Easily Triggered Pup to Relaxed Dog

Max is a stunning Golden Retriever x Labrador pup who joined Wellington Country Park Doggy Day Care when he was 3 months old.

When Max joined Bruce’s puppy pre-school at 12 weeks old, it was evident straight away that he became incredibly triggered by un-neutered males. We would constantly find him pacing fence lines when there was an un-neutered male in the field next to him. This caused him a lot of anxiety and meant he was unable to relax when out on walks.

The first thing to help combat this was Max’s owners getting him neutered which helped settle his hormones down. There was still a lot of work to do with Max though around his gate reactivity.

When at daycare we found that he got over excited very quickly so when we saw this escalating we gave Max ‘chill out’ sessions with a lickimat or a kong which helped him massively.

Max is now doing really well and can go into the field with un-neutered males with no issues at all.

In fact for the whole of 2024, we haven’t had any issues with Max’s behaviour. Max loves coming to day care.

He drags his owners up the path to reception in the morning. He is bubbly and full of fun. Max loves to be involved in everything we do at daycare. There’s not many dogs that Max doesn’t get along with now.

To watch him go from nearly getting expelled from daycare to the dog he is today has been a pleasure, stressful but a pleasure.

Max is definitely a foodie!

At Bruce’s we provide a variety of enrichment games that our dogs love. Max’s favourite is definitely Cheese & Best Friend week. In fact any food based enrichment activities Max loves!!