Karen Wild

I owe the internet a debt of gratitude. Twitter and facebook, and of course Dog Star Daily, have opened up some great friendships and collaborations for me and have allowed me to meet some amazing dog trainers from all over the world. I have learned a lot and remain humbled by their skill, experience and compassion. I thought it was my turn to repay some of this debt by introducing some of the top pet behaviourists here in the UK so we can share their experiences, too. What makes someone choose this career?

Rosie Barclay BSc(Hons) MPhil CCAB is a Certificated Clinical Animal Behaviourist and Chair of the Association of Pet Behaviour Counsellors (APBC). As well as TV and radio appearances and working with dogs and owners, Rosie has used her skills to help the animals at the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust in Jersey. I asked Rosie how she first got into the training world.

Are female dogs better at spotting when things are not as they should be? I'm not sure whether the explanations are what they seem, but a recent study on dogs at the University of Vienna appears to show that female dogs are more able to notice changes than their male counterparts.

Corsin Müller and fellow researchers discovered that when a tennis sized ball was rolled behind a screen, and a similar but larger sized ball appeared at the other side (or vice-versa), female canine subjects stared at the different sized ball for longer than male canines. The males, by contrast, did not stare at the new sized ball any longer than they had stared at the same sized ball appearing.

You can watch the video here

It’s often the case that you hear a criticism levelled at some dog owners. The reason, it is stated, that their dogs do not behave is this: ‘The dog is their baby’. The owner can rather tragi-comically be portrayed cuddling the dog and buying it diamante accessories. Everybody shakes their heads in disbelief. This apparently leads to all sorts of unwanted behaviours in the dog. The dog is sometimes then punished – it is ‘spoilt’, ‘naughty’, ‘cosseted’. The list goes on. The statement is ‘This dog behaves like this because they treat it like a child’.

And yet, I always felt a certain unease with the comparison. I work with dogs and I work with children. Some of them – in both groups - are pretty tough to handle! In children, what we might call ‘challenging behaviours’ can be highly disruptive and interfere with group activities, or with their own learning.

Does zero tolerance have to be as hardline as it comes across? The very name sounds off-putting.

I’d like to share with you my positive experience of zero tolerance!

I was just musing on a comment made to me today about flyball potentially creating incessant barking in some dogs.

If you have ever watched this incredible, fast but simple to learn dog sport, you will know what I mean. At Crufts each year the noise can be deafening as dogs become utterly absorbed in this leaping, catching, retrieving relay race of a game. Excitement is infectious, so before long you have a whole arena of it – a wall of sound.

It then occurred to me that our flyball team never had this problem! Years ago I ran a dog display team and we taught tricks and fun and games, of which flyball competition was one. None of our dogs barked, even though they adored flyball practice.

Why was this?