Hollie’s Honest Hounds Glow Up
We love this win because it has come from just getting stuck into the resources on the Education Tier, showing that online learning can make a huge difference when you get the right resources! This team are a real example of how much you can change for the better when you find the right things for you and your dog, and we love seeing their updates! Give them a follow @mgncollies and come and check out the Education tier for yourself!
Something we’ve noticed since joining HH and realising the things we need to be doing in our training with Hollie is how much happier she’s been.
When we first rescued her at 8 months old she only knew how to fetch her tennis ball, in a very obsessive kind of way and she was extremely interested in light reflections and shadows. We very quickly realised she LOVES her walks but when her reactivity actually started showing fully we had to be very aware of the places we took her.
If she saw even just one trigger on her walk her entire mood would change and it was very obvious she just couldn’t relax again to enjoy the walk (sometimes she’d still be barking 10 minutes after it was gone) We have been extremely lucky and have found a lot of places that she could go and not see anything but obviously that’s not possible on every single walk so it was just a lot of management on our end.
The end of last year we decided her relationship with us and feeling safe being a dog (she actually had a lead sleeve that said “learning to be a dog” 🤣) was solid enough to start actually doing proper training and not just management, but got to a point where we weren’t sure what the next step was to actually help her not have reactions at all, which is when we found HH.
We joined in July and have noticed HUGE improvements since then, hours of reading and watching the webinars and podcasts and taking the bits of information we were missing has made such a difference. She loves her walks more than ever and actually has a play drive now! Her energy and mental energy could only handle either playing or a walk because of her triggers and now we include playing on every walk we do!! She recovers from reacting to her triggers almost instantly and continues on the walk as if nothing happened (if she has a reaction at all!) We’ve only been on two neutral walks but they have definitely helped her realise not every dog is going to make her feel extremely uncomfortable (she can handle play and walking together but gets extremely uncomfortable about ‘greeting’ we’re hoping in the future if we’re able to join some social walks we can help her with feeling more comfortable and confident) we’ve obviously still got a long way to go but it’s been so lovely actually noticing how happier she’s become. We’re extremely grateful for this community 💜
