West Wilts Dog Services

11/11/2023

🤦🏼‍♀️

31/10/2023

** XL Bully owners **
Here is the information on the Government Ban, which has been confirmed in Parliament today.
I know this is a lot of information to take in and will be very unwanted news for the majority of responsible owners.

🚩 🆓 The most important thing that you can do RIGHT NOW is muzzle train your dog. I can help you with this, free of charge.

🔜 Secondly, if they have not been neutered, get that booked in as soon as possible.

📄 Thirdly, take note of the registration dates and put plans in place to do the necessary paperwork (whatever that looks like).

Today the government announced the details of the XL Bully ban. We have produced a copy of the official criteria of breed standard which will be used by enforcers below.

Although the government has stated your dog must be registered by 31st Jan 2024, they haven't yet stated what the process for doing that will be!

New laws banning XL Bully type dogs have been laid in Parliament today, as the Government adds the breed to the list of dogs banned under the Dangerous Dogs Act.

The announcement fulfils the Government’s pledge to put in place laws to ban the breed by the end of the year and protect the public following a concerning rise in fatal attacks.

Under the new rules, which come into force at the end of the year, it will be illegal to breed, sell, advertise, exchange, gift, rehome, abandon or allow XL Bully dogs to stray in England and Wales.

From this date, these dogs must be kept on a lead and muzzled in public. Owners of XL Bully dogs are recommended to start training their dog to wear a muzzle and to walk on a lead ahead of the legal restrictions coming into force.

Breeders have also been told to stop mating these types of dogs from now in preparation of it being a criminal offence to sell or rehome these dogs.

From 1 February 2024 , it will then become illegal to own an XL Bully dog if it is not registered on the Index of Exempted Dogs. By staggering these two dates, current owners of this breed will have time to prepare for these new rules.

Owners who wish to keep their dogs will have until the end of January to register them and will be forced to comply with strict requirements. As well as being muzzled and kept on a lead in public, these dogs must also be microchipped and neutered.

Dogs under one year when the ban comes in must be neutered by the end of the year, older dogs must be neutered by the end of June.

From 1 February, owners without a Certificate of Exemption face a criminal record and an unlimited fine if they are found to be in possession of an XL Bully type, and their dog could be seized.

23/10/2023

22/10/2023

🥱

29/09/2023

Totally. 🫶

26/09/2023

🔥 🎆 🎇 🧨 💥

⏱ Firework season is a month away, NOW is the time to start desensitising your dog to the sounds, not the week before.

📱If you have Alexa on any devices, there’s a cool Skills App which can help you to do this. Type ‘Fireworks’ into Skills and select the first one. It plays 20 minutes of fireworks sounds. Here’s what you can do:
📆 Everyday use the App. Start off with the sound turned down low as background noise, increase over time until your dog takes notice, but doesn’t start to show signs of anxiety or fear. If they do, turn the sound down to a level they can cope with.
✅ Play the sounds at times when your dog can be distracted by something they like doing, for example, having their meal. Playing games or during a training session.
🏆 Reward them for calm behaviour. Over time, play the sounds when you are doing nothing, perhaps resting or watching TV in the evening - each time they take notice and remain calm, mark their behaviour “Good!” and give them a tasty treat.
🍗 Don’t be stingy with those treats, make them premium and have plenty of them!
❤️ Consistency is key. You’re trying to change their emotional response to something they find novel or scary, to something they associate with good stuff happening. It’s not easy and requires time and effort.
💥 Good Luck!

04/09/2023

👇

𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝗠𝗔𝗥𝗧, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗱…

Life is busy. Work, children, partners, friends, household chores.… Sometimes our busy modern lives get in the way of things we know we should be doing – like going to the gym or training our dogs – and we end up feeling guilty because another day has gone by and we haven’t got round to it. Going to the gym I can’t help you with, but finding a flexible, easy way to build teaching your dog into your day, I can!

There’s a really simple, powerful way to teach our dogs what behaviours we want without having to find the time for formal training sessions. It’s called SMART 50 training and it’s outlined in Kathy Sdao’s wonderful book “Plenty in Life is Free” (highly recommended!).

SMART, or See Mark And Reward Training, can be summarised as follows –

“𝙁𝙞𝙛𝙩𝙮 𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙚𝙨 𝙚𝙖𝙘𝙝 𝙙𝙖𝙮 𝙧𝙚𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙙 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙙𝙤𝙜 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙙𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙬𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙨𝙚𝙚 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙤𝙛”

Each morning set out a bowl with around 50* small treats in it. You can use some of your dog’s daily food allowance for this instead of feeding it in a bowl. Then –

𝗦𝗘𝗘 the wanted behaviour – train your eye to notice when your dog is doing anything you’d like to see more of….for example being settled quietly, greeting you with 4 feet on the floor, standing calmly by your side while you stop to chat to a neighbour, responding to their name. Notice the good stuff, whether you’ve asked for it or not, instead of letting it pass unnoticed.


