Apparently, Everyone's a Dog Behaviour Expert Now

Breaking news: someone with a microphone has an opinion about dogs.

I keep seeing news articles with headlines along the lines of “Dog Behaviour Expert Says…” or “Dog Training Expert Reveals…”

And every time I see one, a small part of me wonders what I've missed.

Is there an official ceremony? Is there a secret handshake? Perhaps a special hat? Or do you simply wake up one morning, decide you've learned everything there is to know about dogs, and start introducing yourself as an expert?

If so, I've clearly been doing this wrong.

Apparently, I could have saved myself a lot of time by buying a microphone.

So, who actually makes someone an expert?

That's the interesting question, isn't it?

Who decides someone is a dog behaviour expert?

Is it a recognised qualification? Years of practical experience? A proven ability to help dogs and their owners? A willingness to keep learning? Or is it simply a job title someone has decided looks impressive on their website?

The dog training industry isn't regulated in the UK in the way many people assume. There are qualifications, educational routes, professional organisations and experienced practitioners. But there isn't one universal licence that everyone must hold before they can call themselves a dog behaviour expert.

Which means the title, by itself, tells you remarkably little.

Someone might have decades of experience and an extraordinary understanding of canine behaviour. Someone else might have a collection of certificates, a polished website and the confidence of a man down the pub explaining cryptocurrency.

Both might call themselves experts.

That doesn't make their knowledge, judgement or practical ability equivalent.

And that's where the problem starts.

The wonderful world of the media soundbite

News outlets love an expert.

Experts sound authoritative. Experts give a story credibility. Experts provide neat little quotes that fit beautifully between an alarming headline and an advert for something you didn't know you needed.

Real canine behaviour, unfortunately, is rarely neat.

Dogs are individuals. Behaviour has context. Genetics, learning history, health, environment, fear, frustration, stress and the actions of the people around them can all influence what a dog does.

Sometimes the answer is relatively straightforward. Sometimes it isn't.

Sometimes a dog behaves differently because something hurts. Sometimes what looks like aggression is fear. Sometimes it really is a case of a dog learning that a particular behaviour gets a particular result.

And sometimes, despite all your experience, you need more information before you can offer a sensible explanation.

Imagine that.

A professional admitting they don't yet know enough to give you a definitive answer.

How terribly inconvenient for a headline writer.

Instead, we get sweeping statements about what dogs always do, what owners must do, and what one particular behaviour supposedly means.

A single quote becomes universal advice. A complicated subject gets squeezed into a sentence. Thousands of dogs, each with their own history and circumstances, are apparently expected to fit the same explanation.

And if they don't?

Well, presumably the dogs haven't read the article.

Experience matters. So does knowing the limits of your experience.

Let me be clear. I don't have a problem with people being knowledgeable. Quite the opposite.

I want dog trainers to know their stuff. I want behaviour professionals to understand learning theory, canine communication, welfare, health considerations and the limitations of their own methods.

I want them to have practical experience, to keep up with research and to recognise when a case is outside their competence.

What I find interesting is the difference between being knowledgeable and needing everyone to know how knowledgeable you are.

The first can be demonstrated through your work.

The second can sometimes be demonstrated through the size of the font on your website.

Experience is valuable, but experience alone doesn't guarantee that someone has understood what happened. You can repeat the same mistake for twenty years and become very experienced at making it.

Equally, qualifications matter, but passing an assessment doesn't mean your education is complete. Research develops. Our understanding changes. New evidence challenges old assumptions.

And dogs, being dogs, have an irritating habit of failing to behave exactly as the textbook predicted.

A good trainer needs to be able to adapt.

That requires something more useful than absolute certainty: the ability to think critically about what you're seeing.

The dangerous bit isn't the title. It's the certainty.

I'm less concerned about what someone calls themselves than I am about what they do with the authority that title gives them.

If a trainer confidently explains that a dog is being dominant, stubborn, manipulative or deliberately difficult, what happens next?

Well I would hope they tell them exactly what they can do with that information, but at very least...

...Does the owner become curious about why the dog is behaving that way? Do they investigate pain, fear, stress, learning history or the environment?

