Ben Griffith Canine Training

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Ben Griffith Canine Training ●Puppy training, 1:1 dog training, structured walking service
●Helping to understand our dogs better

15/09/2026

Things I do with my dogs that you’re ’not supposed to do’ …

•Yes my dogs are allowed on the furniture and in my bed, once they act calmly and match the energy of the room, the luxury of getting on the comfy sofa or bed comes with the responsibility of following the rules.

•Of course I give my dogs little bits of food outside of their own ‘dog food’ or bits of leftovers, once they know they’re not allowed to sit and beg for food or pester us while we eat our own meals.

•They’re allowed to rough play with me and even bite me (gently) in the game. BUT, it’s a controlled game, at the right time, following the rules of the game and it ends when I say so. This kinda game is only allowed with me or my partner, not with every person they interact with of course.

•They’re allowed off lead to run around and be free, once the environment allows it and once they recall properly when asked. Before their recall was good enough, they had mostly freedom, but on a longline.

•They’re not stuck in a loose lead walk or holding a lie down command throughout the day, our whole walk or during chill out time, because we have worked hard to teach them what they should be doing in certain places and times and I always still have my obedience commands to fall back on to help if need be.

I’m by no means saying all dogs should he given all these freedoms all the time, no, we have to work towards building the skills needed to do all this. This is the whole point of dog training as far as I’m concerned.

29/07/2026

Do you struggle to get your dog to settle down inside the house in the evenings?

If so, let’s start by questioning what might be causing the chaos?
- is your dog full of energy and ‘itchy’ ?
- is your dog unsure of what they should be doing or what’s acceptable right now?
- does your dog not understand you when you’re telling them off for being a menace jumping round the place etc?

So what’s the solution???

So of course I can’t give a in depth break-down through an instagram post, but…

My starting points would be…
- making sure your dog has had proper play, free time and exercise today, without this we are asking our dogs to be calm and settled while they’re fizzy full of energy and itchy from not getting to express themselves.

- Giving my dog a cue that’s it’s time to settle down and relax, I like to use ‘Enough’ , and then using a lead inside the house if need be, encouraging them to just be stationary next to me or on a bed, using the lead to restrict movement and madness. I don’t like to use a ‘down’ command here really as i don’t want our dog to think it’s working the whole time. I prefer to use my enough cue to signal it’s time to chill out and do nothing.

- Accepting that if my dog is waaaay past tired, I’ve missed the cues for them needing sleep. If this is the case, while they need to settle down and chill out, it’s actually quite a hard thing for them to do as they’re beyond tired, so the easiest next step is to simply put them into a crate where they are going to just fall asleep eventually as they don’t have any free space to do crazy running around etc.

27/07/2026

Think about this, if you and your partner plan a date night on Friday, you’re going to head out for dinner and even some drinks afterwards, sounds great.

But, come Thursday afternoon they cancel and say they’re not up for it anymore, but they promise next week you will go.

Next week rolls around, you’re all excited and ready for Friday date night to come…

Boom, they cancel again…

Now imagine they promise you they’re going wash up the dishes after dinner…
They ‘forget’ and go to bed…

Now imagine weeks have gone by and they’re constantly making ‘promises’ and breaking them.

In a human to human relationship, we would all agree this needs to be addressed as the inconsistency and the lack of respect towards you isn’t acceptable.

But Ben, what does this have to do with dog training???

Now transfer this thought process to our dogs. If we are inconsistent, lacking follow through, and overall not being honest or respectful of the relationship with our dogs then we are guaranteed some breakdown within. If we tell our dogs off to doing a certain behaviour today but in a weeks time we don’t care and let them away with it, if we ask them for a certain behaviour and then allow them to not do it, but next time you ask, they don’t do it and you get angry at them…

This is all going to cause a break down in communication and relationship itself.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we need to treat our dogs with a military style regime, no, but we do need to have some clear boundaries, and some clear plans so our dogs can know what to expect in certain situations.

Be honest, be consistent and be real with your dog.

09/07/2026

Why do I train my dog?

Well aside from the obvious social pressure of ‘that’s what you’re supposed to do’ ,

I train Jelly for 1 main reason, so when the time comes and he’s old and crusty, grumpy and sore, that I won’t be sat there thinking ‘I wish we did more’.

I train Jelly to teach him how to be a somewhat acceptable member of society and to have the freedom to not be stuck in a back yard or on lead every single place I go.

To have the freedom to be a dog as much as possible and exist outside of obedience commands (while they have a very useful place in this process).

So for this to be possible, he needs to understand how to handle the world…

02/07/2026

Hey dog owner,

Do you want a super easy drill to add into your walks that will have surprisingly big effects on your training journey that involve little input from you?

Ofcourse, who doesn’t?!?

