Hope you have had a great weekend with your puppy! This week, i'm changing our wednesday live calls so that they take place just once a month from now on, just so we can try to get more people joining per call! This week's training challenge will be all about a release cue. I will be posting more about this later today and showing you how to start training a release cue, where you can use it and how to build from the start! Does your dog have a release cue?

Good morning - happy weekend! One question that pops up frequently is.... 'How long should I be walking my young puppy for?' If you've googled this, you would have probably come across the rule of '5 minutes per month of age up to twice a day' And even though this is sensible advice to stop some people from over doing it with their pups while they are young, it's actually inaccurate and outdated advice from a 1970s study on hip dysplacia. There is no real modern science backing up this advice. So, if this is the case, what is the right amount of time to walk your dog for...? Well, the answer really is IT DEPENDS! It totally depends on the individual dog in front of us, as well as breed and age. My advice would be: It's totally fine to take your puppy out to the park, on the beach - but starting with shorter, gentler walks, and then building over time. - 'Sniffy' explorative walks are a fantastic way of introducing your pup to the world and keeping things on the 'calmer' side. - Take them to a park to practice small bursts of recall on the grass. - Avoidlong walks, runs and jumping on hard, concrete surfaces. - No 10 mile hikes up a mountain - just yet! - Your puppy will usually tell you when they've had enough by flat out refusing to walk any more OR some will get overwhelmed and start jumping, biting or spinning on the lead (time to go home!) - Drive your puppy to the park or local field rather than walking them intially so they don't get exhausted before getting there. How long do you walk your pup for? Do you have any questions about this? Comment below!

Can anyone recommend a kibble dog will actually eat? We use Eden as the pellets were small and it had a high AADF rating, but now won't touch it, even mixed into his meals. This means we can't use it for enrichment in snuffle mats and towels 😬 Training treats are not 'complete', and are expensive 😳. His own food allowance is wet food now so I can't use that in treat release toys. He mostly has a ton of JR pet pate in enrichment toys but that dries out and needs replacing all the time. Since he doesn't eat breakfast, his morning diet is mostly JR pate and a range of training treats 😦

Take a look at the image below which shows the colour spectrum that we can see compared to what dogs can see! So - dogs can see blue and yellow, and any other colour is just a different shade of grey. Knowing this, we can use this to our advantage: - When out on a walk, wearing a blue or yellow coat will make you stand out of the crowd. - Having a blue or yelow blanket or mat will help your dog to target that specific spot as theirspace, rather than using any blanket to lie on (if you wanted them to lie on a specific mat/blanket) - If you're playing ball games, having a blue or yellow ball would stand out on the grass compared to a gree ball Can you think of other ways that we can use blue and yellow to our advantage?

You're a 'premium member' if: - We currently already work together face to face - You've purchased premium membership (details on memberships are pinned at the top of the page!) Tonight we will have a chat to see how your pup is getting on so bring any puppy question or dilemma that you might have to the call! This is a great chance to connect with other puppy parents who might be in the same boat as you - sometimes it's nice to not feel so alone in puppy parenthood! We will also be discussing this week's training challenge which is a 'leave it' challenge! If your dog can already leave food on the floor, we will have a look to see how we can build from there! Will you be joining? P.s. if you've never joined a live call before, it's super simple! Just scroll to the 'calender', click on todays date and the link in there will take you straight to the call! Easy peasy! 😀