Jo Hinds - Dog Trainer & Pet Behaviour Advisor

11/07/2025

Great post by The Mutty Professor

HOT WEATHER & AN INCREASE IN BITE RISK 🥵

We've had some very hot weather recently in the UK, and for many parts of the UK- the next three days are going to be scorchio!

It's important to be aware that being too hot can lower thresholds for tolerance and overt reactions- and not just in 'reactive' dogs.

And not just in dogs!

There's a correlation between human riots and an increase in crime during a significant rise in temperature (27 to 32 degrees).
It is well established that in people, heat stress causes irritability and an increased likelihood of aggressive behaviour.

Being hot and bothered is a physical stressor - the body works hard to return to homeostasis.

Cognitive processes can be negatively affected. So if your dog is not responding to as they would normally, consider the effects of heat.

Furthermore- being too hot can interfere with a dog's ability to rest and sleep. During rest and sleep, stress is lowered, and subsequently compromised rest and sleep affects behaviour.

This can affect (lower) the dog's threshold for emotional stress.


🐕 Two unfamiliar dogs meeting while both are hot and bothered is less likely going to result in a healthy interaction. Now is the time to largely keep yourselves to yourselves on walks, or monitor the body language of both dogs very carefully.

🏡 Extra caution should be taken in situations that your dog may struggle with, such as around visitors to the home.

🧒 But the greatest caution of all should be taken around up-close interactions in ALL dogs, especially those who live children.

Remember these basic safeguarding rules;

1. No faces near faces.

2. Let sleeping dogs lie.

3. Do not forcefully take resources (toys, food or anything the dog has found/picked up) off a dog.
Children should never take things off a dog.

4. Do not 'box dogs in' with your interaction.

- Always ensure they can easily move away by not blocking a dog's ability to move forward/away (for example, wrapping your arms around to hug a dog front on makes it near impossible for them to easily disengage).

- The safest way to interact is to invite a dog to come to you.
Alternatively, if you do approach then do so when they are awake and instead of swooping straight in with strokes- wait for them to signal to you they are keen for an interaction.

- Stop stroking after 2-3 seconds, and see if your dog communicates to you they would like more, or if they are done.
This is called the consent test, and it's something all children (and adults) should be aware of.


Most people who get bitten by a dog know the dog well, didn't think their dog would ever bite someone and didn't see the bite coming.

Most dog bites are on faces and hands of someone close to the dog, and this tells us a lot about what the person was LIKELY doing (Note, there are always exceptions).


As I always say to my clients ......

🗣️ Never take your dog's current level of tolerance for granted.

07/07/2025

Which Operant Quadrant Are You Using… Without Realising?

You’re approaching a road with a dog on the lead. You stop. You gently prevent the dog from moving forward by holding the lead still. No yanking, no words just calmly halting progress.

So for the trainers and behaviourists out there which operant conditioning quadrant are you using?

🤔

It’s something we often do without thinking but here’s what’s happening:

You’re removing something the dog wants: forward motion.

You’re doing it to reduce a behaviour: pulling or stepping into the road.

That’s Negative Punishment.

Even when it’s done calmly and kindly, if you’re removing access to reduce a behaviour, you’re in the Negative Punishment quadrant.

But change the setup, and the quadrant shifts:

Allow forward motion after the dog waits and it’s safe to walk across?

Positive Reinforcement – adding something good (continuing their walk!) to increase a behaviour.

Use lead pressure, jerking or applying tension when the dog pulls?

That could tip into Positive Punishment adding discomfort to reduce a behaviour.

And yes sometimes, Positive Punishment does happen and can be necessary.
If a dog suddenly goes to step into the road and a care is coming, you apply lead pressure to stop them, that’s a punisher and potentially a life-saving one!

But the real key? Set up for success so you rarely, if ever, need to use it.

Preemption, Anticipation, clear communication, and thoughtful handling make all the difference.

This is exactly why I talk about Rethinking Lead Walking because it’s never just about stopping pulling. It’s about understanding how every pause, movement, and moment shapes behaviour.

Let’s move beyond obedience and into understanding, communication, and cooperation on lead on both ends.

02/07/2025

Puppies on the Lead: Why It’s About So Much More Than Just Walking

Lead walking with a puppy isn’t just about movement it’s about emotions, development, and connection.

When we clip on that lead, we’re asking a young pup to explore a world that’s often loud, unpredictable, and overwhelming all while restricting their natural movement. That’s a big ask for a little dog who’s still learning what’s safe.

If your puppy stops, pulls away, sniffs a lot, or seems to muck about on walks it might not be a training problem. It could be their way of saying: “I’m not sure about this.”

We need to ask:
– Do they feel safe?
– Are we giving them space to process the world?
– Are we treating the lead as a connection, or just a tool to control?

Good lead walking starts long before you step outside with emotional safety, choice, and support. It’s about building confidence, not just teaching cues.

So instead of micromanaging every step, let’s help puppies feel secure, heard, and unhurried. That’s what creates calm, cooperative walking from the heart, not the heel ❤️

📸 I’d love to see a picture of your puppy even if they are all grown up let’s see those before and after pictures!

06/06/2025

How do you keep working with dogs at an enjoyable level when you’re in your fifties, sixties and beyond?

