Calming Canines

Calming Canines Certified Family Dog Mediator and qualified Canine Behaviour Practitioner.

Helping dogs to build confidence, overcome their fears and anxieties and to live their best lives. Dogs can suffer from fears, phobias and anxiety regardless of age or background so whether your dog is a recent rescue, a nervous puppy or anxious adult there are lots of things we can do to improve their confidence and start to overcome their fears.

What happened to empathy and what that has to do with dogs.This has been rolling around in my head for some time and a f...
31/08/2026

What happened to empathy and what that has to do with dogs.

This has been rolling around in my head for some time and a friend's comment on a recent post of mine has prompted me to put it into words. All it really takes is a quick scroll on the comments sections of social media to find evidence that it is disappearing at an alarming rate.

As humans lose the ability to empathise with others of our own species, it follows that we also lose the ability to empathise with other species. Being empathetic or compassionate is now branded as a weakness, as "woke", "soft" or my personal favourite - a "Loony Leftie". It's no coincidence that as empathy reduces, the number of dog professionals turning to aversive tools and outright abuse is increasing.

The thing is, the ability to empathise with others isn't just something you're either born with or not, it's a learned skill. Some people may have low empathy and a reduced capacity to develop it or express it, but they still have the capacity.

It had never occurred to me before that the rapid rise of division politics over the last 20 years, creating an "us Vs them" mentality, along with the oppositional style of social media with its outrage-led algorithms could affect our relationships with dogs, but it has. More people just want their dog's behaviour changed, no matter how and regardless of the emotional impact it has on the dog they share their lives with. People are becoming desensitised to animal abuse via viral videos of people using grot leads and shock collars to "correct" the even most insignificant behaviours and this, coupled with a lack of empathy isn't going to end well for dogs.

I don't like to bring politics onto this page, but when it is having an effect on how dogs (and other animals/wildlife) are treated, I will. I am a proud Loony Leftie, woke, force free dog person. This culture we have created of rejecting anything we perceive as different or "other", be it religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability (I could go on!) is eroding our ability to empathise. It's far easier to empathise with those similar to ourselves but other species are, by definition, very different, although they feel many of the same emotions we do. If as a society we are finding it hard to empathise with another person because of a perceived difference, we must be finding it even harder to empathise with animals.

Dog people spend hours debating aversive vs force free methods, but the problem itself can't be solved by debating because the problem is much deeper and is rooted in society as a whole. As we are pitted against each other we become defensive and search for a tribe to belong to. Perhaps we should look at the bigger picture to find the answers, look at ourselves honestly and ask whether our own ability to empathise is being slowly eroded. I recognised that in myself and made a conscious decision to do something about it.

Two months post-clip and Rae has reached what I will now permanently refer to as the "faux fat stage".She's not what I'd...
30/08/2026

Two months post-clip and Rae has reached what I will now permanently refer to as the "faux fat stage".

She's not what I'd call a racing snake, but she's not overweight; more "pet weight".

Several people have commented on how much weight she's put on and I couldn't work out why. I eventually realised that her coat doesn't have the weight in it to lay flat, but is long enough to make her look like she ate all the pies as it now sticks out from her ribs!

Also, spot Kite trying to snooze whilst Rae tramples on him!

It's now two months since the girls were clipped due to the extreme heat we experienced in the south of England, so it's...
29/08/2026

It's now two months since the girls were clipped due to the extreme heat we experienced in the south of England, so it's time for an update on the regrowth.

As expected, the undercoat is slightly outgrowing the topcoat which was highlighted by the way the coat reacted during our first wet walk since the beginning of June. Whilst their coats didn't absorb the water the way some coats do (spaniels seem to just soak it up!) it definitely absorbs the water more than it did before clipping. If it stays this way into winter, I'll be putting their coats on for wet walks as water reaching the skin in cold/windy weather will make them lose body heat. I don't typically put coats on them in winter as their natural coat does its job well in cold weather.

