A dog's life in physical and mental balance part 1

In this series, osteopath Martine Burgers and ethologist/trainer Sam Turner take you through their vision of guiding a dog throughout its life.

The different phases of the dog's life are described in three parts:

Book 1: Every puppy gets a good start

Book 2: Your teenager on the right track

Book 3: Your senior continues on his way

What distinguishes this series from other books about (young) dogs is that it is viewed and written with both a training-technical and a therapeutic view.

Because the osteopath and trainer join forces, your puppy has the greatest possible chance to grow into a healthy, well-balanced dog that goes through the world with a lot of self-confidence. If you take your dog's physical and mental development and resilience into account when training and when you offer training challenges, you can achieve maximum results.

In book 1 'Every puppy gets a good start', Martine and Sam discuss the development phases of the puppy. From pregnancy to the age of 6 months you will be included in their mental and physical development. How does the puppy grow? How does the puppy learn? How do you signal that your puppy needs more or different guidance? And how can you optimize your guidance so that your puppy can be its best self and function as best as possible in our society?

Martine Burgers

After her physiotherapy training at the Enschede University of Applied Sciences, Martine continued her studies with training as an animal osteopath at the Belgian ICREO. Since 2005, she has been working full-time in her practice for equine and dog osteopathy in Spankeren, Gelderland. The dogs that Martine is offered for treatment come to the practice for very different reasons: from lameness and digestive problems to behavioral changes and sports guidance.

For more information about osteopathy and for a list of complaints for which osteopathy can be useful, please visit the website: www.martineburgers.nl

Sam Turner

Sam studied Ethology (behavioral theory) at Wageningen University. She then specialized in dog behavior and training. She has had her own dog school Paws4Fun (www.paws4fun.nl) since 2005, but had already worked as an instructor in the years before. Sam is the founder of Balance and Coordination Training for dogs in the Netherlands and also trains instructors for this.

In addition to her own dog school, Sam is also co-founder of the Clicker Training Academy (www.clickertrainingacademy.nl) and has served as a mentor at a training institute in England.