Diverse Dogs, dog training and behaviour

27/09/2026

Dogs do what works for them!

The environment is continually training your dog!

A dog will learn that staring or scratching at the food box will not open it and give them the food, they will eventually give up doing it. Sleeping on the sofa is softer and warmer than on the hard floor, so the probability that they will do it more often goes up. When they hear the sound of the key in the door at 6pm, by barking, dad comes in. They may learn that when they chase a jogger, he runs away, so the dog will continue to chase a jogger next time he sees one. If the dog stares at a man on the street selling newspapers, he stands still, so to chase is pointless.

If it keeps working for the dog, it will get much stronger and will happen more often. Importantly, the dog is not thinking about how it works, it is just a natural instinct.

If it doesn’t work for the dog, it will fade away, the behaviour dies as it doesn’t work for them, there is no point wasting time on something that doesn’t work. This is called extinction.

So, we can use this to our advantage when training our dogs. If a dog learns by repeating an exercise several times that there is a really good consequence to this behaviour, he will want to do it again and again.

A continuous supply of food when we start to train is motivating the dog to keep repeating the behaviour. The more the dog repeats the behaviour the more he will want to do it and it will become stronger and stronger.
If we stop the treats too soon, the behaviour will start to fade and we will get extinction.

Thank you for reading
Danielle

For more information about training your dog or for a free phone call contact me via my website.

diverse dogs.co.uk

15/09/2026

Negative reinforcement-What is it?

Most dog owners have heard of positive reinforcement, where we give the dog something good, like a treat, after a behaviour, that will make the dog want to do it again, it’s called a reinforcer because the behaviour is more likely to happen again.

But what about negative reinforcement?

Examples of negative reinforcement in dog training are things such as prong collars where the dog will avoid pulling on the lead to avoid the prongs digging into his neck. The dog will do the behaviour that you want but only to avoid the pain in their neck. If overused, it can in itself cause other behaviour problems such as reactivity and aggression.

So, the 'reinforcer' means that the dog will want to do it again, but the negative means that something that the dog doesn’t like has to be removed, to cause the dog to do the behaviour again either to avoid the thing that they don’t like or to stop it happening in the first place, they will then feel relief if that stimulus is removed.

A lot of traditional dog training was done with negative reinforcement, but it still involves using punishers (things that the dog doesn’t like) to force them to do the correct behaviour so is not used as much in modern science-based training.

Nowadays there are much kinder and very effective ways to train your dog not to pull on the lead, using positive reinforcement.

For more information or to book a free 15-minute phone call contact Danielle at

Diversedogs.co.uk

I work in Wantage and surrounding areas.

06/09/2026

What do we mean by a cue in puppy training?

It is a widely held belief that to teach a puppy to ‘sit’ we must say the word ‘sit’ and push the puppy’s bottom down to the floor. But the puppy will get so fed up of being pushed to the ground that he learns to sit on the cue ‘sit’ to just to avoid the push. The puppy will have no idea why we are saying this word and pushing him to the ground.

Isn’t it better to allow the puppy to choose to sit on the cue ‘sit’ and give a reward when he does? Wouldn’t that mean that the puppy is more likely to do it again and again?

To give the puppy the chance to make a choice about whether he sits is done by a process called ‘shaping’.

A puppy will naturally sit when he chooses to do so, so we need to capture that sit by using a marker word such as ‘good’ and then giving a reward or reinforcer. We can then start to add the word ’sit’ as the puppy puts his bottom down. He will then start to identify the word ‘sit’ as an opportunity to gain a reward.

We can then use the word ‘sit’ as a cue without having to push the puppy to the floor.

Thank you for reading!

Danielle

For information on a complete one to one puppy training course,

Contact me at

Diversedogs.co.uk

31/08/2026

Do you get a bit bored of all the dog training posts?

Do you just scroll past them and just look at the pictures?

Ok, that's great, I've just posted a nice doggy picture!

24/08/2026

A bit about positive reinforcement.

Many of my clients say to me ‘but don’t you have to give positive reinforcement for the rest of the dog’s life?' ‘Won’t they stop doing it if you stop giving the treats?’

The answer is no, they won’t stop doing it if you stop giving the treats, It is only in the early stages of training that you need to give a continuous flow of treats.

When a toddler is learning to go on the potty, we might give lots of praise and rewards to start with, but eventually it will start to take care of itself, their brain has now been wired to do it without thinking too much about it.

Once the behaviour has been learnt by the dog to some degree of reliability, it isn’t necessary to give a treat every time they do it, actually it is better not to. It is much better to give the treat only on a random or unpredictable basis. That way the dog will always do the behaviour just on the off chance that they may get a treat!

This is what psychologists call a variable schedule of reinforcement, and it is much more effective in maintaining a behaviour than a constant supply of treats.

