Head to Tail is your go-to for dog walkies, training and more – owner Nicole fetched some details for Cityscape.

What motivated you to start your pet care business? I always knew I wanted to work with animals. Straight out of school I went into vet nursing training and the following year started work in a vet clinic. I loved my time as a clinic vet nurse but very quickly realised that I wanted more from my career and that working in a corporate environment was not for me. I love being outdoors and I really enjoy helping and working with people so I went to university to study more animal-specific papers, threw it all together, and Head to Tail was born.

So you walk dogs and also do group training and private training sessions – are there any other services you offer? We also offer mobile vet nursing. This is anything we can help owners with, within their homes to help eliminate the stress of going to the vet clinic or for people who are unable to drive. We quite often do nail clips for both cats and dogs, as well as cat grooming, clipping out knots and helping with administering medications.

Tell us about how your dog walks work – is it for a set time? Do you walk dogs together or individually? On-lead or off? We do two types of dog walks: one-on-ones and group walks. Our one-on-ones are designed for dogs who aren’t social, who are ‘senior citizens’ or maybe just get overwhelmed or overstimulated in social settings. These are for dedicated times, chosen by the owner – usually between 30-60 minutes. Where we go and whether they are on-lead or off-lead is decided by the dog’s personality and the owner's preference.

Our group walks involve groups of three-to-six dogs. We group them by personality and location. Once we have picked them up, we tend to go places where we can have them off-lead to run around freely with each other. We normally walk them for about an hour, although this can differ depending on the days and the dogs tend to all decide when they’re ready to go home by walking us back to the van and waiting eagerly to get in.

Do you walk dogs in a particular area, or do you work all over Christchurch? For group walks, we have a particular few areas that we go to, depending on where the dogs are that we are picking up. We like big, open spaces where the dogs can really stretch their legs. For one-on-ones, we love going to nearby parks if we can. Pounding the pavement can be boring when you are doing it for 5-8 hours a day so we love having some change in scenery ourselves.

The games-based training classes sound like fun. What can you tell us about those? This is a course designed to teach crucial foundation behaviours but in a slightly different context. Sometimes dog training can be tedious, we know this, so this course is designed to bring an extra element of fun to dog training by making each training session a game for both us and our dogs. It’s a really fun course, designed for dogs of any age.

What might a typical walk with one of your regulars entail? We turn up to their place and are greeted by a very excited noise. Normally opening up the gate or door to them involves a lot of squealing excited noises, a bit of jumping up (we try to encourage manners as much as possible) before they guide us to where they get their gear on, ready for the walk. We either walk from their place, or we can jump in the car to head to a nearby destination. Either way, the dogs know the drill.

It can be such a struggle to get dogs to walk well on a lead – how do you approach lead training? Patience. Lots of patience. The thing with any training is that you just have to make sure you correct them when they may be doing something ‘wrong’ but the most important part is that you give them the opportunity to do the ‘right’ thing so you can reward them for that. Because some of us are walking dogs for 5-8 hours a day, it’s important that we put in that little bit of extra effort in the beginning, to establish good habits so we don’t suffer from sore arms and shoulders going forward.

How would you describe your training philosophy? We are very much in the mind of positive reinforcement only. If you go over the top with rewarding and praising the good, then it will be repeated. If you ignore the bad, then they get nothing out of doing it and hopefully it will phase out. If you focus on the positive, it’s also great motivation to keep it up!

How do you ensure your canine clients stay safe while they’re with you? My team are all ex-vet nurses and very knowledgeable and capable dog handlers. We also know all of our doggy clients really well so we know what we may need to avoid, what extra equipment we may need to use (longlines, etc.) to ensure they have the best time while out with us. Our vans for the group walks are also equipped with segregated cages so they can enjoy their own space while travelling between locations.

What’s your number one tip for new dog owners? Make sure to think forward; what do you want in the long run? Do you want the dog sleeping in your bed when they’re not a cute little fluffy puppy but instead a 35kg adult? If not, then set them up for success by starting out how you wish to carry on. Young dogs and puppies get away with a lot when they are little and cute and fluffy but some of those things aren’t so cute when they get bigger so instead of having to untrain certain things, just set them up with the right expectations from the get-go.

What’s your favourite part about the job? Just seeing all the dogs’ happy faces brings me so much joy. They without a doubt never fail to put a smile on my face every single day.

headtotail.co.nz