We’ve just finished our 4th birthday party! As we’re turned 4 I thought it was only right that we have a 4 day birthday party!
FOUR YEARS! How on Earth?!
There were birthday presents – for you, of course! We also took a trip down memory lane and I shared our - and your! - best bits from the last 4 years, all on the theme of ‘4’ of course.
And there are a lot of ‘best’ bits. But that doesn’t paint the whole picture. In fact, it misses the most crucial part: the worst bits. The pain.
I love Lao more than anything in the world (he’s not with us any more but ‘loved’ past tense doesn’t sound right) however as many of you know, life with him was hard in the beginning.
So I’m not going to paint a rosy picture about how perfect life is when you have a dog that pulls on the lead, has no recall or is aggressive to other dogs or people, because you and I both know it can be stressful, embarrassing and frustrating.
You know those really special dogs, the ones that definitely come into your life for a reason?
Lao was my special dog. And wow did he nearly break me!
These are the 4 worst times of my life with Lao. I realised it wasn’t a ‘happy’ way to start our birthday celebrations, but it’s absolutely crucial to the 4 years of Dogwood.
So here goes…
1️⃣ When I first met him at the shelter in Milan and realised the physical and psychological horror he had endured
2️⃣ The time on New Years’ Day he disappeared in the mountains and I say on a rock crying - he did this more than once, but this was the worst time
3️⃣ The time he bit my neighbour - it wasn’t a bad bite but I was absolutely mortified and didn’t want to take him for a walk ever again
4️⃣ When I said goodbye to him on the floor of the vets on the 24th September 2021
The first time we met Lao was at the rehoming centre near Milan. I got a weird creeping disturbed feeling in my stomach when the kennel staff brought him out; he was skin and bone. I gently lifted his lips.
Stumps level with the gum line and a mouth full of broken teeth.
‘Certo ha tre anni?’ I cautiously asked. ‘Are you sure he’s three years old? He looks different to the photo.’
All the way home he wouldn’t look at us.
The next morning I came downstairs and found him curled up in the big old brick fireplace in the kitchen. My heart broke for him. Sheltered on five sides, it was the place he felt safest.
We took him to the garden on lead to toilet and while he was outside we moved his new bed into the fireplace. He still didn’t look at us.
There he stayed for two weeks: shut down and living in a fireplace.
Lao was handed over to the rescue centre by a vet who refused to put him to sleep. He had been badly mistreated. His owners didn’t want him because he didn’t hunt well. As Lao’s physical health started to improve and we started going for walks, his behavioural issues became apparent.
He barked and lunged at people and dogs to scare them away. He chased rabbits, birds, anything that moved. We kept him on lead and our daily walks became less stressful at least – but they were also boring. Lao seemed unfulfilled and frustrated. I felt guilty.
Back in the UK I started seeking out weird and wonderful places where he could be free. The places became more remote, more isolated. I didn’t always feel safe.
It was affecting my safety, quality of life and even my relationships as my obsession for finding off-lead spaces became evermore extreme. There were no Dogwoods in the area back then. I was at my wit’s end. Something had to change.
There seemed to be just one solution. ‘I need to buy a field for Lao.’
If my friends and family didn’t think I was mad already, they did now. If I said I wanted to open a private hire dog exercise field they probably would have understood. But I didn’t buy the field to start a business; its purpose was to solve a huge problem in my life.
The first time I unclipped Lao’s lead in the field that would eventually become Dogwood West, I knew that our lives had changed.
And it wasn’t because we suddenly had a field to play in. It’s because we discovered 4 things that transformed our walks, and life as a whole.
The 4 things that helped Lao most
Lao’s story had a happy ending - and our life together just got better and better.
We enjoyed off-lead walks in the forest and at the beach. We went on holidays and visited nice towns, stopped in cafes and pub gardens. Wherever we went he was relaxed and paid attention to me because we didn’t just learn recall, loose lead walking or reactivity techniques, but lifelong skills that had him listening to me, following my cues and behaving in every situation.
The first time I unclipped Lao’s lead in the field that would eventually become Dogwood West he didn’t stop running – he explored every centimetre of hedgerow – he sniffed every particle of scent from the long grass.
But it wasn’t the field that changed our lives: it was what we did there.
We sniffed, we explored, we played and we relaxed. I invented new activities, exercises and scent games just for fun, I gave them names.
