SABCAP - South African Board for Companion Animal Professionals

25/08/2025

🎓 MHERA Webinar with Karin Pienaar
📅 Presented by SABCAP
🧠 Exploring Emotionality in Animal Behaviour Therapy. This webinar is open to everyone and there are no prerequisites for attendance.

Join internationally renowned animal behaviourist Karin Pienaar, developer of the MHERA method, for an insightful webinar hosted by SABCAP. Discover how Mood, Hedonic Budgets, Emotionality, and Reinforcement Assessments (MHERA) are revolutionizing the way we understand and treat behavioural challenges in animals.
🔍 What You’ll Learn:
• The scientific foundation of MHERA
• How cognitive bias impacts behavioural resilience
• Practical applications across species and settings
• Tools for assessing and improving emotional wellbeing
📍 Karin Pienaar is a Certified Animal Behaviourist (C.A.B.), author of Mood Matters, and a leading voice in welfare-based behaviour therapy. Her work spans domestic pets to captive wildlife, and she’s a key contributor to South Africa’s national task teams on animal welfare.
🎟️ Reserve Your Spot
[email protected].

15/08/2025

🎉 Meet the SABCAP Committee Board Members! 🐾
We’re excited to introduce the passionate and talented individuals who make up the board of the South African Board for Companion Animal Professionals (SABCAP). Each member plays a vital role in supporting and growing the companion animal profession in South Africa.
👩‍💼 Charmain Du Toit – Chairperson
📚 Tanja Grensing – Journal
📋 Petra Du Toit – Administration & Finance
📱 Sheralynne Rosslee – Social Media
🐕 Nicole Burger – Behaviour
🐾 Lucy Breytenbach – Animal Assisted Activities & Service Animals
🎥 Moira Meyer – Webinars
Together, we’re working to promote excellence, education, and collaboration in the field of companion animal care. Stay tuned for updates, events, and resources from this amazing team! 💙

02/08/2025

Shout out to our newest followers! Excited to have you onboard! Sandra Vutshilo, Rikke Dammann

30/07/2025

📣 Join Us for SABCAP’s Journal Club – 6 August 2025 🐾🧠
SABCAP will be hosting their next Journal Club on Wednesday, 6th August, and we’d love for you to be part of the discussion!

This month’s topic:
“To Call the Trainer or To Call the Behaviourist?”
A thoughtful conversation exploring when to refer to which professional — and why it matters.

🗓️ Date: 6 August 2025
🕐 Time: 19:00
📍 Presented by: Tanja Grensing

Whether you’re in animal behavior, veterinary care, or pet training, this is a valuable session you won’t want to miss. Let’s dive into this important topic together!

30/07/2025

Whether you're a dog walker, trainer, groomer, vet, vet nurse, kennel worker, pet sitter, or any other professional caring for animals one thing must be absolutely clear: the ability to read animal body language is not optional. It’s essential, and there is no way around that.

Understanding a dog’s body language isn’t a "nice-to-have" skill. It’s a core competency, just as important as knowing how to handle a lead or administer medication. Without it, the risk of miscommunication, stress, fear, and even injury increases for both the animal and the human involved.

Dogs cannot tell us how they feel with words. Their communication is entirely non-verbal through posture, facial tension, ear and tail position, vocalisations, and subtle shifts in movement or energy. These cues tell us whether a dog is comfortable, afraid, uncertain, overstimulated, or on the edge of aggression. If you miss those signs, you miss the chance to prevent a problem.

A dog that is freezing, lip-licking, turning its head, or showing whale-eye is communicating discomfort. A dog tucking its tail, yawning repeatedly, or panting in a quiet moment is not "being dramatic" ; they are likely anxious or stressed. When these signs are ignored, dogs often escalate in behaviour because they feel they have no other option.

If you are being trusted to care for animals in any capacity, you have an ethical and professional obligation to understand what they are communicating.

This includes:
Knowing the early signs of stress and fear
Recognising when a dog needs space or support
Being able to intervene or change your approach before things escalate

This isn’t just about safety; it’s about welfare. You cannot safeguard an animal’s wellbeing if you cannot read how they are feeling in real time.

A true professional should not only be able to read dogs but should be proactive in adapting their handling and environment to reduce stress and keep everyone safe.
The ability to read body language. It’s not an optional extra. It’s a basic requirement.

19/07/2025

Raising Resilient Puppies E-Book Now Available @ R149 Email [email protected] to purchase.
This book equips guardians with a developmental roadmap, from neonatal reflexes through adolescent recalibrations, to adult confidence. You’ll learn to match every training step to your puppy’s evolving brain—laying foundations with Sit, Watch and Recall, then teaching movement cues (Go, Stay, Settle) and loose-lead walking as a shared conversation in motion. Mouth management, impulse control drills and enrichment puzzles round out a holistic toolkit that builds self-regulation and emotional balance, not just obedience.
Central to the socialisation process is the proprietary P.I.E. Principle—Predictability, Intensity and Empowerment—which transforms exposure to new sights, sounds and environments into guided, confidence-building adventures. Predictability keeps everything but the novel stimulus constant so your puppy can focus on what matters. Intensity dials each experience up in tiny, safe increments. Empowerment hands your puppy the reins, letting them choose approach, retreat or pause—cultivating agency that carries through every challenge.
As hormone-driven regressions hit during the six- to nine-month hurdle, you’ll revisit P.I.E. to reboot confidence: re-establish familiar routines (Predictability), dial back or up exposures (Intensity) and invite choice-making (Empowerment) at every step. Beyond adolescence, Chapter 10 shows how micro-puzzles and choice exercises wire in problem-solving, while variable rewards keep motivation fresh—teaching your pup that pausing to think is the key to success.

