CANINE NEUROPARK® CHARITY TRUST

Canine NeuroPark® ©2020

Canine NeuroPark® is a Charitable Trust founded to create this unique Canine Rehabilitation Field to support dogs and their owners and share net profits with other canine rehoming charities.

Canine Neuropark Headquarters, located in Christchurch, New Zealand, are THE ONLY & THE SAFEST Rehab facilities for the rehabilitation of dogs which recover from surgery, show insecure, defensive and / or offensive behaviours.

Through the natural need to SLOWLY explore (Levy Walk), your dogs will exploit and efficiently satisfy its metabolic energy needs while moving within the field (environment), build new experiences along set knowledge and thus reduce uncertainty. All in the safety of our enclosed field, leading to behaviour adaptation over time if used correctly.

Canine Neuroparks are NOT dog parks or training fields and should not be used as such.

Canine Neuropark Trusts' main focus is to help dogs and owners through education about canine behaviour in partnership with our Franchisees in Dunedin & Austria

Allowing Dogs to be Dogs

Ultimately, Canine Neuropark® allows dogs to explore and express themselves independently through agency.

The feeling of uncertainty is the hidden cause of many of the behaviour sets we often categorize as "Issues". The root of uncertainty may arise from physical (discomfort, pain) or / and mental states (negative memories, trauma) and / or because the brains regulatory predictions can't synchronize with the sensory input well, curating a state of experiential blindness. All of these conscious states mean that a brain cannot establish the causes from the outcomes (sensory inputs) it experiences, and those sensations create a feeling of uncertainty.

Neuropark helps your dog to learn how to construct new perceptions through active exploration (self evidencing through movement) and past experience (memory), in relation to the sensory input; freely moving to gain information about the body's future needs to provide for those needs before they arise and to act efficiently in the environment at all times. These actions adapt existing experiences (memory) in the dogs' brain's inbuilt neuronal "library" with information about their body and the world they move in, which can be observed in form of changing behaviour(s).

This approach leads to a calmer and more content and resilient dog.

Your time at Neuropark will be the foundation of a healthier and closer relationship with your furry family member.

But change needs work and time!

"Exploration build's confidence"

Our booking system ensures your dog has uninterrupted time to explore throughout the field. Offering uninhibited off-leash exploration allows the dynamic abilities of your dogs' brain to exploit environmental and physical information to create new experiences, thus building new sets of action plans to interact with the world, reducing the exhibition of rigid / "go-to" behaviour(s), leading to a more confident & calmer dog over time.

Uncertainty feeds anxiety and negative feelings in all of us. Neuropark's enclosed space ensures a sense of certainty and safety for your dog - and you!

Rehabilitation and strength

The Physio stations and Adaptation Maze throughout Neuroparks are designed in conjunction with Animal Physio NZ & SpeakingDog K9 Services to build muscle strength, proprioceptive, navigational, interoceptive & exteroceptive adaptation to enhance predictive efficiency, confidence and an overall wellbeing & resilience. In the simplest term, the whole brain and it's body are at play interacting efficiently with the immediate niche.

Members have access to video tutorials explaining the benefits of the different stations and introducing them to your dog.

Pain and illness are the leading causes of many so-called "bad behaviours". We recommend all members get their dogs checked by a vet and a registered animal physiotherapist or qualified animal osteopath. Neuropark proudly works with the best Animal Physiotherapists from Animal Physio NZ and their Registered Associates.

When you are at the park

Members can hire the field by the hour (NZ$12) or by the half-hour (NZ$8). Membership (NZ$30 per year) is available to any responsible dog owner. Neuropark is securely locked and members will receive the code to enter with their booking.

Always bring treats, yes! Owners can and should encourage their dogs to discover new things and then let them explore what they can find! Dog owners, Stand back and observe your dogs capabilities!

Please don't be offended when we tell you to throw all aversive tools and methods out the window. These methods create uncertainty in the dogs physical and mental states, increasing anxiety and defensive behaviours. Neuropark aims to reduce anxiety, chronic stress and physical discomfort, allowing your dogs' brain to be able to integrate sensory information and learn better rather than follow a rigid believe state that everything moving may be a threat, resulting in offensive & defensive behaviour outputs.

If you have concerns about your dog's behaviour, please start with a physical assessment at your vets and with a Registered Animal Physiotherapist / Osteopath to see if a pain-related issue is contributing to it, before you just apply behaviour modification.

The "Geeky Nitty Gritty"

The stations provide specific exercises to support a brains dynamic abilities, to anticipate the most efficient metabolic state needed by providing for those needs before they arise, and construct well predicted explanations of the cause of sensory inputs from the body and the immediate environment, by updating discrepancies between the incoming sensory information from the world and the body with the brains intrinsic predictions to minimize uncertainty.

This process we all known as:

LEARNING

Uncertainty feeds anxiety and negative affective feelings leading to organisms to express very hardwired (rigid) behaviour patterns to keep the body safe. The longer a being stays in these uncertain states the quicker instinctive behaviour patterns occur. They can become so automatic that even unrelated things moving in the world around them are predicted to be threatening, leading to defensive or offensive movements.

This is why it is vital to understand that the health of the body and efficient, predictive regulation is the most important job for the brain, not thinking.

A fancy way of saying:

Action / Anticipating / Motor - movements / Feeling / Comparing/ Matching (Learning) / Perceiving

THE ACTION - PERCEPTION LOOP

The Brain and Behaviour

Our "Behaviour Adaptation" approaches are heavily influenced by contemporary systems neuroscience.

What a brain does in relation with it's body matters!

A brains constant chemical - electrical excitement and inhibition always constructs models (belief states) of its body and the world that body moves in to reduce uncertainty. Our approaches take those predictive actions of a self-organizing, dynamic system such as a brain into account.

We do offer "Supportive Sessions" at Neuropark through SpeakingDog (NZ$60 per session) for our Neuropark members. This includes the field hire.