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Apparently, I'm in my bad guy era. So naturally, I thought I'd pick a fight with one of Britain's best-known dog trainers. Excellent. Small independent dog trainer from South Wales takes on Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly. This should end well. Except there's a slight problem. I'd never actually watched the programme. Not until complete strangers started telling me I was doing everything completely wrong. Apparently, I needed to watch Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly. Apparently, the pr

I'd like to make something very clear before we begin. I'm not defending anybody here, Far from it. I'm trying to understand the world we live in. When I don't understand something, I feel a need to learn about it. I've been thinking about masculinity recently. Not in the usual internet sense. Not “men are terrible.” Not “men are under attack.” Something considerably more complicated. It started with a film. More specifically, Hutch Mansell. If you've seen "Nobody", you'll k

Apparently, I'm corrupting your dog with cheese. “You're bribing your dog!” “Yes, Karen, and yours is harassing that lady with the pram.” There. I've said it. Apparently, using food to train a dog is one of the great moral failures of modern dog ownership. Somewhere along the way, giving a dog something they actually value for doing something we've asked them to do became bribery. Apparently, I'm not a dog trainer. I'm a corrupt influence. A canine crime lord. Running some so

Protective. Is your dog really protecting you? “My dog would protect me.” It's something people love to believe. Ask a dog owner whether their dog would protect them and you'll quite often get a very confident: “Absolutely!” I once asked the question on a Labrador group: “Do you think your dog would protect you if you were attacked?” I was expecting a few different answers. Perhaps some people would say yes. Some would say no. Some would say, “He'd probably run away.” What I

Jealous. FOMO. Or just “Oi, what are they getting that I'm not?”

What happens when the dog trainer is struggling too? There is something we don't talk about enough in the dog-training world. We spend an awful lot of time talking about confidence. Confidence in our methods. Confidence in our knowledge. Confidence in our businesses. Confidence when dealing with difficult dogs and difficult situations. And yet, behind the scenes, I suspect that far more of us struggle with self-doubt than we'd ever admit. Everyone struggles sometimes. The tra

Aggression is a behaviour. It isn't a personality. “He's an aggressive dog.” It's probably one of the most frightening labels we can put on a dog. And unlike some of the other words I've looked at in this series, this one deserves a little more caution. Because aggression can be serious. Very serious. We've just seen the case in Wakefield in which a man died after being bitten by a dog, and the dog's owner has now been charged with manslaughter as well as being in charge of a

Or is your dog just trying to get your attention? “He's just attention-seeking.” It's one of those phrases that can make a behaviour sound immediately less important. The dog barks at you. Attention-seeking. Paws at your leg. Attention-seeking. Brings you a toy. Attention-seeking. Jumps on you. Attention-seeking. Stands directly in front of the television while you're watching it. Attention-seeking. Drops a ball on your lap. Definitely attention-seeking. Drops the ball on you

Arousal. The word we use when the dog has apparently forgotten how to dog. “He's too aroused.” It's become one of those phrases you hear everywhere in dog training. The dog is barking. Too aroused. Jumping up. Too aroused. Running around. Too aroused. Playing with another dog. Too aroused. Chasing a ball. Definitely too aroused. Doing absolutely nothing? Probably recovering from being too aroused earlier. And like so many words I'm going to look at in this series, arousal is

Disclaimer: This isn't aimed at any one person. I've just had a rather impressive run of enquiries that have gone absolutely nowhere — including a few where I've carried out visits, written and sent full reports and training plans, provided advice and support… and then somehow ended up with neither a client nor any money. So, before I spontaneously combust into a cloud of unpaid invoices and emotional damage, I thought I'd get it off my chest. No animals were harmed in the ma

Or is your dog just trying to tell you something? Loki being Stubborn “He's so stubborn.” It's one of those phrases that comes out of our mouths almost automatically. The dog won't come back. Stubborn. Won't sit. Stubborn. Won't walk in the direction we want. Definitely stubborn. Refuses to get out of the car. Very stubborn. You ask the dog to do something. The dog looks at you. You ask again. The dog looks at you. You say their name. The dog looks at you. You try again. The

Here's a word that gets thrown about far too much Dominance. One word. Far too many explanations. “He's trying to dominate you.” We've all heard it. The dog pulls on the lead. Dominance. The dog won't get off the sofa. Dominance. The dog growls when you move its food bowl. Dominance. The dog ignores a cue. Dominance. The dog walks through the door first. Definitely dominance. Apparently, if you have a dog who occasionally does something you don't like, there's a reasonable ch

Reactive. It is probably one of the most commonly used words in modern dog training. “My dog is reactive.” “He's a reactive dog.” “She became reactive after being attacked.” “My rescue is really reactive.” We hear it everywhere. But what do we actually mean when we say reactive? And perhaps more importantly, what happens when we stop thinking about the word and start treating it as an identity? Because words matter. Not just because we want to sound clever or use the correct

Dog Training FAQs: Real-World Advice for Dogs and Their People Training a dog can feel overwhelming. Training a rescue dog can sometimes feel like you've accidentally signed up for a degree you didn't know existed. You love your dog. You want to do the right thing. You may have watched the videos, read the books and been given completely conflicting advice by well-meaning people. “Just ignore it.” “Give them a treat.” “Be more consistent.” “Take them for longer walks.” “Get t

I recently came across a statistic claiming that only around 6.5% of dogs attend formal training classes. This surprising statistic raises a question: why do so few dog owners seek professional training for their pets? It’s not because they don’t care. Most owners deeply love their dogs and want the best for them. They celebrate small victories and worry about mistakes. So, the real question is why many feel unable to pursue training help. The Overload of Information Today Tw

"A behaviour without context is just a story waiting for someone to invent an explanation." Spend five minutes on social media and you'll see it. A ten-second clip of a dog barking. A dog biting. A trainer using a correction. A child hugging a dog. A headline screaming, "Dog attacks without warning." Within minutes, hundreds of people have reached a verdict. "That dog is dangerous." "That trainer is abusive." "The owner is irresponsible." "The dog should be destroyed." The fr

That should get the algorithm going. I've Read the Science. Because I Want You To. Now let's get something out of the way before anyone rushes to the comments. I don't use e-collars. Where I live in Wales, their use on dogs is prohibited. But even if they weren't, I still wouldn't use one. Partly because of my own views on dog training. And partly because I don't believe I have the experience to use one safely. I actually think that's something more trainers should be comfort

A closer look at the Border Collie, the Innate Health Assessment and the problem with judging a dog by a checklist Of all the breeds I've seen mentioned in connection with the much-discussed "67 breeds", one keeps making me stop and scratch my head. The Border Collie. Really? The Border Collie? The dog that has been selectively bred for generations to run, turn, stop, gather, think, problem-solve and work alongside humans? The dog that can spend hours on a hillside in the rai

Apparently, the Uk is about to ban 67 dog breeds. Border Collies. Corgis. Dachshunds. Chihuahuas. Beagles. Staffies. And a whole host of other breeds that you probably wouldn't immediately put into the same category as a French Bulldog or a Pug. If you've seen the headlines recently, you could be forgiven for thinking the government has drawn up a list of 67 dogs and decided they have all got to go. It makes for a great clickbait headline that brings out the hatred in the com

I recently read another social media post about a dog that had sadly killed someone and was subsequently euthanised. As often happens with these posts, the comments quickly became divided. People debated what should have happened to the dog, what the police should have done, whether the owners were responsible, and whether euthanasia was justified. But something else caught my attention. More than one person commented something along the lines of: "I've just read that the dog