So, with a random supply of treats, the behaviour that you’re training might actually increase in vigour, where the dog is hoping to hit the lucky jackpot!

So when I call my dogs in from the garden, I don't give them a treat every time they come in, sometimes I give it after 2 times, sometimes after 4 times then sometimes after 3 times etc. That way they are always anticipating the treat.

When you think about it, if someone is playing on the fruit machine, they don’t give up after their first go just because they didn’t win anything, they will carry on playing until they win! It won’t stop there, once they have won, they will still carry on playing for the chance to hit the jackpot again!

Thanks for reading!
Danielle

For more information on training or for a free 15-minute chat on the phone, please contact me via my website:

Diversedogs.co.uk

13/08/2026

My first puppy was a labrador called Gem, and she was a lovable rogue. Oh boy! We didn’t realise how much hard work a puppy was! She was an ankle biter and would hang on to your trouser leg until she was ready to let go, it was impossible to prise her off. She also grabbed hands and arms with her razor-sharp teeth, until they resembled wounds that had come from a war! She stole food from the table, even if she had to jump on the table to get it, she stole washing from the washing line and ran round the garden with it, if you chased her, she could easily outrun you. She used to run around the car after an outing to the park, and I used to imagine her singing ‘you can’t catch me!’ As she got older, she started to steal other people’s picnics and kid’s balls until they burst! She was very aggressive if she had a bone or a chew if anyone came near her, (I now know that she was a resource guarder) and she cried and howled when she was left on her own, (she had separation anxiety).
I knew nothing about any of this before we got her and was sure it was because of something we had done. There weren’t many people around at that time that had a good knowledge of dog behaviour, so there wasn’t anyone really to give us advice. We muddled through with her, putting a long lead on in the park and she did eventually stop the biting, slept through the night and toileted outside, much to our relief! But looking back on it, with the knowledge I have now, these behaviours could have easily been reduced or prevented with some simple exercises done with her as a puppy. We are lucky today that we have a choice of good trainers and behaviourists for our puppy’s and dog’s and it never needs to get to these levels of behaviour. If it does there is always help out there.
I subsequently went on to have many more puppies over the years, including two litters from my golden retriever, Ellie. But, with a better knowledge of puppy and dog behaviour I have enjoyed them a lot more and have known exactly what they need to live a fulfilled, confident and resilient life (and my nerves aren’t shattered anymore!).

Thanks for reading!

Danielle

09/08/2026

There is not a single dog on this earth that has made the choice to be reactive, aggressive and to bite.

A dog will only resort to these responses when they feel like they have no choice.

It is a stress response, which is controlled by the sympathetic nervous system, which activates the ‘fight or flight’ response. It is a natural, ingrained, innate and instinctual response when the dog feels like they are in real danger.

During this response, the dog’s body will prepare itself by releasing noradrenaline.

This will cause the heart to beat faster and the lungs to expand to increase breathing.

The dog will not take food at this point as the stomach redirects blood flow to the extremities.

If your dog is showing signs such as reactivity to other dogs, lunging, barking and growling, they are giving a warning to you that they are suffering from stress. This isn’t the time to tell them off or shout at them, this will just add another layer of stress and make the situation much worse.

Please get in touch for an informal chat if you think that your dog is showing any of these signs.

A contact form is available at Diversedogs.co.uk

Thank you for reading

Danielle

06/08/2026

Do you have a dog that has behaviour problems?

Have you tried everything and nothing has worked?

Are you really frustrated and at the end of your tether?

I can help you.

I work on a one to one basis in the comfort of your own home, away from stressful and distracting environments.

Please get in touch for an informal chat via my website

diversedogs.co.uk

Now booking for September.

Danielle

Covering Wantage and surrounding areas.

01/08/2026

‘Nobody should be allowed to have a baby until they have first been required to train a chicken’ (Karen Pryor, 2019)

Did that grab your attention?

You may be thinking, ‘what is she talking about, what has that got to do with dogs?’

Well, it has a lot to do with dogs, they are animals just like chickens.

Chickens can only be trained using force free and positive reinforcement. You can't train a chicken using force in the same way that you couldn’t use punishers to train a baby.
You couldn’t put an electric shock collar or a prong collar on a chicken (or a baby) to make it behave in a certain way, so why do some trainers do it to dogs?

Dogs are sentient beings; they feel emotions in the same way that we do. They feel pain, fear and anxiety and that is the ONLY reason that they are compliant when using forceful and aversive training methods. These methods erode their confidence and can cause them to be reactive and aggressive.

If you are looking for a dog trainer, please find a force free and positive reinforcement trainer. It will be the best thing that you can do for your dog, and you will reap the benefits for the rest of your dog’s life!

Thank you for reading!

Danielle

22/07/2026