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My methods favour positive reward based training that engages dogs and owners and gets them working together. Even long standing or complex problems can be solved using the tools that I provide.
I charge £40 per hour to assess your dog and help you to recognise and address whatever it is that is at the source of your dog's behaviour. I also offer just pure training sessions for owners that want to acheive something without the need to correct a behaviour first. These are also charged at £40 per hour or £20 for half an hour, where appropriate.
Assesments cannot be made over the phone but if you want to discuss how much is involved in solving a particular problem, feel free to call me. I’m not going to offer you solutions for free but I will discuss with you what level of commitment you will need without charging you anything.
A problem behaviour is anything that our dogs do that we don't like. It could be jumping up when we return home or it could be a more serious problem like dog to dog aggression. Certain behaviours are built in to our dogs though, so trying to stop Collies from herding or stop Goldies from retrieving could prove to be an impossible task.
Changing the behaviour of our pets is something that we can make happen sometimes just by changing our own behaviour in a small way. As with everything worth doing some commitment is required but if the alternative is exasperation and frustration, isn’t it worth a try?
Cynology is the simply the study of dogs. A cynologist is someone who knows what it is that makes dogs tick. From why they can drink from muddy puddles to why they dig or circle before lying down to sleep. The understanding that these animals are neither tame wolves nor furry humans is central to this thinking. One of our big problems when we deal with animals is anthropomorphism. That is where we see human like qualities and emotions where there aren’t any. For example, our ability to recognise faces.
If you have just seen a goofy kitchen appliance and a surprised building, congratulations, you are perfectly normal. Our ability to see something human can really get in our way when we want to communicate with non-humans. My job is to turn your words into something that your dog can understand and explain your dog’s behaviour in ways that make sense to us as humans.
Cynopraxis translates directly as “to do with dogs”. Cynopraxic methods are training and behavioural modification where the goal is more than just teaching a dog something new or correcting behaviour that we dislike. Methods that get owners engaged and methods that improve the bond between family members and their dogs have far reaching effects that are greater than the sum of their parts.
For example, did you know that prolonged eye to eye contact with your dog increases the amount of a chemical called oxytocin in our brains and in their brains too? Oxytocin is responsible for feelings of positive expectation. You’ll know these better as trust and optimism. Ideas like these are central to cynopraxis. They benefit the dog and they benefit the owner. My aim is to find these win-win situations for you and exploit them for all they are worth.