Welcome to Cooperative Training and Life Skills for Animals provided by Oakley Pet Services

Are you struggling with clipping your dog’s nails? Does your dog run away when he sees a collar or a leash? Do you wonder how to enrich your dog’s life? 

Do you feel anxious about the upcoming vet visit to inject your horse? Is your horse not standing still for grooming? Do you struggle to catch him or put a head collar on? Do you find it difficult to handle his feet? 

I’m here to help ! Voluntary cooperation in husbandry and vet procedures is my favourite thing to teach to animals and their humans.

Cooperative care training is very popular within zoos and the dog world – it’s utilised with the application of a science based approach (mainly Positive Reinforcement). This form of training reduces the stress  while maximizing the positive experience and safety for animals and handlers. 

About me

I am an animal lover who has committed time to explore behavioural science, ethology, cognition, affective neuroscience (emotions) and calming signals in dogs and horses. I use an evidence based approach to work with animals and positive reinforcement is my main tool of interaction and training. I strive to follow the LIMA principles (Least Intrusive, Minimally Aversive) in my interaction and training with animals. 

“LIMA requires that trainers and behaviour consultants use the ‘least intrusive, minimally aversive technique likely to succeed in achieving a training [or behaviour change] objective with minimal risk of producing adverse side effects” (https://m.iaabc.org/about/lima/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CLIMA%E2%80%9D%20is%20an%20acronym%20for,training%20or%20behavior%20change%20objective.)

Having had graduated with Educational Psychology (Southampton Solent University, 2015) I have the academic background that helps me to understand how not just humans but also animals learn. I’m passionate about modern behavioural science that incorporates cognition, emotion, ethology, biology and attachment theory which allows me to consider an animal in front of me in a holistic way.

I am committed to improving my skills and keeping up to date with the research and evidence from around the world through dedicated professional development opportunities. I am continuously self-studying and also undertake courses that help me to strengthen my knowledge and skills further.

I am passionate about sharing my knowledge and skills with the others and run a Facebook Page and a Group that are dedicated to science based training and interactions with horses as well as providing everyday enrichment ideas to help make horses lives better.

Page : https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063798690549

Group : https://www.facebook.com/groups/2609672455794356/?ref=share

I often share my multi species training in context on my business page which can be found here : https://www.facebook.com/Oakley-Pet-Services-462850577853424/

Experience 

I’m continuously gaining everyday experience through my work with my own animals and those of my friends, family and client’s animals.

One of my proudest personal achievement, has been teaching our extended family’s late Doberman, Otto, that nail clipping doesn’t have to be stressful and can be in fact an rewarding experience (in the past he had to pinned to the wall to be able to perform this procedure) – I started training him at the age of 12!  you can find my work with Otto here : https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=463543857784096&id=462850577853424

Another notable success was embarking on training my previously untouchable, rescue pony Charisma, to voluntarily put his head collar on : https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=175128701290419&id=100063798690549

I am fascinated about the possibilities that are afforded to us by the application of an evidence based approach to training and interacting with animals, especially the impact and long lasting positive results of voluntary cooperation in often stressful procedures such as vet visits and everyday care.

Dogs

Through my interactions with dog owners, I realised how much of what we focus on in traditional training is for targeted behaviours such as sit, lay down, heel etc. which are of course important but how little attention is paid to preparing the dogs for everyday care and general life skills.

Vet visits, nail clipping, bathing, grooming (etc) doesn’t have to be a stressful time for you, your dog and the professionals that are involved. Through careful preparation with the mixture of systematic desensitisation, counter conditioning and positive reinforcement we can help the dogs to not just tolerate but also voluntary participate in these events.

It’s a huge bonus to have the opportunity as an owner to provide life skills to help your dog to navigate comfortably in the human’s world.  It’s not all about obedience – it’s about our animals ability to make good choices in potentially stressful situations such as having the visitors around, being comfortable around traffic, going for car rides etc 

Horses

I take training for husbandry procedures and vet care extremely seriously – this is often when horses are subjected to a huge amount of stress because they do not understand what’s happening, are insufficiently prepared from previous training and are fearful of the unpredictable approach  resulting in emotionally reactive/stressed responses by the aversive side of the procedures. 

It is our responsibility as the horse carers , to ensure that any possible encounter with the vet or indeed when we ourselves are attending to the injuries or medical application (such as an eye ointment ) is made as safe as possible both for the handler and the horse and is as stress/fear free as we can make it.   It is of course often impossible to remove all the stress from the procedure, at the end of the day needle injections are not pleasant, but we can minimise the negative side of procedures through considerate training our horses to co-operate in everyday husbandry tasks and by preparing them for treatments ahead of time.

How do I work?

I support the owners to acquire the knowledge and practical skills that can be applied to teaching animals (such as dogs and horses ) everyday husbandry behaviours, life skills, cooperative care and preparation for vet procedures. I consult with the owners to discuss the goals for their animals and then create bespoke training plans that the owners can follow. I provide further support through video calls, messages and face to face when required / possible.