Ash, my bi-black boy, was also clipped (for welfare/heat and medical reasons) but his coat has reacted differently and remains much more water resistant, despite having been clipped a second time. Anecdotally, I've noticed that different colours sometimes have different properties. A friend of mine had a parti poodle and decided to cord his coat but only the black fur would cord. The white fur refused to cooperate. I know little about the science behind this, but a quick search shows that different pigmentation does create structural differences, with darker colours typically being stronger and more resilient than lighter colours

All in all, I still don't regret clipping them and I'm more than happy with the regrowth so far.

Edited to add:
Please read my multiple posts on this subject before replying with "you've ruined their coat", "they'll get sunburn" or "it'll never grow back".

I dislike using AI, but I had to use it to crate this image without actually hurting a dog!The other day I saw somebody ...
22/08/2026

I dislike using AI, but I had to use it to crate this image without actually hurting a dog!

The other day I saw somebody go to retrieve their dog as he wasn't coming back when called. She walked up behind him and picked him up by the harness (though not with a handle as shown in the photo) and carried him, suspended in the air, back to where she was standing.

It really shouldn't need to be said, but this is not a nice way to treat a dog! Not only did the poor sod not know he was about to be hoisted unceremoniously into the air, but his whole body weight was being held by his armpits.

She could just as easily have clipped his lead on, which would have been much kinder, but she actively chose to do this.

Just because a dog is small, it doesn't give us the right to treat them like this.

Do better people!

A few months ago I excitedly announced I'd be reopening this summer. Then we had the most ridiculously hot weather I've ...
08/08/2026

A few months ago I excitedly announced I'd be reopening this summer.

Then we had the most ridiculously hot weather I've known in England that seemed never ending. It briefly dropped to normal summer temperatures of 21°-25°, but as we head into yet another period of 30° plus, I'm admitting defeat. I'm only able to do the bare minimum for day to day living and caring for the dogs so sadly I'm postponing reopening.

When I do reopening (I'm sticking with "when", not "if") I'll be focusing on helping dogs with noise phobias and sound sensitivity. Stick around for more on this topic :)

Enjoy a photo of Rae snorkeling in the pond on one of our many hot days!

One month on from the initial clip and there is obvious growth of the undercoat and less obvious growth (but still growt...
04/08/2026

One month on from the initial clip and there is obvious growth of the undercoat and less obvious growth (but still growth) of the guard hairs. Rae, on the bottom of the image, had a bath and a blow dry a few days ago and with the clipped coat it was much easier to get the shampoo to her skin. With her full coat, the waterproof properties made it really hard to get her coat properly wet, so obviously the clipped coat has lost it's waterproofing. Plus the reduction in length means there's less to have to wet! I was hoping for some rain to test this out but we've had none for well over a month! In this weather, I'd personally prefer to be able to get water to her skin in case of the need for rapid cooling. I can easily pop a coat on her if we get rain. It'll be interesting to see how long it takes for the water repellent properties to return!
So far, neither Rae or Wren have any patchy regrowth beyond the irregular nature of my non-professional grooming skills. They continue to be brushed regularly to prevent the undercoat from matting/felting and also because the clip has increased the number of burrs and seeds they collect when out. Prior to clipping, they'd collect them in the obvious places (tail, ruff, feathers) but not really on their body. After the clip, they are collecting more on their body, but they're easy to remove! I imagine this will continue until the guard hairs are fully regrown. In the meantime, I'll continue to document the regrowth, including any issues we run into!

One of the biggest benefits of using a mobility scooter to walk the dogs (other than the obvious!) is that I can have wa...
01/08/2026

One of the biggest benefits of using a mobility scooter to walk the dogs (other than the obvious!) is that I can have water available at all times for them.

They don't have to wait for it to be offered, they can just help themselves as and when they want to.

Correlation doesn’t imply causation AKA just because your dog freaked out in the presence of something, it doesn’t mean...
31/07/2026

Correlation doesn’t imply causation

AKA just because your dog freaked out in the presence of something, it doesn’t mean that thing caused the issue.

