Chirag Patel

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Chirag is a Certified Pet Dog Trainer and Pet Behaviour Counsellor working in the UK. He is the manager for The Training and Behaviour Centre at Dr Roger Mugfords Company of Animals. He also runs Domesticated Manners Pet Training and Behaviour. He holds a BSc (Hons) Degree in Veterinary Sciences from the Royal Veterinary College and is currently studying for a Masters in Clinical Animal Behaviour.

Chirag has and does work with a variety of animal species including dogs, cats, horses, parrots, rats, degus, tortoise and many more. 

His website is http://www.domesticatedmanners.com

Chirag can be reached at [email protected]

Blog posts by Chirag Patel

Muzzles Blog to go along with the Vlog

Chirag Patel  |  Sun, 09/12/2010 - 17:17

Please watch my Vlog that goes along with this blog.

Muzzles can be an emotional piece of dog training/behaviour management equipment for many owners, trainers and animal behaviour professionals. However, I feel that the muzzle is a piece of equipment which is overlooked by many owners.

 

“Aggression, Emotions, Behaviour and Labels”

Chirag Patel  |  Sun, 06/13/2010 - 05:11

How many behaviours can you think of that you do which do not have an emotion associated with it?

Now answer the same question but think about your dogs behaviour instead.

I think most people now accept that dogs have emotions but there are probably still people who disagree.

It’s hard isn’t it? Not as easy as you first thought. I did the same when the question was first asked to me. “I thought I am sure I can come up with something… There must be something… What about pooping? Nope! I am sure you will agree that there can be lots of emotions associated with the act of defecating.

So if we think of our dogs and their behaviours, is it simple as saying “the dog is being aggressive.” Or is there more to being aggressive than the observable behaviour?

Lets consider this in a little more detail:

 
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Puppy Diary (Part 3) - Each Puppy is an Individual

Chirag Patel  |  Fri, 01/29/2010 - 16:59

Each Puppy is an Individual

So I wanted to spend time with each puppy individually for a couple of reasons:

 

Puppy Diary (Part 2) - Visiting a Breeder

Chirag Patel  |  Wed, 01/20/2010 - 11:22

A friend who has two beautiful Kelpies suggested one of the breeder she had bought a puppy from about two years back (Thanks Nikki). I rang up this lady and had a long conversation with her, asking her lots of questions (even ones I felt had obvious answers), assessing her as a potential breeder of my future puppy and it was great to hear quizzing me / vetting me as a potential parent of one of her much loved puppies. It was also fantastic to hear answers to my questions which I would given myself to owners asking me similar questions. She seemed ideal as she told me that she currently had 3 puppies left from a litter of 10 who were now around 11 weeks old. She invited me to meet them and so naturally off I went.

 

Puppy Diary – What kind of dog do I want?

Chirag Patel  |  Wed, 01/13/2010 - 20:12

It’s a Kelpie! In October I bought a beautiful 12-week-old Kelpie puppy who I have named Cody.

I had been considering purchasing a puppy for a for a few months and in that time I looked at a number of breeds that I would like to live with, having grown up with German Shepherds which I love as a breed (and currently have Kane who is 10 now)!!! I decided that I wanted to get a puppy other than a GSD and provide me with some different challenges and experiences. I also decided that I wanted to buy a puppy from a personally selected breeder as oppose to adopt one for various reasons.  Although I feel that if you do not have this criteria, adopting is a great idea and you will no doubt find a fantastic puppy (as a couple of people have rightly pointed out, you can also find breed rescues if you are looking for a specific breed of dog).

 

ANIMAL TRAINING DIARY - SHEDDS AQUARIUM – Part 2

Chirag Patel  |  Fri, 10/02/2009 - 13:23

Goosebumps, The rest of my Shedd experience was AMAZING!!!!

In my last blog I talked about some of the fantastic training that was taking place at the aquarium. During the rest of the course I got to see and learn more about these.

Imagine teaching one dolphin to jump 6 foot out of the water, now think about teaching three dolphins to do this all together (at the same time) and if that wasn’t enough now consider how you would teach these dolphins to do the above in addition to teaching them all to faced one direction (the audience) and to always remain a certain distance from any physical barrier so that they would not injure themselves.

Mind-boggling???

What was even more inspiring and wonderful was to watch and understand the training methods & philosophies that the aquarium takes to animal training and care. I get goosebumps just thinking about it!

 

Animal Training Diary - Shedds Aquarium

Chirag Patel  |  Mon, 08/24/2009 - 20:16

I flew into Chicago from the UK yesterday to attend an animal training course at the Shedd Aquarium (a beautiful place), and thought I would share my experiences with you over this week.

This is a course run by a well-known animal trainer who has worked with dolphins, whales, big cats… over the last 30 years. I enjoy working with a variety of different animals and thought it would be a great way to expand my knowledge of training as well as working with other species apart from dogs. However saying that one thing I have definitely learned is that the principle of teaching animals is the same for your pet Chihuahua as is for a killer whale or even a chicken! I am really looking forward to learning lots over the next week!!!

Yes, you can train chickens, check out the following video for some training I had done before at another workshop.

 
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TOP 10 DOG PEEVES ABOUT HUMANS

Chirag Patel  |  Sat, 05/16/2009 - 18:44

A friend sent this to me and I loved it, so thought I would share it with you.

1. Blaming your smells on me... not funny... not funny at all!

2. Yelling at me for barking ... I'M A FRIGGIN' DOG!

3. Taking me for a walk, then not letting me check stuff out. Exactly whose walk is this anyway?

4. Any trick that involves balancing food on my nose ... stop it!

5. Any haircut that involves bows or ribbons. Now you know why we chew your stuff up when you're not home.

 
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Teaching what you don't want, by teaching what you want!

Chirag Patel  |  Wed, 04/29/2009 - 10:28

Often when we think about undertaking some formal training with our pets we usually have a list of things we would like them to stop doing.

These can be:
1. stop Rover from pulling on the leash
2. barking at other dogs
3. chewing up the furniture …

When we then think about how to change these behaviours it often seems natural to think of some way to stop the dog from doing them by using some form of punishment. Although we know that punishment does works to stop certain behaviour if applied properly this is not very easy to do and has side effects. So what if we thought about training our dogs in a slightly different way:

One question we often forget to ask when we think about training our dog is “what would we like him to do?” So instead of the responses mentioned above we would think how would like Rover to:

1. walk on a loose leash
2. sit and look at me as another dog walks by
3. chew on these certain toys

 
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You get what you pay for!!!

Chirag Patel  |  Wed, 12/03/2008 - 12:25

This concept also works very well with dogs.

Just think about how many times a day you interact or pay attention to your dog/s. Then if you exclude feeding, walking and grooming try and place the rest of the attention your dog receives into one of the two following categories: 1. Attention for doing something you don't particularly want like jumping up, raiding the garbage, chewing on the mobile phone, lying on the couch and pestering you at the dinner table or 2. Attention for doing something you want more of, like lying calmly on his bed, playing with a toy or chewing a bone?

By attention I don't only mean kisses and cuddles but it also counts as attention if you are shouting at him, chasing him around the house to get that remote back or pushing him off you when he jumps up.

 

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