Often, the expectations that clients come to trainers with don’t match anywhere near the level of their expectations for their own behaviour. Is it fair to hold our dogs to standards where we couldn’t even meet those standards ourselves?  Let’s take self-control as an example. Consider your own self-control, that last diet you did, how did […]

All behaviour in every animal (humans included!) serves a function. When we’re trying to change behaviour, it’s important to acknowledge the function of the original behaviour and try to replicate it as much as possible. For example, if your dog jumps up on people when they come to visit, it’s likely that the function of

This is going to be controversial, I’m okay with that. Punishment in the world of training is defined as anything that reduces the intensity or frequency of a behaviour. Putting this in context, if your dog is barking at a dog walking past the window, and you happened to sneeze at the same time. The

Dog training is a physical skill, like learning to drive and it takes time to get used to this. We all go through the stages of learning skills; unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetent, conscious competence, unconscious competence. For dog trainers who have been teaching behaviours for years, we tend to lie in the unconsciously competent stage

If you have a reactive dog, any measure of how stressed your dog is a helpful thing to know. How dogs take treats can be a fabulous indicator of how stressed your dog is and provide you valuable information on how your dog is feeling before those feelings become a reaction.  Pumba has a fantastically

Over my lifetime of living with reactive dogs I’ve experienced the pressure that people feel when out in public to be seen ‘doing something’ in response to a dog reacting. There is a definite feeling that you should be seen to address a reaction outwardly when in the public, particularly when you’re out walking your