For those who joined The Muzzle Movement interview with our tutor, @Vanessa Barber last night! Let us know in the comments what you thought? Have your feelings around muzzles changed in any way? If so, how? 👇

Dearest community, please forgive my 'MIA' the last couple of days. My most precious girl, Nala, has been in end of life care for the last year, and passed away yesterday afternoon in the safety of her home, in the arms of the person who loved her the most in the world. I'm trying to navigate the loss of the very best 'dog teacher', a behaviour student could ever have asked for - she taught me so much about boundaries, about deep-rooted behaviours, about dog-on-dog conflict, about food resource guarding, and so much more. But most importantly of all, she taught me that even a dog with significant behaviour and physical impairments, can be supported. Can be beautiful. Can be loving. Can be the best comfort in times of stress. I am utterly devastated. I am broken. So, I ask that you all please bare with me as I may be a little less active in this space over the next few days. If there's anything really important remember you can reach out to @Clare Hudson Hill or @Vanessa Barber - our HGA tutors. I intend to be back on track for our next Live check in on Monday.

So one of the things I often see being wrongly advised is “never groom a dog on the floor” 😢 When someone tries to convince you that a dog will never associate calm behaviours on the floor, it only shows their lack of knowledge in behaviour and emotional safety. There are MANY circumstances where floor grooming can be a good way to de-escalate stress, specifically when it comes to: 👉🏻 dogs who have had traumatic grooming experiences involving grooming tables and/or restraints. 👉🏻 or where a dog feels emotionally and physically more stable being away from heights, and where they have the ability to move away. In the case study I’ve attached below, Harry felt most comfortable in the comfort of his OWN home, in the PRESENCE OF his caregivers, while ON THE FLOOR. To give you a little bit of context, Harry was a geriatric, blind, and partially deaf, Westie with diabetes. He couldn’t cope with a conventional grooming process. Instead, his grooming plan went a little like this: 🛁 He was bathed and dried the night before I visited by his main caregiver, to significantly reduce groom time. 🕰️ We built up his confidence gradually over weekly, 20-minute sessions until he knew and was familiar with my smell, voice, and all of the tools I intended to use. ✂️ And after around 2 months of introducing the process using positive reinforcements and lots of patience, we got to this point right here! Harry would relax so much so that he would often dose throughout his comfort groom — he would occasionally move away for a rest, but he would return when ready. My sessions were never longer than 30-minutes, but in that time, all of the necessary trimming, clipping and nail dremeling took place without stress 🐾 To his carers, this was worth the world and more - they paid me more than my hourly rate because they SAW my value 🩷 But the money was a secondary benefit to me, because to be able to make welfare grooming a respectful and dignified experience for the last months of a dog’s life, is one of the most gratifying feelings you can ever have.

Usually if I have a gap I will put on a lesson, or do admin or something to do with work, but it's so nice today that I decided to just go for a wander. I used to do this all the time when I had a dog, but it's been forever since I just went out for no reason. What a beautiful day!

Before it happens, I just wanted to put out a respectful and polite notice to you all, asking you to refrain from posting any Crufts related content in this space. Without getting too controversial The HGA, as an entity, does not support the event in any capacity on animal welfare grounds. While this is my own decision, I do respect everyone is entitled to their own opinions on the matter and therefore I would like to emphasise that regardless of your views surrounding this, you are still more than welcome here in this space 🩷 If you’re at all interested in WHY I feel this way, I do have a blog post detailing my reasoning along with scientific references to support my claims, here. But if not, I respect your own views and opinions, and let’s just leave it at that 🩷