School Educational Visits

Pawsitive Impact: Empowering Students with Canine Safety and Life-Changing Lessons

Ross and his associates are passionate about dogs. When reading in the press about appalling attacks on children, we feel extreme anger. Of course, only the horrific incidents make the news, but children are bitten by dogs frequently and it our job to prevent this and promote safe interaction with dogs.

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Some may ask, what could possibly be gained by taking dogs into a school to a group of uninterested, badly behaved children? Many believe that they are too young to understand, too old to care or too cool to show any interest. Generally, that is not the case and each and every child is all ears.

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Ross remembers back to his first school safety visit, “As I walked into the assembly hall, I heard the teacher say…”What day is it?”  the roar in reply was “it’s DOG DAY!” It was at that moment, I knew we were there to make a difference, there to an audience of all ears and that they were keen and willing.”

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Upon our arrival – usually in convoy with a large group of dogs, the younger children are absolutely buzzing with excitement especially when they see the first sight of the dogs – luckily, as dog trainers, we seem to have an ability to control children too…the methods of training are not too dissimilar! We have what they want and if they don’t follow the rules and listen to what we say, they don’t get to engage. Safety is paramount.

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We make it clear from the outset, we are in charge of the day and to get the interaction they desperately want to have with the dogs – they have to do what they are asked to do in order to achieve what they want – time with the dogs.

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Commonly, the day starts with a talk and a question and answer session about dogs in general, who has dogs, who does not like dogs and we impart useful information for later when it is time to engage with the dogs.

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The children are split into small groups and we move around the playground in order they can learn all about the individual dogs that we have; how to safely approach a dog, how to get a dog to ignore you, what to do if in the park a dog runs over to you, how to engage with the family dog and all manner of safety advice.

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Thank you from

Wythall German Shepherd Dog Training Club

The trainers at Wythall German Shepherd Dog Training Club wanted some guidance with how we could work with dogs in a class environment that we were unable to accommodate due to their behaviour. Especially so we didn’t disrupt the calmer dogs.

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Ross McCarty was asked to do some training with our trainers and a few of the dogs in the club that were struggling to stay calm in a class and were also aggressive when on lead out and about. Some of the dogs were only aggressive to other dogs, but a couple of the dogs did not cope well with people either.

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Ross was more than accommodating in swapping the session around, putting the trainer’s session at the end, so owners could get away with their dogs (due to the heat) while the training was aimed at class structure.

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The whole session was great. We had 8 problem / aggressive dogs enter the room and 8 relaxed dogs at the end of it, some were so comfortable they were drifting off to sleep.

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It was a great mix of general theories and methods and also targeted one to one solutions to specific problems, all well managed between Ross and his colleague Vicky.

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There was a relaxed atmosphere and everyone’s questions were welcomed and well answered.

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Overall a brilliant session and some great ideas to take forward into our classes to help all the dogs, whether the ones that can react or the ones that don’t want to be reacted to.

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The feedback from all who attended has been excellent!

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Thank you

Thank You From

Four Paws Dog Training Club

Four Paws Dog Training Club would like to thank Ross for his teaching session which was very helpful to our trainers and Committee members. We asked Ross to talk to us about handling dogs who were disruptive. We were particularly interested in helping handlers with dogs who bark a lot in class.

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Ross shared many ideas on managing the class differently, and on helping individual owners improve their dogs’ behaviour, and we have used this successfully. We found his interactive and informal manner very enjoyable and this helped us to relax and ask plenty of questions.  Ross was also able to assist in a particular case:  making an assessment of one of the dogs who attended our classes and giving specific behavioural advice.

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The dog’s owner implemented Ross’s advice, which we reinforced in the class, and she now has a very well behaved dog.

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