Practical Pooches is a training school established by likeminded trainers, opting for a more practical and positive approach to dog training. We have been working closely with Hart District Council to bring a new education scheme to the area targeted at those owners who break the law through ignorance, misunderstanding or merely having a negative attitude towards responsible ownership.
We believe that just giving owners a fine and a court imposed order for a dog to wear a muzzle doesn’t work because many dog owners do not accept that it was their fault in the first place! Responsible dog owners don’t know where to turn or leave incidents unreported and so the cycle continues and in some cases become progressively worse until real damage is caused, the dog is abandoned or someone does report it to the appropriate authority.
Introducing the Practical Pooches Community Scheme
A scheme that not only relieves some of the pressure from Dog Wardens by reducing paperwork and court appearances, but also reduces the number of potentially dangerous dogs on the streets. We also hope it will reduce the number of rescue dogs needing to be re-homed as the dogs are re-trained instead of the owners becoming “fed up” with their behaviour and giving up on them.
So what is so different about our approach – rather than lots of paperwork, owners getting a slap on the wrist, a fine and a muzzle order as happens today, we believe in assessing each dog individually to determine the best approach.
Initially, time will be spent with owner and dog to assess both their capabilities and then there will be one of two options. Continue training and introduce them to the training classes or re-direct them to the council to be dealt with through the court process, this is usually where the owner is acting in a negligent manner and refuses to accept that there is an issue with their own behaviour and that of their dog.
Those that are willing to train and correct their dogs behaviour, will be able achieve their Good Citizens Award status and potentially continue onto other areas of training with their dogs, such as agility.
All too often people return to the “old school” form of training which includes screaming at the dog, encouraging stronger “dominant” dogs to aggressively put them in their place, ‘death drops’ or stringing them up on a choke chain. None of which positively encourage good behaviour. Aggression breeds aggression. All this type of training develops is further aggression, either to a “weaker” dog or possibly against the owner trying to un-confidently display a “dominant” position.
We encourage positive reward based training. We have a team that has a varied background so we normally find something that will work for each dog based on their individual needs, we do not assume one size fits all and will vary our methods until we find one that both the dog and owner understand and progress with.
This scheme has a two pronged benefit to the local community as not only is there a better educated dog and owner out and about, but it also shows that the Council is not just there to punish and fine people which goes a long way towards good community relations. By advertising this scheme more widely it is hoped that more incidents will be reported because of the reduction in “hassle” to both parties and the visible results.
Practical Pooches works closely with the NDWA and local councils to build a more dog friendly and responsible community, some of the improvements we would like to see are:
· Dog licensing or owner registration database
· Accreditation for all trainers, dog walkers, behaviourists etc. Some form of regulation with regards to number of dogs per handler
· Mandatory micro-chipping to enable instant identification of ownership and re-unite with or potentially remove dog from owner
· Responsible breeding programmes
· Dog parks & dog friendly spaces
We welcome the chance to work with all likeminded organisations towards this goal such as the NDWA. For more details or to give us your thoughts and feedback please contact us through this website.