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Handling Reactive Dogs Is Hard There is so much to remember, how to hold the lead, when to feed, keeping an eye on everything including having eyes in the back of your head! Just trying to figure out what to do with your end of the lead is hard enough without fighting what the world […]

The Need to Understand Body Language Understanding dog body language is the single best thing you can do to help your reactive dog. Often owners of reactive dogs tell me how it feels like their dog is reacting out of nowhere and that it makes them nervous that they can’t predict when a reaction is

In light of my most recent post on trigger stacking (you can catch up by clicking HERE), we’re going to be discussing how to combat stress build up. Decompression is the word I refer to when talking about preventing or reducing stress build up in my dogs. Remember that when it comes to trigger stacking,

Why is trigger stacking important? Trigger stacking is a really important for any dog owner to understand. It can explain why your dog may want to do some things sometimes, and not at others; why they may be grumpier about something at specific times; why they may react to something that they are normally fine

Introduction The world of dog food is an absolute minefield. I’m not qualified to give you direct advice on what to feed your dog but here’s some general guidance and further resources to look into. Assuming an average lifespan of 14 years and a feeding regime of 2 meals per day, that’s over 10,000 meals

Did you know that up to 80% of dogs presented to behaviourists were found to have pain as a causal or contributing factor for the undesirable behaviour presented? Meaning that for 8 cases out of 10 that come to a professional dog trainer or behaviourist may be experiencing pain. Think back to the last time

One of the most stressful parts of owning a dog is that everyone loves to give you their advice and opinions, whether you asked for them or not!   Only take criticism from those you would seek support from. If you wouldn’t ask someone for advice on how to deal with a situation, don’t let their

I won’t judge you if you rehome your dog. For some, that’s a controversial sentence. However, it really shouldn’t be. If you’re working with me, chances are your dog has some challenging problems. If you’re working with me, you’ve probably put a lot of effort into trying to address those problems.  Behaviour modification takes a

Arousal is a commonly used word when it comes to dog training but what does it actually mean and what do you need to know about it? Arousal is really fancy dog trainer academic speak for energy levels. There are some more intricacies to the word that imply certain physiological responses to high/low arousal situations,

Emotions are a hugely tricky subject when it comes to dog training. There are various camps with strong opinions across a spectrum of ‘we should take emotions into consideration at every single step’ to ‘we cannot necessarily accurately identify emotions with other people so how can we identify them in a different species?’ I personally