Puppy Plus

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Puppy Plus offers dog training and behaviour services in Mid Wales. Fully qualified and experienced trainer. Fully Insured. Emma Stoker BA BSc CDBC ABTC-ATI

31/10/2026

Happy Halloween!

29/10/2026

‘Emma and Katie,
Thank you!
I did enjoy my first nosework games and I think Ian did too!

Elsie ❤️’

25/10/2026

Halloween Nosework Games today!

Thank you to Katie Weston for being my wingwoman at the Puppy Plus Nosework Games today. We had a great day, watching some brilliant teams!

Level 1

No Going Back

1st Lena Williams and King
2nd Keri Slater and Bryn
3rd Helen Cooper and Jasper

Needle in a Haystack

1st Keri and Bryn
2nd Liz Gough and Hestia
3rd Ian Mansfield and Elsie

Snake

1st Helena and King
2nd Ruth Millington and Gwen
3rd Trish Warner and Bear

Overall Winners

1st Helena and King
2nd Ruth and Gwen
3rd Helen and Jasper
4th Ian and Elsie

Level 3

No Going Back

1st Elaine Weston and Nellie
2nd Elaine Cosgrove andDenver
3rd Benn Claire and Mavri

Needle in a Haystack

1st Elaine and Nellie
2nd Louise Nicholson and Billy
3rd Suzanne Brooks and Dyfi

Snake

1st Sarah Swaine and Dougie
2nd Claire and Mavri
3rd Suzanne and Dyfi

Overall Winners

1st Suzanne snd Dyfi
2nd Claire and Mavri
3rd Elaine and Denver
4th Louise and Billy

24/10/2026

Very excited about hosting our Halloween Nosework Games tomorrow 🐾👻🐾
Thank you to MangoGlass Awards for the gorgeous trophies, and Legacy Rosettes for our rosettes that are very ‘on theme!!’

The weather looks a bit better for tomorrow thankfully 😆
As we’ve got very wet running NNA trials today!!

22/10/2026

Our dogs don’t normally sleep on the bed with us.

Not because I think they shouldn’t.

With five dogs, it’s just not particularly practical 👀

Dogs are social animals, and social sleep is relevant to their general wellbeing. Resting close to others can be part of feeling safe, settled and connected. I love watching our dogs snuggle up together to sleep.

And I do think it’s interesting how many people still almost apologise when they tell me their dog sleeps on the bed.

There is often a sense that they know they “shouldn’t” allow it, or that it will somehow create behavioural problems, which isn't true. Sleeping on the bed doesn’t make a dog ‘dominant’, spoil them, or make them think they are in charge.

What is important is whether the arrangement works for everyone.

Some dogs love sleeping close to us. Some prefer their own space. In other homes, pain, touch sensitivity, guarding or difficulty settling may mean a different arrangement is better.

For me, it’s about the individual dog, the household, and whether everyone is comfortable and actually getting some sleep!

My dogs have plenty of opportunity for social sleep, just not usually on our bed at home.

Away from home though?

Apparently the rules are completely different.

19/10/2026

We expect our dog to come back every time they are called.

To walk nicely on the lead.
To ignore other dogs.
To settle in busy places.
To cope with visitors, new environments, distractions, excitement and frustration.

But how much training did we actually put into those things?

Have we practised often enough?
Have we reinforced those behaviours enough?
Have we built the difficulty gradually?
Have we trained in different environments?
Have we made the behaviour worthwhile for the dog?
Have we given them enough time to learn?

Sometimes we are asking for reliability before we have really done the training required to create it.

Dogs are very good at exposing gaps in our training.

If something keeps falling apart, rather than asking why the dog won’t do it, I think it is worth asking what we need to change in the way we are training it.

We can absolutely have high expectations of our dogs.

But we need to have equally high expectations of ourselves as their trainers.

17/10/2026

Why do we use food in training?

Because food is useful.

It’s easy to deliver, we can use lots of very small rewards, and importantly, we can be really precise about the behaviour we are reinforcing.

But using food doesn’t automatically make training effective.

Timing matters. If the reward comes too early, or too late, we may not be reinforcing the behaviour we thought we were. I've seen some awful behaviours being inadvertently reinforced with food, through either inexperience in regard to timing or a lack of understanding of what is actually being reinforced.

Frequency matters too. Particularly when something is new, we often need to reinforce far more than people expect. If the dog gets one food reward for getting it right, but the environment provides twenty other interesting things in the meantime, we probably haven’t tipped the balance in our favour!

Then there's generalisation.....

A dog who can do something beautifully in the kitchen hasn’t necessarily learnt to do the same thing in a field, on a pavement, around other dogs or somewhere full of exciting smells. We need to build those distractions gradually rather than taking a new behaviour straight into the most difficult situation and wondering why it falls apart.

And training takes time.

Real behaviour change usually comes from lots of small repetitions, practised over days, weeks and months. Ten minutes in a training class once a week can teach you how to train something, but the learning happens through what you do in between.

Food is just one part of that process.

Good training is about timing, reinforcement, setting the environment up properly, understanding what motivates the individual dog, and putting enough practice in for the behaviour to become reliable.

Sometimes when training isn't working, we don't need a different dog, or even a different method.

We need to look more closely at the actual training.

Training with some supervision is important. Someone who has the experience to make tiny tweaks to your timing, food delivery, or training criteria, can make a huge difference to your training success.

Address

Puppy Plus Training Barn
Newtown
SY163HQ

Website

http://www.puppyplus.co.uk/

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