Rubber floors

When we redid our existing playroom and added two more play and lounge areas, we wanted to get away from the harder floor surfaces like tile and laminate.
Just like people, dogs experience arthritis and joint problems and cruciate ligament tears are a common injury that often requires surgery and modified activity. Running and sliding on ice and slippery floors is just not good for those dogs and we are often asked by their owners to modify or restrict play, or even to limit play group time to be outdoors only.
With a steady stream of regular guests getting a bit older, new guests with injuries or conditions and my own big Wolfhound mix, Cedar, having had 2 knee surgeries, it was very important to us to install a floor with cushioning, warmth and traction.
We did some research and decided to go with an interlocking floating rubber floor from Compass Flooring. On second and third thought, we decided to put the flooring in 2 of our 3 playrooms. Let's face it, some dogs are just too rough and tumble and like to mark their territory, neutered or not. For those dogs, there is the rumble room, which has the same features as the other lounge areas, but without the rubber flooring.

Rubber floors make our playroom easy on the joints

Just recently, we had a whole group of senior dogs in at the same time and we noticed that they were having a hard time with the tile in our kennel areas, especially with the new snow and  warmer temperatures making the hallways wet. Spenser in particular has some neurological issues and has a hard time with the mobility in his back end. He lives with a pretty younger dog named Kinsey and because Spenser is a very large dog, we tried giving them our largest kennel, which is 8 feet wide. We laid down the thick patio lounge chair cushions their owner provided along the back wall and ran a long wide rubber mat in front of the cushion.
Despite our best efforts, Spenser slipped on the mat and couldn't get up one morning. It took from Tuesday to Saturday to get him back on his feet and we had to help him most of the time with either his harness or a towel to hold him up.
After he slipped, we moved Kinsey and Spenser along with their fellow seniors, Gus, Aspen and Bull, into our lounge with it's rubber floors and separate yard during the day and into our playroom with it's rubber floors at night. By Saturday afternoon, Spenser was consistently standing on his own and we were all so excited to have him greet us at the door rather than have to go and get him.
The rubber floor gave all the seniors the stability they needed to maintain their energy and their consistent mobility seemed to give them a mood lift. Seeing them all thrive during their visits certainly made us very happy!

Pack Walk and Demonstration of the Silent Communication of Animals March 4

Silent Communication of Animals

 Beyond Obedience is proud to offer a special demonstration for this Sunday's pack walk. "The Silent Communication of Animals" will demonstrate the power of body language and energy as a method of communication. In this demonstration I will be using horses.  For centuries humans "broke" horses for the purpose of working and transportation.  As time passed and the need for horses changed to sport, recreation and companionship, the methods of breaking evolved to include understanding of how horses communicate with each other. The result is a deeper and more meaningful relationship with the horse. 

 

We communicate with our dogs every day. Even when we don't say a word, we are constantly communicating our thoughts and feelings to our dogs. This communication is very powerful. And quite often when we do speak, our spoken word contradicts that which we communicated through body language and movement. This causes confusion for our dogs. The purpose of the demonstration is to make you more aware of what you are saying to your dog, especially when you are not speaking.

 

The Pack Walk is a ritual of migration for the dog.  When we walk our dogs in this structured walk together with other dogs, it helps to reinforce leadership without the aid of obedience commands or "training"  In essence we used our quiet  body language and energy to accomplish leadership and enhance our relationship with our dogs. Afterwards we work on some situational scenarios (ie meet and greet and distractions) and discuss how our body language is affecting our dogs reactions to the scenarios.  Pack walks are usually ended with superivised play time, where owners are encouraged to monitor their dogs "body language " to ensure safe, fun play.

 

 The Pack Walk is a fun and educational afternoon with your dog. If you are interested in joining the pack please feel free to contact Tracy at beyondobedience@tailsandtrails.ca 

Pack walks take place Sunday afternoons from 1:30 until 4 pm at Tracy's at 515 Scheel Drive, Arnprior, ON. You can also call us at 613-832-0008 or talk directly to Tracy at 613-316-1889

New spaces to explore!

For the past several years we have had 2 yards at Tails & Trails as well as a fenced gravel area that surrounds the building. During the summer we switch between the yards to give the grass a break every week or so; lots of big feet tearing up the grass and digging holes makes it hard to keep the yards grassy. Well, even busy little feet can be hard on the grass.
But the benefit to switching yards is that the dogs feel like they have a whole new world to explore and you can see their excitement when they run to their regular yard and find out the other gate is magically open!
Imagine our delight the first time we opened up the brand new fenced yards that went in just before the snow flew this year. Since the fence is buried, there was a bit of mud (understatement) but once that froze and we finally got some lovely snow, we opened up the new gate and woohoo...what fun!
The dogs who were the first to go through the new gate had another treat in store for them. Another new door to our Lazy Trail Lounge. I remember our Greyhound guest, Shae, running through the new yard first thing in the morning, kicking up her long legs, her thick bright pink coat flashing in the early morning sunshine. And Dolan, who is a frequent daycare guest, tumbling and jumping over little Monty.
We thrive on routine here at Tails & Trails, but within that routine, we love to switch things up and adding new spaces to sniff and run and play is going to stimulate both our long-time guests and new friends.