Does your dog pull on lead? If they do, I want you to go through the following statements and tick YES or NO to it. Do you ever walk forwards when the lead is taut? Do you go out for a walk or to train loose lead? Does your dog spend most of their daily exercise time on a short lead? Does your dog get from A to B on a taut lead? Does your dog access smells, other people and dogs whilst pulling? Do other people who walk your dog let them pull? Is your dog stressed or overwhelmed by things on a walk? Is your dog a high-energy breed? Is your dog physically stronger than you? Now... if you answ ..read more

One year on from the sudden and unexpected landing of the insane drug lord, Pablo Escobar the Black Shepherd of Stress and Doom, I thought I’d share a little update on him, on his successes and his remaining challenges. It’ll give you an idea of time frame as to how long things can take to change and help you manage your expectations of your own dogs. I find I have lower expectations for my dogs than some of my clients, and I do far far more to micro-manage, set my dogs up for success and train them reliably. So whatever your expectations are for your dogs, lower them. Or do a whole lot more ..read more

The German Shepherd Loyal, intelligent, misunderstood. LOUD. Bred to herd (control movement) and alert guard (bark). The majority of lungey reactive barkey (technical terms, obviously) cases I see are German Shepherds. They are still the most awesome breed. But why are a lot like this? In my humble and mildly educated opinion, the top factors that contribute to reactive and anxious behaviour ( barking, lunging, air snapping, biting) in young German Shepherds from puppyhood. are: Immediate suppression or attempted suppression of any and all barking A societal misunderstanding that the breed i ..read more

Put a dog in its element, practice and it’ll excel. Put a dog in a stressful environment without practice and people start to think their dog is naughty and unruly. Managing expectations and working on training foundations is so important. The fixing of behaviour -the emotionally-charged body language and unwanted issues - comes after. Without one, you can't help the other, because they both involve the brain and they both rely on your communication. This is especially true as most dogs were originally bred to do a job and are usually pouring their unused excess energy into all manner of beha ..read more

I really hate the divide in the dog training world, between old fashioned vs balanced vs positive. It takes so much enjoyment out of the job. I feel there is good and bad in every sector and in any industry. That’s not to say I agree with suppression training with prongs and chokes, but the trainers that use them would deny they were using suppression anyway, or that suppression is a necessary evil for removing bad behaviour and integrating a dog into society quickly. I also don’t agree with radical force-free trainers who daren’t even apply 5% pressure on the lead incase it causes their dog ..read more

Some of you may be wondering about scent work and why it's so important for our dogs, so this blog post is for you! As a UK Sniffer Dogs Instructor, I am running scent classes and workshops to help inject some positivity and confidence into your dog's life. Scent detection training has been around for years, helping to search for drugs, bombs, human remains and missing people. More recently, they are even being trained to sniff out cancer and alert us to medical issues such as epilepsy and diabetes - how amazing is that?! You might not need all of this, but you can still learn the skills to tr ..read more

I choose to train with rewards because I love dogs. I choose to build relationships because I want the dogs and clients I teach to want this too. I don't like causing fear and pain in dogs, regardless of the quick result. Yes, I will pull my dog back from chasing a cat. Yes, I will yell loudly if they have something dangerous in their mouth. Yes, I will say NO to stop them chewing my foot. BUT... this isn't training. This is just me being human and stopping something the moment I see it. I will then take this and train it. I will set up the environment for my dog to succeed so I can reward th ..read more

First of all, I wanted to thank all of you who have supported me in my rather rash and unexpected decision to bring Pablo home to save him going into rescue kennels at 6 months of age. It was definitely a challenge! Second of all, I thought I'd give you a quick update you all on the progress made. When Pablo arrived at mine, he was a goofy, affectionate and very loveable dog. Personality-wise he was amazing, so friendly and non-reactive, everything you could want from a rescue dog. He also displayed distress at being left alone for even a second and showed resource guarding aggression when ar ..read more

Walking isn't just about 'walking'. There are so many other things you can do on a dog walk to enrich the activity, improve obedience and build a relationship with your dog. Let's chuck away the monotony of everyday routine and get that serotonin boost happening. Here are my top five tips for making your dog walks fun... 1. Set boundaries and expectations. Divide your walks between short lead walks and off lead/long line walks. Separate these by asking your dog to Sit, taking their lead off/swapping to the long line, waiting for eye contact and then saying "Go!" This way, your dog will know wh ..read more

6 days ago, this bundle of pure joy and teeth came crashing into my life rather sooner than I had anticipated. I was scouting around for a third dog, torn between a puppy and a rescue but in no rush to actually get one for a month or so. I went to see 6 month old German Shepherd Pablo under the illusion his owner was reluctant to give him up but that he wasn't right for her home and she would need to rehome him eventually. Me, a fellow dog behaviourist Helen and his dog walker Charlie (who had been walking Pablo for a week and first notified me of his situation) took him out to check his temp ..read more