I truly believe that the most significant contributor to Lao’s results was the steady accumulation of all the fun we have together; the scentwork, the exploration, the environmentals, the partnership, in short, a life well-lived together.
I noticed an incredible side effect to all the fun we were having: Lao became laser focused on me.
And he became less reactive.
It was so beneficial for his behaviour that we started doing it at home too, and out on our normal walks.
I gave it a name: Scentventure.
The 4 Compass Points of Scentventure
1️⃣ Partnership - I stopped trying to train him when he was overexcited or stressed; it wasn’t getting us anywhere. I learned the best times to train him for optimal results.
2️⃣ Exploration - I gave Lao a safe and controlled outlet so he could explore and it left him tired and relaxed.
3️⃣ Environment - we made the public places where we walk work with us, rather than against us.
4️⃣ Scent - we played quick and simple scent games that were not only fun, but increased calm, focus and connection - in the house and on walks.
Now The 4 Compass Points of Scentventure is practiced in people’s homes, gardens, and out on their everyday dog walks around the world.
I just love that these 4 simple things are transforming lives - and it all started with one little rescue dog.
The 4 words I dread to hear
I really threw myself in at the deep end. There weren’t any Dogwoods in the area when I needed a safe space to exercise Lao. That meant I had to learn things the hard way.
I learned so much that I now help other people open their own Dogwoods around the country through my consultant role.
Something I hear a lot is people saying they want to open a dog walking field ‘to make passive income’.
A fairy dies every time someone says that. If it wasn’t so sad it would be funny.
You and your dog deserve more than providing someone’s ‘passive income.’
You deserve someone running your dog’s exercise facility who puts their heart and soul into it, who works with thousands of reactive and easily distracted dogs and their families and understands their needs. You deserve someone who is obsessed with thinking up new features and equipment for the fields to ensure you and your dogs have the best experience time after time. You deserve someone who knows dog behaviour and gets results for their clients every single day.
What you don’t get at a ‘passive income’ field:
1️⃣ Excellence: my commitment to lifelong learning taught me something far more important than just the skills I need to run secure fields and be a dog trainer. It taught me who I am, what I believe in. Obsessively studying dog behaviour makes sense if you’re offering training and behaviour services, but to run a field? To design a dog field you don’t need to know which exercise patterns cause the brain and body stress that can cause or worsen aggression and other behavioural problems, and you might argue you don’t need to. People can still open a field and install the same equipment. But do they know why? Does it even matter? To me it does because I genuinely want you and your dogs to have the best experience imaginable.
2️⃣ Service to those around us: Fundraising events, weekly sessions donated to local rescue centres and thousands of pounds a year raised for rescue centres, nationwide and abroad.
3️⃣ Passion: Someone who put their life savings into buying a field for a broken rescue dog - long before deciding to make it a business, left a full time job at Dogs Trust and took a pay cut to help more broken dogs, and developed a training formula designed especially for them.
4️⃣ Community: An close-knit international community of like-minded dog owners who are not just clients but people who genuinely love and care for each other.
If that sounds like your kind of crowd, then you're in the right place and I love that you’re part of the Dogwood community.
My family and I have put blood, sweat and tears into it – not to mention my black eye, trips to A&E, and our freezing, soggy maintenance sessions!
Is it worth it?
Honestly?
Yes.
The joy, the freedom, the happiness - dogs and their humans. The transformations - from fearful to confident, from reactive to calm. There are people who’ve told me they were considering rehoming their dog before they found Dogwood, and there is one person whose dog may not even be with us at all anymore, their behaviour was that difficult.
I resonate with those people because that’s where I used to be with Lao, always doubting whether I was the right person for him.
Dogwood changed Lao’s life, it changed my life and thousands of other people in our community.
The Top 4 reasons dogs pull on the lead or bark and lunge on walks
Scentventure started with Lao and I pottering around in a field. Since then I’ve used the same strategies to help hundreds of dogs become calm, focused and attentive on walks.
In my experience these are the top 4 reasons why dogs pull on the lead or bark and lunge on walks:
We go to the wrong places on walks
We don’t do enough calming activities
We haven’t taught them focus techniques for dealing with distractions
We fixate on the problem behaviour instead of looking at the whole lifestyle
I know #4 is controversial, but if you take one piece of advice from me, I want it to be this…
Training alone won’t fix your dog.
It sounds counterintuitive, doesn't it?
You just want to fix the pulling, barking or lunging.
