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Here's something nobody tells you when you get a dog: your vet probably isn't going to ask about their behaviour unless ...
20/08/2026

Here's something nobody tells you when you get a dog: your vet probably isn't going to ask about their behaviour unless you bring it up first.

That's not a dig at vets, they're working through a packed appointment list and physical health takes priority. But it means a lot gets missed. New Texas A&M research backs this up, the study's author points out that behaviour often doesn't come up in checkups unless the owner raises it, which means real welfare concerns can go completely unaddressed.

So it falls on us. And because we live with our dogs every single day, gradual changes are easy to miss. The dog who used to greet visitors and now barks from the hallway. The one who used to walk anywhere and now steers around certain streets. It creeps in slowly enough that it stops registering as a change at all.

Nobody's going to flag this for you. If something's shifted, even slowly, that's reason enough to ask for help. You don't need a crisis first.

New peer reviewed research out of Texas A&M just put a number on something I see in almost every session. More than 84% ...
19/08/2026

New peer reviewed research out of Texas A&M just put a number on something I see in almost every session. More than 84% of dogs show at least mild signs of fear or anxiety in everyday life. Not rare dogs. Not "difficult" dogs. Most dogs.

The most common triggers were unfamiliar people and unfamiliar dogs, which will surprise absolutely no one who's ever tried to walk a dog past a stranger on a narrow pavement.

Here's the bit that matters most though. The researcher behind the study points out that when dogs are repeatedly put into situations they're not comfortable with, that fear can escalate, and in some cases aggression becomes the only way they know how to respond.

That's not a dog being difficult. That's a dog who's been asked to cope with too much, too often, without anyone noticing the early warning signs. Spotting fear before it escalates is most of the job.

This morning I walked into my living room expecting the usual welcome committee. Dash, bouncing off the walls, whole bod...
18/08/2026

This morning I walked into my living room expecting the usual welcome committee. Dash, bouncing off the walls, whole body wag, the works.

Instead? Snoring. Flat out on the sofa. Didn't hear me open the door. Didn't hear me walk in. I had to actually get in front of him before he realised I existed 😅

Add that to a few times recently where I've come up behind him and he's had no idea I was there, and I think we're looking at the start of some hearing loss.

It's SO common as dogs get older, and it creeps in slowly, which is exactly why it sneaks up on us as owners too. A few other things worth watching for:

🐾 Not responding to their name
🐾 Sleeping through noises that used to wake them instantly
🐾 Ignoring "known" cues (it's not selective hearing, they genuinely can't hear you)
🐾 Seeming startled more easily
🐾 Head tilting or shaking in a new way

Here's the bit that matters if you've got a reactive dog like I do: hearing loss changes their early warning system. No more hearing trouble coming from three gardens away and having time to prepare. That can mean more startle. It can also mean less, because a chunk of what used to wind them up just isn't reaching them any more. Every dog's different.

Either way, it means leaning harder into visual communication. Hand signals. Body language. Using touch.

We got to interview Deb Bauer for the Barking Up The Right Tree festival. Deb's an expert on blind and deaf dogs so if you haven't seen it you can catch her interview here: https://www.barking-up-the-right-tree.com/courses/the-international-reactivity-summit/contents/65a1158c62e92

Tell me in the comments: has this happened with one of your dogs? What was the first thing you noticed?

Slightly nerdy one for you today, but stick with me, it backs up everything I bang on about.Scientists have just scanned...
13/08/2026

Slightly nerdy one for you today, but stick with me, it backs up everything I bang on about.

Scientists have just scanned dogs' brains while showing them photos of smiling and neutral human faces. When the dogs saw a smile, the reward centre of their brain lit up. Not "recognised a face." Reward. The same kind of response you'd get from something genuinely good happening to them.

Even more interesting: this study also found dogs' brains respond differently depending on whether they're looking at anger, fear or sadness. They're not just clocking "happy vs not happy." They're picking up the specifics.

This is why the emotion-first approach isn't some soft, fluffy add-on to training, it's literally how dogs are wired to relate to us. Your face, your tone, your energy, isn't background noise to your dog. It's information they're actively processing and responding to, moment by moment.

So next time you're working on recall, or loose lead walking, or just existing in the same room as a nervous dog, your expression is doing more work than you think. A tense face and a tense body ask something different of your dog than a soft one does.

