It's Training Tips Tuesday and time for some top tips from Alsager Nub News sponsor, 'All to Play for'.

Owning a dog isn't always easy but top dog trainer, Alsager's Julia Hawkins, from Linley Grove is a font of knowledge on the subject.

Julia, a former maths teacher, uses concept training which helps dog owners to see how they can reshape their dogs' brains using games.

And there Julia, who offers tips on her blog https://alltoplayfor.co.uk/blog/ as well as other help and contact details on her website at https://alltoplayfor.co.uk/ shares some special tips for your pooch.

Today we're talking about calmness. Calmness is such a great gift which we can give to our dogs, says Julia.

"By helping them to reduce their stress levels, not only do we boost their health, we also make it easier for them to focus on us, to recover from stressful situations, and to avoid unwanted behaviours.

"If we imagine that our dogs have a bucket with a hole in the bottom. Everything which happens to them, whether good or bad, will pay into this bucket.

"For example, a really good run around and play with another dog will pay a couple of pints into the bucket, as might a thunderstorm.

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"Whereas a delicious treat or their owner leaving the house for a few minutes may pay an egg cup worth. When the bucket overflows, that's when we get unwanted behaviours - barking, lunging, chewing the furniture etc."

How much goes into the bucket for each event really depends on the dog, says Julia. "It's a great idea to work out what are the big bucket fillers for your dog - can you control what is going into that bucket?

"Growing calmness in our dogs helps them to chill out - it makes the hole in the bottom of the bucket bigger. But often our dogs aren't very good at being calm!

To help our dogs to become calmer, we can look at three things:

1. Are they getting enough sleep? Adult dogs need 14-16 hours per day, puppies and senior dogs (7+) need even more, maybe as much as 20 hours!

2. Are we rewarding calmness? When training our dogs we reward them for doing things, but often what we really need is for them to do a bit less. So reward them for being calm!

3. Passive calming activities are things which are naturally calming for our dogs and include licking, sniffing and chewing. So how about giving your dog a natural chew (no rawhide!) or letting them sniff on a walk.

Finally it's important not to confuse tiredness with calmness, says Julia."The saying always used to be that a tired dog is a well behaved dog.

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"Actually, a tired dog is just a tired dog! If we don't work on the underlying calmness we really aren't making any long term changes to behaviour."

Julia with her two Romanian rescue dogs. (Photo: Nub News)

Interested in finding more about 'All to Play For'? Julia also has a Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/alltoplayfordogtraining and can be contacted on 07913 757304.

You can also read our launch article on Julia here