Woof and Wood Dog Training

Woof and Wood Dog Training 🙋‍♂️Calum McConnell | 🐕Dog training instructor | 🚣‍♂️Cambridgeshire | ❤️‍🔥1000s connections built

03/09/2026

Is your older dog suddenly grumpier, more reactive, or just not themselves? It’s easy to write it off as “they’re just getting old and cranky.” But a change in behaviour, especially in senior dogs, isn’t always age. It can be pain, discomfort, or an underlying health issue that’s changing how they cope with the world. Dogs can’t tell us when something hurts, so behaviour is often the first sign something’s wrong. If your dog’s behaviour has changed and you can’t point to an obvious reason why, a vet check should be your first step, not a last resort. Rule out the physical before you start working on the behavioural.

Tonight's the night! 🐾Our next Puppy Life Skills course kicks off this evening, and there's still time to grab a spot be...
02/09/2026

Tonight's the night! 🐾

Our next Puppy Life Skills course kicks off this evening, and there's still time to grab a spot before we get started.

Here's what makes these classes different: we keep groups small (max 4 dogs), so your puppy actually gets the support they need instead of getting lost in a crowd. Over 8 weeks we cover real, everyday stuff, not just sit and stay: trips to the park, vet visits, handling and grooming, meeting friends for coffee, even a trip to the pub. It's all about building calm, confident life skills for the situations you'll actually face together.

Open to puppies up to 6 months old at their first class. The course is split into two 4-week phases at ÂŁ89 each, payable in instalments to make it easier on you.

Go to the link below to read more and secure your place: https://www.woofandwood.co.uk/puppyclasses

27/08/2026

Three tricks I teach nearly every dog, useful and yes, they look good too. Hand target is the foundation for half of what we do, looks like nothing until you build duration into it. Through legs makes a brilliant safe place for a dog in busy environments, and doubles up as a positional setup for things like agility and send-aways. Chin target makes handling and grooming easier, and yes, it’s also great for photos, so start practicing your chin target to your shoulder for your Xmas card selfies, thank me later! Save this one for your next training session.

25/08/2026

You don’t need a sh***un, a pheasant or a mallard to start gundog training. Just a dummy (or a toy your dog goes mad for) and a bit of space. This is the marked retrieve: the foundation of a lot of gundog training, and it’s brilliant for building focus, steadiness and drive in any working breed. You don’t need a gundog either, any dog can learn this and it’s a great way to add some variety into your everyday walks. Mark the fall, hold the steadiness, send for a clean retrieve. No birds, no gun, no gundog test needed, just you, your dog and a bit of kit on your next walk. Spaniel, Retriever, Pointer, even terrier - doesn’t matter. Try it and let me know how you get on.

22/08/2026

Doorbell goes off and your dog loses it? Here’s a fix that doesn’t involve shouting over the barking. Teach your dog a target: a mat, a bed, a spot they go to and get reinforced for being on. Instead of a flashpoint at the front door, the doorbell becomes the cue to go settle and get paid for it. This is Sméagol, my Miniature Bull Terrier, learning exactly that. It takes repetition and good timing, but once it’s built in, you’ve got a dog who does something useful with all that energy instead of exploding at the door. Works for any dog, reactive or not, who turns into a different animal the second that bell rings.

20/08/2026

This is Claude, my (wife’s) own adolescent Boxer, and this is what real exposure work looks like. Not the polished after-clip, the actual middle bit: managing distance, watching threshold, letting him work it out with another dog in view. This is the stuff nobody posts because it’s not flashy, but it’s where the real progress happens. Dare I say it, this is just a really boring video 😂

DogBehaviour

18/08/2026

Four years ago I stepped away from full-time dog training to learn a trade and become a carpenter. It taught me a huge amount and I loved a lot of that work, but running two full-time jobs meant working all hours, not enough time for my family or my own dogs, and being exhausted when I was around. As of today, that’s changed. Woof and Wood is going back to full-time dog training, and I couldn’t be more ready. Thank you to everyone who’s stuck with me through the last four years, the next chapter starts now.

14/08/2026

Recall isn’t a broken record. If she’s not coming, calling her again isn’t training, it’s practising being ignored. 🐾

Adolescence hits recall hard, and it’s genuinely one of the most common things I see. The move isn’t more repetition, it’s stepping back into management and rebuilding your reinforcers from the ground up.

Save this for the “selective hearing” phase 📌

12/08/2026

You don’t have to banish your dog to another room every time you sit down to eat.

Instead of correcting what you don’t want, try rewarding what you do. Here’s how I teach dogs a simple mat target so they have a job to do at dinner time, one that pays better than begging.

Positive reinforcement, not positive punishment. Consistency, not banishment.

09/08/2026

Recall isn’t just a cue. It’s about engagement, connection, and understanding what actually motivates your dog to choose you over everything else going on around them.

That means figuring out what’s genuinely reinforcing for THEM, not what looks impressive or what costs the most. Food-based rewards work brilliantly for a lot of dogs. But food isn’t always the answer, especially when the environment is throwing something more exciting at them.

Build that engagement first. Work through it in low-distraction, safe spaces, strengthen the connection, then trial it out in public once you and your dog are ready.

Get in touch if you want help building a recall (and a relationship) that actually holds up in the real world.

Address

White Cross Farm, Whitecross Road
Ely
CB63QB

Opening Hours

Tuesday 4:30pm - 6:30pm
Wednesday 4:30pm - 7:30pm
Thursday 4:30pm - 6:30pm
Sunday 10:30am - 3:30pm

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