See Spot Learn by Emily Dustan

11/10/2026

🐶 It isn’t always easy to tell when dogs are playing comfortably together.

Although this video shows two puppies, the same principles apply to dogs of all ages.

When watching dogs play, look past individual behaviours and pay attention to how the interaction unfolds.

Notice how each dog responds to the other. Does the play become increasingly intense without slowing down, or do the dogs pause, take a break and return to playing?

Both dogs should be comfortable during play, with opportunities to pause, take turns, move away or end the interaction without being repeatedly pursued.

08/10/2026

🐾 When did you last check your dog’s nails, including the dewclaws?

Nail care can slip down the list as life gets busy. Overgrown nails can make standing and walking uncomfortable. How we handle their paws also affects how comfortable nail care feels.

Balancing on three legs or having a paw lifted and held may be difficult. If your dog pulls their paw away, becomes tense or tries to leave, pause and reassess rather than holding more firmly to finish. Speak with your vet if paw handling has become harder, particularly if you’ve also noticed changes in how your dog stands or moves.

The slides cover what to check and ways to make nail care more comfortable. Ask your groomer or vet about a trimming schedule that suits your dog. For dogs who struggle with handling, gradual practice can help them become more comfortable with the process.

Open the images to read through, and save them as a reminder for your next paw check. 🐾 💜 🐾

05/10/2026

If your dog struggled with fireworks last year, now is the time to prepare for this year.

Trembling, pacing and barking can be easy to recognise. A dog who becomes very still, watches the windows or follows you from room to room may also be frightened. Quiet doesn’t always mean comfortable.

Start with a few practical preparations:

🐾 Set up a resting or hiding place your dog already likes, where they can choose to settle or stay close to you.

🐾 Plan walks and toilet breaks before dusk. Check doors, gates and your dog’s identification details.

🐾 Speak with your vet now if your dog has previously been distressed by fireworks. This gives you time to discuss treatment and have a plan in place.

Firework recordings can support gradual sound training, but the volume needs to stay low enough that your dog remains comfortable. Taking treats alone doesn’t tell you that. Watch their posture, attention and ability to settle, too.

If your dog has previously panicked or tried to escape, seek veterinary and behaviour support before starting sound training.

And when fireworks happen, you can comfort your dog. Let them come close if they want contact, or give them space if they prefer to hide.

Our full guide explains how to introduce recordings, recognise when to stop, and support your dog during fireworks.

Read it here:
https://www.seespotlearn.co.nz/help-dog-cope-with-fireworks/

💜 🐾 Save this post so you can come back to it while preparing.

06/09/2026

🐾 This was one of the little outings I did with my dog, Cooper, during his early socialisation period.

We weren’t there to meet people or dogs face to face. Nobody needed to approach him, touch him or feed him. He was getting a chance to experience a different environment (new sights, sounds, smells, movement and objects) without being expected to interact with any of it.

Puppy socialisation is often misunderstood as exposing puppies to as many people, dogs, places and experiences as possible while they are young.

More exposure is not automatically better, and in some cases less is more.

What matters is how your puppy experiences that exposure.

A new experience should be manageable enough that your puppy can notice what is happening around them without being pushed or forced into interaction. For some puppies that might mean watching from further away. For others, it might be a very brief visit before heading home.

And if your puppy is showing that the environment is becoming too much, leaving is a perfectly reasonable response.

Socialisation can be small.

Watching. Listening. Sniffing. Taking in something new.

Your puppy does not need to interact with something for it to count as socialisation.

For young puppies, outings should be planned around their individual health and vaccination status, local disease risk and veterinary advice 💜

04/09/2026

🐾 Welcoming a new puppy into your family?

Our next five-week Puppy School course begins:

🗓️ Thursday 15th October
⏰ 6:30 PM
📍 See Spot Learn, Auckland

Our puppy classes help you understand what your puppy needs now while teaching the practical skills you’ll use together every day as they grow.

Across the five weeks, you’ll learn how to:

🐾 Support your puppy’s emotional development and growing confidence.
🐾 Create positive experiences without overwhelming them.
🐾 Teach practical skills for everyday life using kind, effective training.
🐾 Better understand your puppy’s behaviour and communication.
🐾 Work through common puppy challenges with confidence.

Book your puppy’s place today! 🐾

Small-group puppy training classes in Onehunga, Auckland, for puppies aged 8–16 weeks. Practical guidance for early learning and everyday life.

01/09/2026

Resource guarding doesn’t always start with a growl.

Sometimes the earlier signs are much more subtle.

