About Your Dogs Needs

Your Dogs Needs is part of Tricks 4 Treats (who run Pet Dog Life Skills Training, Behaviour Consultations and offer Fun Agility Training groups in Poole, Dorset) and is run by Jo (MAPDT 00953) and Paul Conibere (MAPDT 01039) who are both dog training instructors and members of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT).

During the early stages of our training courses we were being asked about suitable training aids, the best foods to use as rewards in training and various other related questions. After researching such products and putting them to the test, we started to offer such products for sale within training classes.

With the success of such a venture we felt it was time to expand our range and pass on such knowledge to a wider audience. As a result of this, Your Dogs Needs was born.

All products offered on Your Dogs Needs are recommended and sold to our training clients at Tricks 4 Treats. They have also been tried and tested by a vast array of dogs’, including our own German Shepherds, previosuly Bo and Roo and now Otis, and those that belong to our training colleagues, these being Bull Terriers, Spaniels and Labradors (a range of testers with a tough job..).

We pride ourselves, both at Your Dogs Needs and Tricks 4 Treats on the fact that we do not, through choice, offer anything aversive, coercive or punitive in any part of our lives with our dogs’. With our knowledge, understanding and experience, we are aware of the very many different and kind ways to help guide our dogs’ in the very best way that we can. Alongside our own thoughts and feelings, we work with the Association of Pet Dog Trainers ethos, this being ‘Kind, Fair and Effective’.

With heavy relevance being placed on enrichment for our dogs’ now, we understand just how important it is to ensure our dogs’ are encouraged and motivated to problem and puzzle solve. This aids their learning in fantastic ways, as well as being brilliant fun for them and us as observers and sometimes, as part of interactive enrichment. Our dogs’ deserve and require enrichment on a daily basis without it replacing their life needs. We have taken this in to account for years, but now with so many products available, we are working at building a greater product range to suit all dogs’.

Association of Pet Dog Trainers

The APDT (Association of Pet Dog Trainers) is a voluntary organisation established to improve the welfare of dogs and the competence of dog owners through the promotion of training skills and techniques based on up to date, researched, methods that apply the principles of kindness, fairness and effectiveness and are in keeping with modern learning theory.

All members of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT) have been assessed according to a strict code of practice and have agreed to abide by kind and fair principles of dog training which Your Dogs Needs strongly believe in. The code of practice includes such items as:

• Members are responsible for continuing their personal and professional development by undertaking further training and study and acquiring knowledge of new theory and practice.
• The training methods employed and advised by members shall be consistent with the principles of kindness and fairness to both clients and dogs.
• The training techniques employed and advised by members are assumed to be the application of scientifically-based research and knowledge and to result from practical experience of the use of non-compulsive methods.

The Pet Professional Guild British Isles

Jo is a member of The Pet Professional Guild British Isles, an excellent organisation that wholly encourages an approach to training and behaviour modification using scientifically proven methods and techniques. No pain, no force, no fear. The following provides an insight in to their guiding principles:

 The PPG and its members believe that pets can be trained without the need of using Shock, Prong or Choke and/or the application of Pain, Force or Fear. 

Animal Behaviour and Training Council

The Animal Behaviour and Training Council is a registered charity (1164009 (England and Wales) - SC047256 (Scotland)) and regulatory body that represents animal trainers and animal behaviour therapists to both the public and to legislative bodies. It is the only animal welfare charity that is primarily concerned with protecting the psychological welfare of animals undergoing training and behaviour activities.

As members of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers we were offered and accepted membership to the ABTC to further support what we feel offers a productive and kind approach to training and behaviour with and for our companion animals.