Bad news.
Recall training alone won’t fix the embarrassing recall.
Loose lead walking exercises won’t fix the painful pulling on the lead.
‘Socialising’ your dog won’t stop their stressful barking and lunging.
More exercise won’t make your dog less reactive or overexcited
A lifestyle approach is infinitely more effective. It means:
Calm in the house - because a dog who is calm in the house will be calmer on walks
Attentive on walks - to listen to you in the presence of distractions
Happy and healthy - because a dog who loves life and has great wellbeing and fitness is and is in optimum mental and physical condition will be easier to train
Less training needed in the long run because they’re calmer and more obedient overall - it means new problems are less likely to arise
We've tested it with hundreds of dogs of different breeds, ages and temperaments.
Creating a calm, happy dog outperforms hyperfocusing on specific training techniques, every single time.
Here's 4 reasons why:
Your dog will enjoy being close to you so they’ll choose you over distractions
They will be calmer and so they’ll be able to listen to you and think straight
You will have a toolkit of techniques so you can pull out the right one in any situation so you will be calmer and more confident - not just your dog
You’ll become the expert and always know how to keep your dog calm
There are a lot of distractions competing for your dog’s attention on walks, which means without ways to keep your dog’s attention, frankly, you can’t compete with those distractions.
That's why I opted for the lifestyle approach to addressing Lao’s reactivity. And it was so effective that I created Scentventure.
If your dog isn’t relaxed enough to learn, the training you do won’t be effective.
And if the training isn’t effective, your dog won’t be calm.
Yikes.
That's why you shouldn’t just teach the training, you should also teach the calm.
It’s an incredibly powerful combination.
Let’s start with the practical training . . .
4 practical skills every reactive or easily distracted dog needs.
At Dogs Trust I travelled across the North of England providing training, behaviour, enrichment, health and legal advice to hundreds of dog owners every week and developed new campaigns for responsible dog ownership, including the successful campaign to parliament for compulsory microchipping.
I’ve worked with thousands of dogs and their families over the years and I’ve come to the conclusion that there are 4 practical skills every reactive or distracted dog should have…
1️⃣ Loose lead walking
For some people loose lead walking is the biggest problem and so it’s the obvious thing that needs addressing. But for others, the pulling on the lead problem may feel secondary to other more distressing issues such as reactivity. However, teaching your dog to walk on a loose lead is essential for dogs of any temperament because a dog who is pulling is not calm. And a dog who is not calm is not listening. They’re worked up, just trying to go forwards, forwards, forwards. Loose lead walking is a calm behaviour. Calm body = calm mind.
2️⃣ Recall
Whether your dog is reactive or distracted, if they don’t have a reliable recall, it’s a problem. By distracted I mean those dogs who love life so much they want to go and say hi to all people and dogs. The issue of course is that not all dogs or people want to be approached by friendly dogs. Reactive dog owners, I know what you’re thinking; my dog is never off lead anyway so I don't need to worry about recall. I would still encourage you to have a watertight recall. Why? Because when you find a nice quiet place to walk you’ll feel confident letting your dog off lead. Plus it’s fun, it strengthens your relationship, and, black-sky thinking; what if they slip their harness or the lead breaks? Knowing you can recall your dog means more enjoyable walks for everyone.
3️⃣ Focus techniques
We all need some simple strategies for getting your dog to focus on you and ignore a distraction. The distraction could be a person or another dog, or just general excitement making them pull on the lead. We call these Ninja Moves - they’re for when you need laser-sharp focus from your dog to avoid meltdowns. Have a variety up your sleeve to pull out whenever you need them. It's what every reactive or easily distracted dog needs!
4️⃣ Sniffing
Some dogs are so hypervigilant on walks, always looking for triggers and distractions, that they don’t do what dogs do best - use their nose to make sense of the world. Give your dog a little extra time just to sniff around – and if they don’t, the place you’re walking might be too distracting. Choose somewhere quieter. Sniffing is calming for dogs and helps them feel relaxed so more sniffing and less looking can lead to calmer behaviour. Nose down, bottoms up!
Of course the practical skills are just one part of the puzzle; having a dog that’s calm enough to learn these skills is the most crucial step. It’s what we teach in Scentventure.
You can find out more about that here.
Whether you’ve been with us since day 1 or you’re new to our community - thank you so much for being part of it. Here’s to the year ahead - cheers to all of US 🥂