Training & Behaviour

Posted on: April 08 2014

The cute, affable, generally delightful dog: Man's best friend. But what kind of best friend would keep secrets from you? And even worse, what kind of person doesn't know everything about their best friend? It turns out that pop culture and received wisdom may have led you astray when it comes to your canine companion, but fear not! Below we have debunked seven of the biggest myths that you may have heard about dogs:

Myth: Dogs dislike postal workers and cats

As we'll see from many of the dog myths listed below, this misconception is due to our tendency as a species to assign our emotional characteristics and motivations to animals. In the case of the age old cliché of dogs being...

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Posted on: October 11 2013

Professional dog walker and pack runner, Matt Boyce, tells us how to maintain order when walking multiple dogs and tips on introducing new dogs to the pack.   

While out with my pack it’s essential I’m a calm yet assertive leader. Dogs are unlikely to follow a leader who is erratic, high-pitched and inconsistent. Although there is a dominant dog within every pack, dogs will respond to commands from a well-established human pack leader. 

Leadership style

Leading the pack at the start of each day is something that now comes naturally, although it wasn't always this easy. The day-to-day experience of running the City Paws Club (we’re a dog day care centre and take dogs out on pack...

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Posted on: August 27 2013

When the shooting season came to an end on 1st February I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I had thoroughly enjoyed the season but both the dogs and I were tired and I was looking forward to a quiet summer when I could spend quality time walking and training my dogs and catching up on all the chores that were stacking up. How wrong I was! It’s been a very busy six months and already I am starting to get us all fit again ready for our first day in October.

Saffron

I have had to make the very painful decision to retire my 13½ year old bitch - Saffron. I was lucky enough to take her on a few days last season but her eyesight and hearing have deteriorated and she is bit wobbly on her hind...

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Posted on: July 24 2013

Jo has just finished her first Clear Q agility camp in the sunshine in Cheltenham and what a great four days! Here she tells us how it went, and what typically happens at a dog agility camp...

Who came up with the idea of Clear Q agility training camp?

Greg Derrett, Ant Clarke, Shaun Hunt and I are all agility seminar presenters and we hatched the idea over a year ago. The goal was to give agility handlers a camp that gave those who attended no conflicting methods or advice, helping them to take away a clear training strategy. We felt it was important that our camp had four trainers currently competing at the top of our sport, all teaching the same methods, with a camp structured in a...

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Posted on: July 24 2013

Where have the past 6 months gone? It seems no time at all that I was teaching Scrumpy some basic  manners and starting to take her out and about. Now she is 10 months old and is no longer a young puppy, in fact, I find it hard to tell her apart from her mother when they are running together across the fields.  Scrumpy has a patch of white on her chest which Pimms doesn’t – that helps when they are returning to me!

Scrumpy learning to sit and stay in various places

Scrumpy spent the autumn learning the basics such as sit, stay, walking to heel on and off the lead and the recall which is very important as I want to train her to be obedient at all times. I have also given her...

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