Headcollars and Wheatens

Cambridge today to spend the day filming Ollie the Soft coated Wheaten terrier. Unfortunately, Ollie obviously wasn't too fussed about his debut appearance and had been having great fun foraging in the bushes the day before so we spend a little while picking bits of undergrowth from his coat before we could start filming - at least it shows that Ollie leads a full, fun packed life!

Talking about 'leading', Ollie sometimes pulls on the lead, if there is another dog that he wants to say hello to, or if he wants to investigate something. This can make walks unpleasant for his owner and put unnecessary strain on his neck so we decided to introduce him to a headcollar. Headcollars work by putting gentle pressure on the back of the next, naturally encouraging relaxation (like a pup being carried by the scruff of it's neck) and gentle pressure around the muzzle. Just like a horse halter - it becomes much easier to control the dog when you have the point of contact around the head rather than the neck.

Many dogs will initially fight the headcollar as it is a new and unusual feeling and some owners abandon it immediately as they don't like seeing their dogs in distress. In our video, we show how we gradually let Ollie get used to the headcollar, going only at his pace and rewarding him for accepting it. After some training, Ollie was happy to walk happily along the street wearing his headcollar, walking beside me and not pulling at all. All in all a successful day.

Website goes live

As you can see our website is now up and running! While we are waiting for the videos to be edited before we can go live and offer subscriptions, we are proud that we now have something for people to look at. All we need now is some directory entries and a huge stack of videos so that you can all get going with training your dogs!