Dogs: Leash or Muzzle?

Have you been watching Crufts?

Have you seen the dogs doing ‘doggy dancing’? Or to give its a more official title, ‘heel work to music’.

Obviously, your dog must have mastered basic obedience classes before the advanced stages of doggy dancing could be contemplated!

Also, to be a good dog for doggy dancing, your dog should have some basic agility skills too - like jumps and ability to walk backwards - not all dog breeds are able to walk backwards.

The combination of music and dog allows handlers to demonstrate their training skills and strong partnership. Training for heelwork and freestyle develops the dog both mentally and physically, and watching the dogs they seem to really enjoy it.

The handlers and the dogs both seem to have great fun with doggy dancing!

Have you ever wished you could understand what your dog is trying to tell you?

Ever wished you knew what he was thinking?

As you get to know your dog better, it becomes easier to understand what he’s trying to ‘tell’ you by his behaviour, motions or the way he barks.

But what if you had an automatic translation machine that told you exactly what he was saying?

You’d know what he wanted for dinner, where he wanted to go for a walk, or what he could smell.

Sounds impossible? Well computer software might be on the horizon to do just that! Its already available to translate other ‘human’ languages, so its just another short bounce to ‘dog’.

Three years ago Ash the labrador, was a stray dog roaming the streets of Chorlton, Manchester.

Today, he’s a trained sniffer dog, searching out drugs. He sniffs clubgoers on the way in to bars and clubs in Manchester City Centre. If he sniffs out anything suspicious he will sit by the person until his handler has made the search.

He’s also trained to sniff out firearms.

All this on 6 weeks of training! Just shows what a professional dog trainer can do, even with a stray.