Makes you look at your dog looking at you a bit differently, doesn't it? 😊

Scrolling for dog training advice? Here's what to watch forBritain's dog training industry is still unregulated, anyone ...
12/08/2026

Scrolling for dog training advice? Here's what to watch for

Britain's dog training industry is still unregulated, anyone can call themselves a "trainer." So here's your quick checklist:

🚩 Promises to "fix" behaviour in one session
🚩 Labels your dog "dominant" or "stubborn"
🚩 Uses fear, force, or intimidation on camera
🚩 Never asks about pain, health, or history
🚩 Can't explain why the dog was doing the behaviour

✅ What good looks like instead:
🟢 Asks questions before giving answers
🟢 Talks about emotion, not just obedience
🟢 Wants your dog to feel safe, not just look "controlled"
🟢 Comfortable saying "I don't know yet, let's find out"

Your dog's trust in you is not something to gamble on a viral video. If something you've seen online doesn't sit right, send it my way, I'll always give you an honest take.

I've seen dogs who came to me worse than when their owners started, not because the owners didn't care, but because some...
11/08/2026

I've seen dogs who came to me worse than when their owners started, not because the owners didn't care, but because someone online told them their dog was "being dominant" and needed to be "shown who's boss."

Dogs Today reported this week that Britain's dog training industry is still completely unregulated. Anyone, anyone, can call themselves a trainer or behaviourist. No qualifications required. No understanding of welfare required. Just a phone and a willingness to film something dramatic.

And the "dramatic" bit matters, because fear and force make good content. A dog stopping a behaviour the second it's punished looks like a result. It gets shared. It gets copied by thousands of desperate, exhausted owners who are just trying to get through the day with a dog they love but can't cope with.

Here's what it doesn't show you: what happens to that dog's trust in the days after the camera stops rolling. Whether the "fixed" behaviour comes back worse, or turns into something else entirely, because the actual emotional driver was never touched.

Behaviour is communication, not defiance. A dog labelled "stubborn" or "dominant" online is very often a dog who's anxious, in pain, confused, or has never been taught what we actually want instead. Suppressing what you can see doesn't mean you've dealt with why it's happening.

I'm not saying every trainer online is dangerous, and I'm not saying my way is the only way. Far from it! There are some awesome trainers out there. But if a quick fix feels too good to be true for a problem that took months or years to build, it probably is. Your dog deserves someone who asks why before they decide what.

If you're not sure what you're looking at when you see training advice online, ask me. Genuinely, send me the video, I'll tell you what I see and why, no charge, no judgement.

07/08/2026

Please have a read of this article which includes quotes from my lovely friend Andrew Hale.

So much incorrect and dangerous advice is shared on social media these days, it's creating a welfare crisis for our dogs.

https://dogstodaymagazine.co.uk/2026/08/05/britains-dogs-at-risk-from-dangerous-social-media-trainers-as-nine-in-ten-owners-battle-behaviour-problems/?fbclid=IwdGRjcATitHRjbGNrBOK0a3Bkb2YFZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMzUwNjg1NTMxNzI4AAEebXidJkS9BV3fSq6RGmVszoKY-I8-vjBZo56xjJ0hyGxu39ZIfMVx0W8IwJY_aem_8bux7OFM8w1TbQqmOWxB1Q

Let's talk about sentience for a second. Cards on the table: I think a lot of equipment choices in dog training only mak...
06/08/2026

Let's talk about sentience for a second. Cards on the table: I think a lot of equipment choices in dog training only make sense if you quietly assume the dog isn't really feeling much. And once you stop assuming that, some of those choices get a lot harder to justify.

Here's the thing. Dogs are legally recognised as sentient beings in the UK (it's literally in the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act). Sentience means they experience pain, fear, and distress, not as some abstract "stimulus response," but the same way we do. They don't process a sharp correction as neutral information. They feel it.

So let's talk about slip leads.

Some slip leads have stoppers fitted to limit how far they can tighten - worth saying, because not all of them are the free-running nightmare people picture. But even with a stopper, the core mechanism is still a loop around the neck that tightens under tension, sitting right over the trachea and thyroid. Pull, lunge, or a badly timed correction, and the dog still feels that pressure on a part of the body with zero built-in tolerance for it. A stopper limits how far it can go. It doesn't change what it's doing while it's happening.

If we accept that dogs are sentient, we have to accept what that means in practice: a tool that puts pressure or pain around the throat isn't just "a training aid." It's something the dog experiences. And a dog that's frightened or in pain isn't learning calm behaviour, they're learning that the walk itself is unpredictable and occasionally hurts. That's not obedience. That's suppression, and it very often shows up later as reactivity or even aggression, because the association being built isn't "walks are safe," it's "walks can go wrong without warning." Regardless, it's not making your dog feel safe or happy.

