What is cooperative care anyways?
Cooperative care is a style of handling and training for medical and husbandry procedures. The goal of cooperative care is to have a dog be a willing and happy participant in the procedure, rather than simply tolerating it.
AKA think stress-free nail trims, grooming sessions and vet trips!
Getting Started With Cooperative Care
- Cooperative Care: Seven-Steps to Stress-Free Husbandry [$] (Deb Jones) Book about training the most common cooperative care tasks
- Cooperative Care with Deb Jones (Youtube) Video collections about how and why to train cooperative care tasks
- Fear Free Pets Video Library – Grooming Videos for a variety of cooperative care tasks, including nail trims, teeth cleaning and chin rests
- Fenzi TEAM – Cooperative Care Titling Program (Fenzi Dog Sports Academy) [$] Paid titling program awards titles for cooperative care work
- The Husbandry Project (The Academy for Dog Trainers) Free e-book with ways to train common cooperative care tasks.
Specific Topics
Nail Trims
Traditional Nail Trims (with grinder or dremel)
- Nail Trims: Trimming Away the Terror (Fear Free Pets) Overview of how to train a dog to accept regular nail trims
- Next Level Nail Trims (Fear Free Pets) Free online course on nail trims, including reading your pet’s body language, tips and tricks for nail trims, bucket game introduction, and more!
The Bucket Game
- The Bucket Game (Chirag Patel) YouTube video explaining the bucket game. The bucket game is a way for your dog to “opt in” to nail trims
- The Bucket Game – Training Videos (Andi D) A series of YouTube videos of how to train the bucket game
- Patel and the Bucket Game (The Other End of the Leash) Simple explanation of the bucket game and an example of the bucket game with a dremel
Scratch Board/Pad
- DIY Scratch Board – Make One for Your Dog (Diamond Dog Training) YouTube showing how to make a homemade scratchpad and a brief training session
- Dog Nail Trims Using a Scratch Board (Fact Academy) YouTube video showing how to train your dog to use a scratch board with clicker training
- How to file your dog’s nails with a Scratch Pad (What a Great Dog!) How to train a dog to use a scratch pad on YouTube
- How to Teach Your Dog to Use a ScratchPad Scratch Board – Hind Feet (ScratchPad for Dogs) YouTube video showing how to train your dog to file his back paws
Muzzle Training
- The Muzzle Up! Project Resources about muzzle training
“No Choice” Moments at the Vet
- Five Husbandry Hacks When Something Has to be Done NOW (K9 in Focus) Article sharing tips for when cooperative care is not an option
The Modern Dog Library 