Best Canine Trainers Plymouth Near Me

4worldlovers:
Here to help you with the why's and the how to's of Springer Spaniels

Gemma is a trainer of Springer Spaniels, based in Plymouth, UK. With over 14 years of broad and wide-ranging experience working with and training this breed of dog which enables her to understand the challenges they can bring and the problems we can face when we share our lives with a Springer.

Gemma works with clients to help them with all manner of training and behaviour issues, those clients who are looking to provide enrichment and those looking to develop themselves personally as a dog owner.

Sometimes Springers don't always fit into our lives the way we hoped, but with a little bit of work and dedication, it is possible to create a much easier, happier and calmer life with our dog.

Sessions are available one to one in and around Plymouth, UK and online for those further away.

The Springer Spaniel was originally bred as a hunting dog, they were used to 'flush' out, or 'spring' game in front of and away from the handler. This means that Springers chase birds that fly up into the air and rabbits that run out into open ground so that hunters can shoot them. In more recent times, the Springer is also used to retrieve and bring the shot game back to the handler. Hundreds of years of selective breeding mean that chasing and carrying things in their mouths comes naturally to Springers, but it doesn't mean that they come naturally trained. The instinctual part of the brain tells them to act a certain way and if certain behaviours are causing problems, then we use the learning part of the brain to act as a lighthouse guiding them towards better behaviour.

Springers were created by selecting preferred traits of one breed and crossing it with another dog who also showed desirable traits, when breeders keep going this way, they can create a breed designed to do a particular job and even separate them into show breeds designed to look a particular way and working types who are bred to perform a specific working task. While art from around the 16th Century shows us dogs that look like Springers, DNA tests can trace a connection between the Springer Spaniel and Tibetan Mastiff. Tibet is a relatively closed country so it's difficult to find out much about the history of the Tibetan Mastiff, but what we do know is that Mastiffs were often given as gifts to travellers. The Mastiff is a guarding breed and English gentry bred the English Mastiff to protect their property from thieves. It's easy to see how Springers can have Tibetan Mastiff ancestry. When the Mayflower set sail from Plymouth to the New World, records show that there was a Springer Spaniel and an English Mastiff on board.

All of this rich history combined is what makes your Springer so unique, add to that our own expectations of how a dog should behave and it's easy for us to see that training can be made more effective when we take a tailored approach.

As you may have learnt from reading the text above, the Springer Spaniel was selectively bred to perform a task which means that they can be more energetic than some breeds. A typical day for a working or show Springer is a busy one.

Both working and show types are heavily trained in order to carry out their specific role, and a day at a show or in the shooting field is a busy one. Research tells us that working type dogs have higher levels of dopamine than other breeds and this means that they are more driven to do something - they have an inbuilt need to do something.

Springers still carry the same genetics that tells them they'll be active throughout the day and when we work with a good trainer or behaviourist we can put that energy to good use which can help with problem behaviours and we can train our dogs to do the things we do want them to do instead of the things we don't want them to do.

Gemma's broad experience and knowledge of Springers has helped her craft training programmes that work to ease the common problems that owners face, and the not so common too.

Here at Zuri Dog K9 you can learn how to teach your dog to walk nicely on leash, to work to ease the behaviours associated with separation related problems, anxious/nervous/traumatised dogs, how to help your dog overcome aggression towards people and other dogs, how to drain excess energy that may be causing restlessness and hyper behaviours, and more.