This is the bit that gets missed constantly: correction-based tools don't teach a dog what TO do. They just teach a dog what happens if they get it wrong. If your dog doesn't understand what "right" looks like, you haven't solved anything, you've just added fear into the mix.

I'm not saying this to shame anyone using one right now. Most people using slip leads were never shown an alternative, and honestly, a huge chunk of the industry still sells them as standard kit. That's not on you. But once you know a dog is a feeling creature and not a machine to be corrected into compliance, it's worth asking: is this tool actually teaching my dog anything, or is it just suppressing the bit I don't like the look of?

There are so many welfare-led alternatives - well-fitted harnesses, proper lead work, actual training for loose-lead walking - that don't rely on discomfort to "work." If you're using a slip lead and want to move away from it, I promise you it's not a huge leap. Get in touch and let's sort it.

Unpopular opinion (except it's not really an opinion, it's what the research keeps saying): obedience training doesn't a...
05/08/2026

Unpopular opinion (except it's not really an opinion, it's what the research keeps saying): obedience training doesn't automatically build trust with your dog.

I know, I know. Hear me out.

A new study on human-dog communication (Pangal, 2026) makes a point that I think more owners need to hear: teaching a dog to comply with commands and helping a dog feel safe are two completely different processes. The paper points to existing research showing obedience training has little evidence of actually strengthening attachment or reducing behavioural problems. A dog can learn to suppress a behaviour without the underlying stress ever going anywhere.

That distinction matters enormously for reactive dogs in particular. A dog who's been drilled into stillness isn't necessarily a calm dog, they might just be a dog who's learned that showing distress doesn't get them anywhere. Big difference. One is regulation. The other is suppression.

The study was actually looking at something else entirely, a simple open-palm hand gesture that seems to help dogs de-escalate, but it kept circling back to this same idea: dogs do better when we focus on emotional regulation and relationship, not just behavioural control.

This is basically the whole philosophy behind what I do. Compliance is not the same as welfare. A dog who "listens" isn't automatically a dog who feels safe. If you want a dog who trusts you in the genuinely stressful moments - thunderstorms, other dogs, unfamiliar situations - that's built through consistent, attuned reassurance, not through more "commands".

Food for thought next time someone tells you your reactive dog "just needs more training."

Reference: Pangal, S. (2026) The open palm gesture in human–dog communication: An exploratory synthesis. Human-Animal Interactions 14:1, 0031. https://doi.org/10.1079/hai.2026.0031

Ever flicked your hand, palm down, at your dog when they're stressed? Turns out you're not just making it up as you go a...
04/08/2026

Ever flicked your hand, palm down, at your dog when they're stressed? Turns out you're not just making it up as you go along.

A new study just published in Human-Animal Interactions (Pangal, 2026) looked at something called the "open palm prone gesture" - basically, that flat-handed, palm-down flick or hold that so many of us do without ever being taught it. Storm rolling in, dog's pacing, you show them your palm and soften your body. Somehow, they settle.

The researcher pulled together video footage from all sorts of places - traffic police in India calming street dogs at road crossings, foster puppies meeting their new humans, dogs woken by barking neighbours, and even some early heart rate data from Norway and France. In several cases, dogs shown this gesture before a stressful moment (like someone getting up and walking away) had a smaller spike in heart rate than dogs who weren't.

Cards on the table: this isn't a magic wand. The study is upfront that it's exploratory, not proof. But a few things really jumped out at me, because they echo exactly what I bang on about with clients:

🔹 Timing matters more than the gesture itself. It worked best when offered before the dog's arousal escalated, not after they'd already tipped over into barking or bolting.

🔹 It's not a command, it's a relationship. The gesture only seemed to "land" when it came with soft eyes, a relaxed body, a gentle voice, the whole package. One stiff-armed version actually made a dog look away, which we know is a discomfort signal, not a calm one.

🔹 It's on us, not them. The paper makes a point I try to get across constantly this isn't about training dogs to comply with a hand signal. It's about humans getting better at reading the room and offering reassurance in a way the dog can actually use.

Basically: science is catching up to what dog people (and, delightfully, traffic police) have been doing instinctively for years. Attune to your dog, don't just instruct them.

Reference: Pangal, S. (2026) The open palm gesture in human–dog communication: An exploratory synthesis. Human-Animal Interactions 14:1, 0031. https://doi.org/10.1079/hai.2026.0031

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