Polish gets Pampered in Prestwich

On Friday I booked Snoopy my polish lowland sheepdog for a groom at Woof ‘N’ Tumble on Whittaker Lane in Prestwich.
Snoopy had a full groom and nails clipped at a bargain price, the staff followed all my specific requirements and he came back well groomed and looking just great. I was very pleased and I would highly recommend them.

May Update

We had our CAP1 second session on the 4th of May which was really good. Matt has free shaped Teal to stand all four feet on the box which is very cute and little Cara took to the target stick really well doing a beautiful figure of eight.
Everyone enjoyed the day and Helen got her Kentucky Fried Chicken Treat for lunch! It's assessment day next time and we all have plenty to work with till then.

Daycare is picking up we have 3 new dogs, Molly, Inca and Harvey and another coming to view this week.

We have new classes starting in June. On a Friday we have another beginners mixed activities as all the others are full, another puppy socialisation class and also weekly ringcraft, there is also Heelwork to Music/Freestyle starting on a Wednesday at 6.20pm.

I am now only available for one to ones in the daytime Monday to Friday. I’m currently not doing any behaviour consults but we have someone we can recommend should you require that service.

I sent off for an order for the Kennel Club Good Citizen Scheme Stationary today including rosettes and it came to over £100!! I can understand why so many clubs didn’t renew this year with the new charges and membership increase. When I was only doing 2 nights at the Church I would have struggled to afford it, but then I wouldn’t have needed as much stuff as I do now.

As we will now have 18 classes per week we may have an opportunity for a qualified and experienced positive dog trainer to join our team in the next month or so.

Matt and Teal get a special mention

Leaming bar report on the Gundog Club Website

http://www.thegundogclub.co.uk/presscentre/pressreleases/FTdays/leemingbar2.htm

Dog Walker in Wigan, Leigh and Lowton

Emma Hill who used to help out with our training classes at Elton Dog club and WaggaWuffins has finally set up her own business Dog Walking.

We'd like to wish Emma the best of luck with her business

Emma is very experienced with a Degree in Animal Behaviour, she has great empathy with animals and we highly recommend her services, so if your in Wigan or Leigh and looking for someone to look after your dog while your at work Emma is the person to contact.
To find out more about Emma and her services check out her website

http://muddymutt.co.uk/

Easter Holidays and CAP1

As usual I have been rushed off my feet! Matt was away over Easter on holiday working on a farm in Wales!! Lucky Amy who came to our puppy socialisation classes was back home from Bristol University where she is studying veterinary science and helped the week Matt was away with doggy daycare etc. Amy brought her working cocker Archie who got on great with Xanthe, I think she’ll miss him. We also put Archie through his silver good citizen and he passed. Well done Amy and Archie , I wasn’t surprised after Amy practised her 2 minute stay in the daycare with dogs running around and he did it no problem. Archie and Amy do Gundog Training with Helen Phillips.

Daycare is picking up nicely, we now have 7 dogs who come regularly

All the dogs get on really well, we have a new sofa donated by my brother for the daycare rest room which the dogs like alot.


We have a new staff member Natalie who started this week to help with Daycare. Natalie has lots of academic qualifications and practical experience related to animal care and came highly recommended, she also has the cutest Chinese Crested Powderpuff called Lola.

On Easter Sunday we had our first CAP1 training day. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed it. There was me, Matt, Stewart and Jayne, two handlers from our classes Jackie and Anne-Marie and 2 APDT trainers Cas from Yorkshire where Matt did his gundog tests and Sue from Dogs Can Do in Rossendale. Everyone was really nice and we had a really good day. Helen is a great instructor and we all learnt a lot from her.
I have requested some dates for CAP2 starting in summer and we are looking at K9 Multisports.

I got some new material for the posts so they are now blue and match the rest of the centre!!

Its really busy at the moment, I’m booked up till the end of May for one to one and behaviour but hopefully our new addition to the team will enable me to commit more to this, I now have clients travelling from as far as Preston and Cumbria!!! We have a waiting list for mixed activity classes, puppy class availability is from the end of April and Adult beginners is May!!

I had lots of enquires for Freestyle/HTM classes so we will be starting these in the next few weeks.

Congratulations Matt and Teal

Just a quick update! Matthew and Teal went back to Leaming Bar this weekend to take their grade 2 Gundog Club Hunting Retriever Test. They passed with yet another distinction with a score of 99% dropping just 1 point on heelwork.


They are now preparing for Grade 3!

We have the first session of our clicker Workshop with Helen Phillips in a couple of weeks, cant wait for that! We have 1 space available due to a cancellation if anyone is interested in a space.

We are hoping to hold some more events in Sundays this year with a Canine Freestyle Workshop in the pipeline. I’ve started on a whole new routine and piece of music with Dinky.

Classes are busy as usual and day care is picking up and achieving our projected targets. Trawling through course work amongst everything else at the moment we have 2 new modules started, the last ones I think!! Nutrition and Behaviour and Psychopharmacology!

Daycare and CAP1

Just a quick update! We have been really busy over the last few weeks. Our Day care has opened and we have a few regular dogs having fun each day with us. Because the daycare has now opened we have a job vacancy for a dog walker which needs to be filled in the next few weeks. Matt is currently covering the dog walking and I am in the centre.

Our Mixed activity classes are full so we need to look at setting up another to accommodate the demand for these. We had some fun on our last tricks session and taught the dogs a behaviour and then added a cue which was a card with the behaviour written on instead of a verbal one, so it looked like the dogs can read! It was Games week last week and it was fun to see everyone’s competitive edge come out. This week is scent week, the dogs just love it!!

We have booked Helen Phillips from Wagmore Barn to come and do a Clicker Trainers Assessment Program Workshop at the centre. This is called CAP1. The course runs over 3 months and includes a daily attendance once a month. The dates are Sun 4th April 2010, Sun 2nd May 2010 and Sun 6th June 2010 9am start till 4.30pm. The course is limited to 8 places and there are 4 available as of writing this blog. The course covers foundation clicker training and is really good.

That’s all for now, must get back to playing with dogs!!