𝗠𝗔𝗥𝗞 the wanted behaviour – ‘mark’ means to use a clicker or consistent word (something short, clear & concise like ‘good’, ‘yes’, ‘nice’) the instant the dog offers any behaviour you like. We’re pointing out the good behaviour to the dog and helping him learn exactly what behaviour is earning him a treat.


𝗥𝗘𝗪𝗔𝗥𝗗 the wanted behaviour – what gets rewarded gets repeated so paying your dog well for those desirable behaviours will increase their strength & frequency in the future. And the more wanted behaviour we get the less unwanted behaviour we get. Win – win.

Your goal is to empty the bowl by the end of the day. You can choose to reinforce only one goal behaviour or simply reward any desirable behaviours (this is my preference). If you do this daily within a week you’ll have reinforced 350 instances of good behaviour. Within a month 1,500 instances. Maintain the habit for a year and you’ll have reinforced over 18,000 wanted behaviours. It’s a simple, easy, effective way to train on the hoof without setting aside specific time and it has a real impact on behaviour.

SMART 50 trains the human end of the lead as much as the canine end – it teaches us to notice & reward the good instead of that all too human trait of focusing on the negative.

When we actively seek out & reward desirable, offered behaviours we can remove pressure & create clarity for dogs. And it can help us see that, regardless of any other challenges we may face, our dogs do offer us lots of rewardable behaviours and that be the first step in reframing how we see them & creating a more harmonious relationship. Seeking out the positive can have a profound effect on our perception and wellbeing and it’s a habit that can spill over into other aspects of our lives with beneficial effects.

Try it for a two weeks and see what happens. And let me know…I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Happy Training x

*it doesn’t have to be 50. If that feels like too much start smaller…but the more you look for good stuff, the more good stuff you’ll see!

14/08/2023

The difference between “wait” and ”stay” and how do you train them?

03/08/2023

Who remembers Triana, the German Shepherd crossed with a Greek Hare Hound who was rescued from Cypriot kennels?

Her owners have been working on her recall which had been a real problem for them given her excitement levels and high prey drive. It was lovely to receive this message from them:
“Hi Sam, we took Triana up to the White Horse yesterday to her favourite field. We let her off, she ran around. She came when we called her and led down. She ran again, and at the end we called her and she came straight away and led down so I could put her lead on. We were totally made up xx”

They have been training Triana on a long line and have not let her off-lead since they first got her because she would just run off. Being consistent and putting in the effort really does pay off, it’s so worth it.
Well done Triana, Sean & Lorraine 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

29/07/2023

Totally legit.

24/07/2023

And why not? 🤷‍♀️

15/07/2023

Ungrateful! 😳

13/07/2023

RESOURCE GUARDING 🍖 🧸 🎾 🧦 🛋️ 🛌🧍
Why do dogs do it?
What should you do about it?

DON’T TOUCH MY STUFF!
RESOURCE GUARDING OR POSSESSIVE AGGRESSION
We all guard our resources, it’s a natural reaction to a threat of something we value being taken away. It’s essential for survival and dogs and other animals would not survive in the wild if they didn’t guard their resources.

We also don’t get to decide what’s valuable and what’s not – different things have different values to different dogs.

Food is usually the most common, but toys, furniture, different items, places, or even a certain person are all things that may be seen as a valuable resource.

A dog turning their head away, freezing, a hard stare, whale eye, moving away, growling or snapping may quickly escalate into a serious bite in an attempt to protect that valuable possession.

Punishing or forcing a dog to give something up is probably one of the worst things to do. Resource guarding is rooted in the emotion of fear – the fear of that resource being taken away. Punishment and force further increase that fear, which only increases and reinforces the need to protect that resource.

When a dog is guarding food or an object, we can change the negative emotion of that fear into a positive one by swopping or trading something that has a similar or higher value than what the dog has. This is one of the most effective ways to address resource guarding of objects as it works at the root cause of the behaviour by changing the emotional response.

A dog resource guarding a person is more complicated to address. The individual family dynamics, attachment styles, situation, environment, history and breed tendencies all have to be looked at and assessed before working on modification.

Resource guarding can usually be prevented, addressed and managed by starting early, understanding why dogs feel the need to resort to this behaviour and doing what we can to prevent it from happening in the first place.

12/07/2023

100%!
🚗 🐶

08/07/2023

🤔 Here’s a question you might ask yourself. Does my dog like other dogs?
I think most people want their dog to be Dog Social, but the reality is that dogs who are Dog Social are in the minority. The majority of dogs flip between Dog Tolerant and Dog Selective depending on circumstance.

🙋‍♀️ What’s your dog?

🐕‍🦺 When we first adopted Millie, she was considered to be Dog Aggressive. Two and half years later, she’s now Dog Selective but can flip into Dog Aggressive if I’m not managing a certain situation well enough for her. It’s my job to do this, not hers.

15/06/2023

A dog can die from heat stroke in 15 minutes. It’s important to recognise the signs and to take action as quickly as possible.

03/06/2023

You know it makes sense.

20/05/2023