Or do they decide their dog is simply being an arsehole and needs to be put in its place?

The words we use influence the decisions we make.

And when someone presents an opinion as an established fact, people may follow their advice without questioning whether it applies to their dog.

That matters.

Particularly when we're talking about rescue dogs, dogs with a history we may know very little about, or dogs whose behaviour is already causing distress for themselves and their owners.

Confidence can be reassuring. But confidence isn't proof.

A loud voice doesn't make an explanation correct. A television appearance doesn't make someone infallible. And having an opinion quoted in a newspaper doesn't magically remove the need for evidence.

If only it were that easy. I'd have been on the sofa at breakfast television years ago.

The trainers I respect most

Here's where I might disappoint anyone hoping for a grand declaration that I'm the only person who really understands dogs.

I'm not.

I know trainers who are far more experienced than I am. I know people whose knowledge has challenged my thinking and made me reconsider things I'd previously taken for granted.

I've learned from other trainers. I've changed my mind. I've questioned my own decisions. And I've come across dogs who have taught me that the neat explanation I had in my head wasn't necessarily the right one.

That's not a confession of professional failure. That's part of the job.

Take Maleficent. Watching a frightened, underweight dog grow into a powerful, confident one forced me to reconsider how I viewed correction, control and the dog standing in front of me. I had to recognise that the dog I remembered wasn't always the dog I was dealing with now.

That required me to question myself, not simply defend what I'd always done.

And I think that's important.

If another trainer has knowledge or experience that can help me do better for a dog, I want to hear it. If new evidence challenges something I believe, I want to examine it. If I've misunderstood a situation, I'd rather work that out than protect my ego.

My job isn't to win an argument with another trainer.

My job is to help the dog and the person responsible for them.

Those two objectives should not be particularly difficult to distinguish, although social media occasionally suggests otherwise.

So, should you trust a dog training expert?

Don't dismiss someone simply because they use the word expert. Equally, don't assume the word tells you everything you need to know.

Ask questions.

• What training, and practical experience do they have?

• Can they explain why they're recommending something, rather than simply insisting that it works?

• Do they consider the individual dog, its history, health, environment and emotional state?

• Are they honest about the limits of their knowledge?

• Do they recognise when a veterinary professional or another specialist needs to be involved?

• Can they explain how they assess progress and what they would do if their original approach wasn't working?

• Are they willing to discuss evidence and alternative explanations without treating every question as a personal insult?

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And perhaps most importantly, pay attention to how they talk about the dogs they work with.

Do they describe every difficult case as proof that the dog is stubborn, dominant or badly behaved? Or do they remain curious about what the dog might be communicating, what it has learned and what needs to change?

Nobody gets every case right. Nobody knows everything. What matters is how someone responds when they encounter the limits of their understanding.

Do they investigate, learn and adapt?

Or do they double down because admitting uncertainty might damage their carefully cultivated reputation?

One of those approaches is likely to be rather more useful to your dog.

A final confession from the allegedly knowledgeable

I run Ruff Start Dog Training. I have experience, I have knowledge, and I have opinions. Quite a few of them, as anyone who has read my posts will probably have noticed.

I also know there is a great deal I don't know.

There will be dogs I haven't encountered before. There will be situations that challenge my understanding. There will be research that changes how I think about something. There will be trainers who know things I don't, and I hope I'll have the good sense to learn from them.

I don't think that makes me less capable of helping dogs.

I think pretending otherwise would.

Because the best trainers I've met aren't the ones who walk into a room needing everyone to recognise their superiority. They aren't afraid to ask questions, discuss a difficult case with another professional or admit that they need to learn more.

Not because knowledge is unimportant, but because it is.

They understand that every dog is an individual, that experience doesn't make you infallible, and that the moment you believe you have nothing left to learn is probably the moment you should start worrying.

So, to the people confidently announcing what all dogs do, what every owner should do, and what the definitive answer to every behavioural problem happens to be, I have a small suggestion.

Perhaps leave a little room for doubt.

And because dogs deserve better than professionals who mistake their own certainty for the limits of what's possible to know.

The best trainers I know don't need to proclaim themselves experts. They're too busy learning.