Category Archives: Uncategorized

The power of movement: why varied exercise matters for dog joint health

Maintaining your dog’s joint health involves more than regular exercise. Varied, dynamic movement is crucial for lubricating, strengthening, and keeping their joints flexible. This prevents localized wear, boosts synovial fluid circulation, and improves flexibility. To achieve this, mix up walking surfaces, do low-impact exercises, provide off-leash time, and incorporate stretching and massage.

Shaping sound minds and bodies: raising puppies with evidence-based enrichment protocols

Last year, I raised my first litter of Polish Hunting Spaniel puppies – an intensive yet inspiring project drawing on my background as a psychologist. I had immersed myself in the science of canine wellbeing for two years, so my goal as a breeder was to optimise the puppies’ mental wellbeing by using scientifically backed techniques and environmental enrichment protocols. In this post, I want to share my experiences.

What goes in the cost of a pedigree puppy?

For years I’ve read comments on dog owner Facebook groups that complain about how expensive pedigree dogs are and how it’s better to adopt not shop. I’ve written about this before, but when we started this puppy project I decided that I will track the costs so that I can both see for myself whatContinueContinue reading “What goes in the cost of a pedigree puppy?”

The path to a “well-trained dog” is paved with tiny tiles

Dogs have taught me to become a much more patient person – progress is gradual, skills are learned in small increments, and some days, you just have to let it go with a shrug. But if you persist and just keep doing small things every day (or every 3 days!), one day you’ll realise youContinueContinue reading “The path to a “well-trained dog” is paved with tiny tiles”

A love letter to my heart dog

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”

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”

How to think about your dog’s age

Someone asked about the age of adolescence on a dog related social media group, and after typing up my answer, I thought I’d post about it too. The short answer: It depends on the individual dog and their gender – like in humans. The long answer: Personally, I use a rough benchmark that around 9ContinueContinue reading “How to think about your dog’s age”

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”