A dog may eat faster when someone approaches, become still over an item, move away with something they value, position their body over it, or closely watch someone coming towards them.

These behaviours can be easy to miss, particularly when we think of resource guarding as a dog growling or snapping over a food bowl.

Guarding can involve chews, toys, stolen objects, resting places or access to other things the dog values. Dogs may also show protective behaviour when someone approaches or attempts to touch a particular area of their body. In these cases, pain or discomfort is one of the things we need to consider.

Repeatedly taking things away or putting our hands into a dog’s food to “get them used to it” can have the opposite effect. The dog may learn that someone approaching means they are about to lose something.

I’ve written a new article looking at some of the less obvious signs of resource guarding, why it can develop, and what we need to consider when responding to it.

You can read it here:

Resource guarding in dogs can involve food, objects, spaces or body parts. Learn what it can look like, what to avoid and when to ask for help.

28/08/2026

Teaching a dog to use a scratch board 🐾

At this stage, I’m not worrying about getting the perfect scratch or targeting particular paws. I’m just helping the dog learn the first part of the pattern which is interacting with the board.

Those early interactions can be reinforced and gradually shaped until the dog understands that scratching the board is what earns the reward.

Once that pattern is learnt, we can start getting more specific and teach them how to target different paws, including both the front and back paws.

For some dogs, a scratch board can be a great alternative to having their nails clipped, particularly when nail handling is something they find difficult.

Start with the interaction. Build the behaviour. Then refine it from there.

24/08/2026

Last Thursday afternoon I visited the Pippins at Air Scouts in Pt Chev to talk about dogs, body language and staying safe around them.

We read A Friend Named Dog, a book I wrote to help children see interactions from the dog’s perspective and start noticing what dogs may be communicating through their body language.

Rather than teaching children a list of rules about what they should and shouldn’t do around dogs, I want them to learn to look at the dog in front of them. What is their body telling us? Are they choosing to stay? Are they trying to move away? What might we notice that tells us we need to give them more space?

Learning to notice those small signals can help children make safer choices around dogs, while developing empathy and respect for the dog’s experience too.

And at the end of our afternoon, every Pippin went home with their own copy of A Friend Named Dog to keep. 🐾

21/08/2026

And that’s a wrap on another puppy class! 🎓🐾

A big congratulations to our latest group of graduates and their families. It has been lovely watching each puppy grow in confidence, learn new skills and, of course, bring their own personality to every class.

Puppy class is never about having the “perfect” puppy at the end of five weeks. It’s about giving families a strong foundation, helping puppies learn about the world at a pace they can manage, and building skills that can continue to grow beyond the course.

Thank you to all of our families for showing up each week, putting in the work between classes, asking questions and supporting your puppies along the way.

Congratulations, graduates! 🎓🐶

19/08/2026

We notice when a dog barks, growls, lunges, pulls away or tries to leave. When those behaviours reduce or disappear, it can be tempting to assume the dog is now “fine”.

But seeing a behaviour change is only part of the picture. We still need to understand what may be influencing that change.

A dog may stop barking at another dog because they are becoming more comfortable in that situation. They may also stop barking while remaining tense, vigilant or unable to disengage.

A dog may stop pulling their paw away during handling because they have become more comfortable with being touched. The pulling away may also stop while other signs suggest they are still uncomfortable with the handling.

The absence of the original behaviour cannot, on its own, tell us which of those things has happened.

We shouldn’t assume that because the barking stopped, the dog is comfortable. But we also shouldn’t automatically assume that the dog has shut down, or conclude that we are seeing learned helplessness or behavioural suppression.

Those are interpretations, which is why we need more information before deciding what that change may mean.
We shouldn’t judge behaviour change only by what has stopped. We also need to look at what has appeared in its place.

This doesn’t mean putting a dog into a difficult situation to see what they do. It means gathering information from their behaviour and what their family tells us about their responses in everyday situations, while avoiding unnecessary exposure or pressure.

* Can the dog disengage?
* Are they exploring their environment?
* Are there changes in their posture, muscle tension or movement?
* Are they showing behaviours we would normally expect from them in that context?
* Can they shift between different behaviours, or does their behaviour remain restricted?
* What do they do when they have the option to move away or re-engage?
* Does their behaviour change when they have more distance or the situation becomes less intense?
* How quickly do they recover afterwards?

None of these observations should be interpreted in isolation either. Behaviour needs context, and we need to consider the individual dog and what is normal for them.

A reduction in behaviour can absolutely be part of progress. It gives us information, but it's only one part of what we need to consider.

Quiet doesn’t always mean the dog is fine.

💜 We need to understand behaviour before changing it.