy as Marty 🤣💕
Sometimes all you need to brighten up your day, is to watch your dogs being silly 😅😆
Marty is a lovely .. but my gosh, he can be a goofball 😆 dogs are the best

01/09/2020

FEAR REACTIVITY TO PEOPLE
Everyone say hi to Walter! 👋🏼 The most amazing Boxer with wonderful owners. They’ve travelled down to us for a 9-hour intensive training package!
Walter already has some incredible training and we can really use this to our advantage. He’s very sensitive to changes in the environment, unsure of people and noise sensitive.
Already in one session we’ve made some incredible progress and we can’t wait for the next few days. About an hour passed in between these clips and we worked hard to show his owners how to handle certain situations. We do want Walter to be best friends with us, but not until we have acted sufficiently as “decoys”.
really puts trust in to our dogs & also feels good for owners too! Who doesn’t want their dogs tail to helicopter?! 🚁 trueeeee loveeeee ❤️
💌 Email [email protected] for bookings