A great beginning to 2016 and the start of Friends 4 Paws business. Regular dog walks – accompanied by Sammy the spaniel, Lottie the poochon and Oscar, Molly & Monty the black labradors. We ramble all over the Blaise estate.
You name it we’ve been there with the dogs – down by the stream and up to the golf course, spending many an hour discovering “less well trodden paths” through the woods. We’ve seen squirrels aplenty, caught regular glimpses of the resident heron and even had the woodpecker cheering us on our way several times.
Dog First Aid
A particular highlight of this month was attending the Dog First Aid Course run by Jo Middleton from Dog First Aid Ltd. It was 3 hours training, extremely informative, absorbing and entertaining. Jo was ably assisted by the marvellous Cassie (her ever so obedient dummy dog) and I’ve just jotted a few of the areas we covered below:
- How to regularly examine your dog correctly and safely
- How to act if your dog starts choking
- What to do with eye injuries and different sorts of bleeding
- Heatstroke and how to identify dehydration
- Road traffic accidents
- How to separate fights
Not only is Jo an expert in her field, she made learning a lot of fun. We had handouts and made lots of notes too. Jo tested us at the end of the morning and awarded us our certificates accordingly.
Working with dogs means that I have a professional responsibility to learn when and how to administer first aid. A few months ago, I didn’t even know dog first aid training existed. I sincerely hope that I don’t need to administer first aid, but at least now having completed Jo’s course, I feel so much better informed and well prepared. Do check out the Dog First Aid Ltd website for plenty of “top tips” or why not think about signing up to one of their training sessions yourself?
