Nell was lovely, charming and extremely lovable… But if you shared a life with her, she was not an easy dog to love – she was intense, loud, exuberant, demanding, opinionated, short-tempered and persistent. She challenged me year after year to learn more about dogs and how they think because in many ways she theContinueContinue reading “A love letter to my heart dog”
Category Archives: Musings
An extraordinary dog
With incredible sadness we need to share the news that our beloved Nell unexpectedly and suddenly lost her fight with cancer on Thursday night. We discovered 2 weeks ago that her lymphoma had returned immediately after chemotherapy ended, which was extremely bad news. We did not want to cut her life too short for our emotional orContinueContinue reading “An extraordinary dog”
Do dogs have a right to refuse food?
There was a question on our Polish Hunting Spaniel owner group recently about what to do in a situation where a puppy/young dog is not eating their food very enthusiastically, and the owner has already tried a lot of things. I replied to the question and realised maybe the answer would be interesting for otherContinueContinue reading “Do dogs have a right to refuse food?”
How to change your dog’s behaviour in three (not easy) steps
My day job includes human behaviour change and it occurred to me today when I was thinking about recall that actually… without realising, I analyse my dogs’ behaviour with the same tools that I use with humans. So, without further ado, I decided to give it a go! This is just the first draft, soContinueContinue reading “How to change your dog’s behaviour in three (not easy) steps”
Recall is (mostly) based on relationship and trust
I saw this post yesterday (also at the end of this post) and it resonated because I see so many questions on dog groups all the time about recall. People think it’s a training issue and in some ways it is, but mostly… it’s about relationship and trust, but nobody (especially new dog owners) don’tContinueContinue reading “Recall is (mostly) based on relationship and trust”
When things get rough, don’t lose faith & keep working
I read this post just now and it made me think of a couple of things – skip to end for the message of hope! https://www.instagram.com/p/CEeby-FJ3os/?igshid=q9560vguopej I would definitely say 2 females has not been the easiest of rides but now that Grace has reached adulthood things seem to be easing up. The worst timeContinueContinue reading “When things get rough, don’t lose faith & keep working”
Why you shouldn’t buy a dog online
Here’s an important reason why it’s a really bad idea to get a dog from an online market place: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/stories-55356211 The story is from the UK where the situation is probably much worse than in the Netherlands, but the underlying problem is the same that puppy mills use fertility hormones to get bitches to produceContinueContinue reading “Why you shouldn’t buy a dog online”
Reads: Why someone might return their puppy
This popped up on my Medium recommendations and I thought it was an interesting perspective on why someone might choose not to adopt, or why someone might choose to rehome their dog and not invest huge amounts of training to make things work – both of these choices regularly receive judgment on dog owner groups,ContinueContinue reading “Reads: Why someone might return their puppy”
When puppies don’t have a great start in life
This is a really good review on what issues might arise with puppies who have not had a great start in life – the focus is on pet stores (which are common in the US) but you could substitute it with a puppy mill or a puppy/dog that has been rescued off the street orContinueContinue reading “When puppies don’t have a great start in life”
BusyDoggie 