From now on, when you’re almost finished your walk, or you’re finishing up in the park about to head home, stop, go find somewhere that’s both quiet enough and busy enough for your dog, sit your ass down and encourage your dog to do the same.
If their down or sit command isn’t quite good enough yet, then simply use your lead to keep them within your bubble and just simply be and watch the world go by.

No food, no toys, no asking fluffy for crazy eye contact commands, just be…

Okay, why?? Well think of it this way, you have already done some training work you planned on doing, you have already exercised your dog, so how it’s time to work on simply existing in world, which for a lot of dogs is a hard task, and a skill that if they learned would make like a lot easier for both of you. This is an especially important exercise for dogs who are busy bodies and don’t like to sit still (enter my very own Jelybean).

Some common issues people have with this drill is that their dog never actually settles down, that’s where obedience commands such as a down, can be a nice tool to use here to encourage a stationary position
Or
Another thing I like to do, plan it out that you’re not on a time frame, set yourself up in an area that’s the appropriate amount of busy for you and your dog, and simply sit there until your dog eventually starts to settle down, then, CALMLY add in some praise to your your dog and tell them they’ve made a good decision. Don’t go hyping them up, but love on them a little bit for sure.

28/06/2026

Different breed’s, different interests;

So when it comes to what type of exercises our dogs are going to enjoy, their breed can be a nice indicator to start with.

Your gundog breeds quite often enjoy searching for and retrieving a toy, your herding breeds quite often enjoy chasing the ball or playing tug, your terrier breeds often enjoy shredding toys or playing tug…

This is because in the examples above, the exercise somewhat simulates the job this breed was bred for.

But overall, breed alone isn’t enough to make a judgment call of what type of play your dog will like, it’s just a good starting point to give you an idea.

Dasha, our black lab here is a great example of this, if it’s a fetch like game she’s great, she’s as soft as anything carrying the ball or dummy back, BUUUT if you get out a tug, she’s biting hard and giving it her all to fight that toy from you.

23/06/2026

Hey dog owner,

You know the way you let your dog run around the house with zoomies and become uncontrollably excited anytime you come home? Or when you tell them to get off the sofa in the evenings and they completely ignore you and you leave them be? Or when your guests call over to the house and you tell them to stop jumping but they keep jumping anyways and you leave them be? Or when they keep barking for your attention while you’re trying to eat your dinner, and you reach for a snack to give them to keep them quiet?

Yeah all these things are making in the house abit of a nightmare am I right?

Well if that’s the case and we are struggling inside the home, how are earth are you hoping they’re going to listen to you in the outside world?

If this is the case, then reach out and let’s talk about how we can sort these issues, both inside and outside the house.

Now I’m not saying that you are causing your dog to react entirely, not at all.ButIf you are stiffening up and getting a...
12/06/2026

Now I’m not saying that you are causing your dog to react entirely, not at all.

But

If you are stiffening up and getting all tense at the sight of another dog due to the fear of your own dog reacting, that is absolutely a piece of the puzzle that we need to sort out,

Because, if we want to be able to lead our dogs, communicate to them and be able to navigate the world, then being as stiff as a board and tense is definitely not going to be helpful.

Am I saying that being calm and being calm only, will fix your dog’s reactivity?
No, sadly not, BUT being all stressed out is definitely not helpful to the situation.

If you’re tense, communicating with your dog is going to be harder.

If you’re wound up, you’re not going to be able to help your dog through the situation as easily.

☘️

05/06/2026

If your dog treats walking on lead as if it’s an Olympic event trying to water ski you down the road…we got a problem.

If you expect your dog to walk nicely in a ‘heel’ for the entire walk in the hope of that exercising them thoroughly…we got a problem.

If you have gone online and bought a front clip harness, prong collar, head halti or slip lead, and were given the sales pitch of ‘this tool is guaranteed to stop your dog pulling’ ….we got a problem.

The common problem a lot of dog owners face everyday is their dog pulling on lead, and this can be quite a simple problem to sort out.

Stop seeing walking on lead as your dogs main source of exercise, instead, I view it as a skill to move your dog from point A to point B, or passing others dogs and people etc, outside of them windows I like to have dogs off lead or on a longline (where safe of course).

Stop thinking that THIS particular tool being put on your dog and clipping the lead on will fix all your problems, instead, let’s teach our dogs to understand the lead and collar, teach them to listen to lead pressure, teach them where we need them to work nicely by our side and where they are able to run around freely.

18/05/2026

Lifestyle…..

When it comes to ‘fixing’ problem behaviours in your dog, we HAVE to chat about your dogs lifestyle first, because if your dogs day to day needs aren’t being met, then they are going to be, what I call ‘itchy’, meaning they are potentially lacking in other areas and this can be a big factor in why they pull on lead, ignore recalls, or even why they react badly towards other dogs.

So to start things off properly let’s make sure our dogs are getting enough
-sleep
-exercise
-mental stimulation
-proper nutrition

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