This morning Ash chose to come for a walk, after not wanting to for a day or so. He was calm, relaxed, with no hypervigilance and sniffing the things dogs like to sniff. We passed a few dogs, and I dropped a couple of treats as they passed. Ash ate one, looked up at the dog passing, watched it for a few seconds, and put his head down again to find another. We carried on and as he was sniffing a branch that was on the ground, I spotted a runner heading towards us with a young husky. The dog was attached to a running belt, and the runner was keeping the dog engaged with her as they passed. We were off to the side, giving them plenty of room to pass, so I again dropped a couple of treats for Ash as they neared. He completely ignored them and asked to be picked up (he does this by coming and sitting in front of me, side on). I asked him if he wanted to be picked up and he clearly said “yes” by putting himself in my arms as I crouched next to him.

So, what caused him to panic? The most obvious thing would be the runner with the dog. Ash is worried by dogs, and when people run with dogs, it can look to other dogs as if the dog is running at them, which can cause them to panic or react defensively.

As a side note, I want to be clear that the runner with the husky was doing absolutely nothing wrong; the dog was under control, not eye-balling dogs as it went by, and clearly enjoying itself, this isn’t a runner/caniX bashing post!

Just because Ash panicked at the precise moment the runner went by, doesn’t mean that his panic was caused by the runner and dog. It’s very easy to make assumptions about what triggers big feelings in a dog when something like this happens, but this reaction from Ash is atypical of his reaction when worried by a dog. This is more commonly his reaction to sensory overload or sounds when he feels he can’t escape. We had a fence on one side and a dog on the other and a it's likely that a noise he heard (I didn’t/couldn’t hear it) caused him to panic but his escape route was closed.

Identifying what is triggering a reaction can be more difficult that it seems, and this is especially true of those dogs who react intermittently. The reaction isn’t always caused by the most obvious trigger; pain, sounds, the specific body language of a person/dog, even scent can make up part of the picture which causes a reaction.

This event also highlights why I still continue to use food when I'm out with Ash, all behaviour is information and the fact that he ignored the treats was instant info that all was not well in his world. He came and sat on my lap on the scooter and we went straight home. He's now fed and asleep and all is well again.

I couldn't write a post about correlation and causation without including one of the great Spurious Correlations charts from Tyler Vigen!

I'm still getting multiple comments on my original post about clipping double coated dogs suggesting that they are now g...
28/07/2026

I'm still getting multiple comments on my original post about clipping double coated dogs suggesting that they are now going to get sunburn! I've had a short coated dog and my shelties' fur is longer than his was!
Are people just regurgitating stuff they've read without actually looking at the dogs in question? I'm a little stumped as to how the sun could reach their skin through fur this thick?

Rae is a real foodie. I often joke that she would eat her own legs if it didn't hurt. When I moved to this house, we sta...
28/07/2026

Rae is a real foodie. I often joke that she would eat her own legs if it didn't hurt. When I moved to this house, we started walking regularly in a fairly busy park, which my dogs and I hadn't really experienced before.

There are lots of lovely people here and they'd often ask if the dogs could have a treat, so have a treat they did. It didn't take long for Rae to work out who was going to feed her and if she spotted them she'd rush over and sit, waiting for her treat. At this point her recall was still fantastic, but on several occasions she would be given another treat just as I recalled her. That was all it took for a food obsessed dog to lose her recall! She actually got into someone's car with them hoping for a treat! She followed one chap around the park, walking perfectly to heel, in the hope of getting a biscuit. I was watching her the whole time and it was only a small part of the park, don't worry!

It took stopping people from feeding her altogether (which they found incredibly difficult), putting a "Do Not Feed" bandanna on her (to remind people) and really upping my game when it came to rewards to get that recall back.

She still remembers every single person who has ever fed her.

She still goes and sits patiently by them, hoping desperately that there will be a treat this time.

The chap in this photo gave her a treat ONCE. Months ago. She still remembers.

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