By leading with kindness, evidence and creativity, you’ll not only teach your puppy to respond to cues—you’ll cultivate a resilient, emotionally fluent companion who navigates novelty with poise, recovers from setbacks with grace and approaches life as an ongoing adventure in learning. Whether you’re welcoming your very first puppy or aiming to deepen an established bond, this handbook offers the science, the stories and the step-by-step inspiration to raise a dog who thinks, chooses and thrives—for life.

19/07/2025

🚫 SABCAP Statement on Abusive Dog Training Practices Seen on TikTok 🚫

The South African Behaviour and Companion Animal Professionals (SABCAP) is deeply disturbed by a recent video circulating on TikTok (https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMStWoEXp/) which depicts animal abuse disguised as dog training.

Let us be unequivocal: What is shown in this video is not training — it is cruelty.

Under the guise of discipline, the dog is subjected to fear, intimidation, and physical punishment — all of which violate the core principles of humane, evidence-based animal care and training. There is no scientific justification for the use of force, pain, or fear to teach animals. These outdated methods do not build trust or long-term behaviour change, and they cause significant emotional and physical harm.

🛑 SABCAP Condemns These Methods in the Strongest Possible Terms:

These practices are not supported by science or ethics.

They are in direct violation of modern professional standards.

They normalize abuse and mislead the public.

🐾 We Call on the Public and Content Creators to:

Reject any “training” methods that rely on dominance, force, or fear.

Report such content on social media platforms for violating animal welfare policies.

Educate yourself about science-based, positive reinforcement training. Your dog deserves it.

📢 Our Message to Trainers Using These Tactics:

You are not training — you are harming. If you truly care about animals, we urge you to stop these practices immediately. SABCAP and our member professionals are ready to help you learn ethical, skill-based methods that respect the animals in your care.

SABCAP - South African Board for Companion Animal Professionals we dont have to agree on everything but this is something we cannot.afford.to not agree.on. What can we do to make a difference and reduce and eliminate these practices!

Together, we must raise the standard. Together, we say: abuse is not training.

Signed,
The South African Behaviour and Companion Animal Professionals (SABCAP)
www.sabcap.org.za

6139 likes, 163 comments. “ ”

19/07/2025

We cannot allow these types .of organizations to contine thos abuse and bring tje industry into disreputable by allowing the. distribution of.dangerous advice . We sont have to agree on everything but in this there should be no fence sitting.. join us to educate , expose and eliminate these practices.

🚫 SABCAP Statement on Abusive Dog Training Practices Seen on TikTok 🚫

The South African Behaviour and Companion Animal Professionals (SABCAP) is deeply disturbed by a recent video circulating on TikTok (https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMStWoEXp/) which depicts animal abuse disguised as dog training.

Let us be unequivocal: What is shown in this video is not training — it is cruelty.

Under the guise of discipline, the dog is subjected to fear, intimidation, and physical punishment — all of which violate the core principles of humane, evidence-based animal care and training. There is no scientific justification for the use of force, pain, or fear to teach animals. These outdated methods do not build trust or long-term behaviour change, and they cause significant emotional and physical harm.

🛑 SABCAP Condemns These Methods in the Strongest Possible Terms:

These practices are not supported by science or ethics.

They are in direct violation of modern professional standards.

They normalize abuse and mislead the public.

🐾 We Call on the Public and Content Creators to:

Reject any “training” methods that rely on dominance, force, or fear.

Report such content on social media platforms for violating animal welfare policies.

Educate yourself about science-based, positive reinforcement training. Your dog deserves it.

📢 Our Message to Trainers Using These Tactics:

You are not training — you are harming. If you truly care about animals, we urge you to stop these practices immediately. SABCAP and our member professionals are ready to help you learn ethical, skill-based methods that respect the animals in your care.

---

Together, we must raise the standard. Together, we say: abuse is not training.

Signed,
The South African Behaviour and Companion Animal Professionals (SABCAP)
www.sabcap.org.za

6129 likes, 162 comments. “ ”

19/07/2025

19/07/2025

🚫 SABCAP Statement on Abusive Dog Training Practices Seen on TikTok 🚫

The South African Behaviour and Companion Animal Professionals (SABCAP) is deeply disturbed by a recent video circulating on TikTok (https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMStWoEXp/) which depicts animal abuse disguised as dog training.

Let us be unequivocal: What is shown in this video is not training — it is cruelty.

Under the guise of discipline, the dog is subjected to fear, intimidation, and physical punishment — all of which violate the core principles of humane, evidence-based animal care and training. There is no scientific justification for the use of force, pain, or fear to teach animals. These outdated methods do not build trust or long-term behaviour change, and they cause significant emotional and physical harm.

🛑 SABCAP Condemns These Methods in the Strongest Possible Terms:

These practices are not supported by science or ethics.

They are in direct violation of modern professional standards.

They normalize abuse and mislead the public.

🐾 We Call on the Public and Content Creators to:

Reject any “training” methods that rely on dominance, force, or fear.

Report such content on social media platforms for violating animal welfare policies.

Educate yourself about science-based, positive reinforcement training. Your dog deserves it.

📢 Our Message to Trainers Using These Tactics:

You are not training — you are harming. If you truly care about animals, we urge you to stop these practices immediately. SABCAP and our member professionals are ready to help you learn ethical, skill-based methods that respect the animals in your care.

---

Together, we must raise the standard. Together, we say: abuse is not training.

Signed,
The South African Behaviour and Companion Animal Professionals (SABCAP)
www.sabcap.org.za

6071 likes, 160 comments. “ ”