Let’s start with when you can get your state pension. If you go to the gov.uk website and follow the state pension calculator you will see what age and when you are able to start claiming your state pension. For me it’s aged 67 so in November 2030 the government starts to pay me, providing they don’t move the goal post again and put the age up. The pension amount paid to you depends on:

• if you were contracted out before 2016
• the number of National Insurance qualifying years you have
• if you paid into the Additional State Pension before 2016

Even though I have paid the maximum contributions I will only get £961.83 a month. Not enough for me to live on! If you have planned well and have paid into private pensions for years - well done you - you might have an extra sum of money coming to you every month when you finally retire. But is it enough to live on? It’s a question that we hardly want to ask ourselves and one that some of us seem to put off answering forever, feeling like ‘I will sort it out when the time comes’. But what if you can’t or don’t sort it out? What if, as a menopausal Dog Professional, you NEED to continue to work with dogs into your sixties and seventies to earn money just to live, never mind going on luxury holidays abroad or taking life at a slow, leisurely pace!

Of course, see an independent financial advisor, of course plan your money efficiently - that goes without saying. But what if you still need to work as a Dog Groomer, a Dog Trainer, a Vet, a Hydrotherapist? What if you’ve planned an amazing retirement and want to continue competing with your dog at agility or obedience? Could you? Are you well enough? Fit enough? Both mentally and physically? Is your menopause stopping you from being your best self?

Your body and mind are a bit like a bank savings account. The more you put into it, the more interest you get, the better and more capable you feel. The earlier you start, the more money you save and the more able you will be to work with dogs as you age. Being a menopausal Dog Pro can be hard, hard work and from the comments I see on social media, women of our age are having a tough time with things like anxiety, low mood, weight gain around their tummy and brain fog to name a few! That coupled with caring for aging parents, dealing with stroppy teenagers, or kids in their twenties anxiously trying to find their way in life, working full time with dogs can feel unbelievably pressurised at times. But what if we stopped for a moment? What if we had someone to guide us out of the fog and chaos? What if we became that strong, defiant, sassy, sexy healthy woman we all want to be that deals with all of the stresses and strains of life well - because that’s life, and that’s what it throws you sometimes. I’ve been there. I was Widowed at 42, my mum passed away when I was 43, I raised a child on my own who was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 7 and I ran several dog businesses during that time. Some successful, some not. For a long time I was not only in survival mode but was battling severe perimenopausal and menopause symptoms and the doctors refused to believe me, refused to give me the correct treatment and prescribed antidepressants and conducted a barrage of worrying unnecessary tests for absolutely no reason for years instead. I spent so much of my time in my forties and fifties researching treatments for menopause, finding the best foods to eat at our time of life (and no it’s not starving yourself to a size 6), finding the best exercise to do at this time of life (that’s not pounding the pavements or the treadmill by the way) and making sure I learnt how to deal with the stresses in life, because, after all, you can’t get to this age without having something fairly awful and stressful to deal with at some point. As the saying goes; it’s not what happens to you, it’s how you handle it. I now help women in my profession by coaching them to come out of the darkness and into the light with their passion for dogs beside them. I’m not pretending to have everything figured out - who does? But I live my life with passion, purpose and a healthy vibe and I want the same for every woman Dog Pro out there too. All of us deserve a helping hand now and again from someone who has been there and worn the T-shirt so to speak. For all the beautiful, intelligent women that helped me along the way, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. You’re amazing!

Menopause and the Dog Professional. Helping menopausal women continue to do the job they love for as long as they want and earn more money.
Email: [email protected].

28/05/2025

The showing their belly image is often the one bit of body language that is so misunderstood, with people thinking it means stroke my belly when a high percentage of the time it’s more about not wanting conflict and trying to get space. This is why I think that dog body language should be taught in school to help prevent dog bites.

Body language all depends on the dog and the context. Licks, jumping, belly rubs can be ways to both increase and decrease distance, your dog inviting you for more contact.

With our own dogs, we can stay curious and experiment. Only we know them best. For dogs that don’t know us as well, we can take note and move with more caution.

Often bites happen during these confusing signals, when dogs are misread. It doesn’t mean your dogs love means go away but that we can gain the knowledge to open up conversations with every furry friend.

Still confused? My body language bundle is just $1 and includes breakdowns of these more confusing behaviours. Comment 🐶 and I’ll DM you the link.

27/05/2025

When someone with ADHD acts impulsively, it’s not that they’ve thought it through and decided to ignore the rules the behaviour happens without forethought.

Now consider this from a dog’s perspective. Dogs don’t plan ahead like humans. Much of their behaviour barking, lunging, grabbing, chasing is instinctive and emotionally driven. Like impulsive actions in ADHD, these reactions aren’t the result of deliberate ‘bad choices’ but of immediate responses to their environment.

21/05/2025

This little beauty has just finished my For Pup Sake Precision Programme can anyone guess what breed she is?

20/05/2025

Do we really want puppies staring at us the whole walk? 👀🐾

If we place too much emphasis on handler focus especially constant eye contact during early lead walking, we risk limiting something essential: a puppy’s ability to process their environment and it can also cause gait and posture issues particularly in their neck and back.

Puppies aren’t machines to be programmed they’re young animals learning how the world works. Over controlling their movements can lead to frustration, pulling, or a lack of responsiveness, as the walk becomes more about compliance than cooperation.

🌍 Processing the environment means looking around, sniffing, observing people and dogs, and taking in the sounds and smells.

👃 That’s not distraction it’s essential information gathering.

🧠 It’s how puppies build familiarity and develop emotional robustness.

Connection matters but not at the expense of exploration.

When managed well with safety at the forefront, this exploration doesn’t need to involve pulling.

Puppies that feel calm and supported are less likely to lunge or rush.

With consistency, they learn how the lead works and how much lead they have to explore and how to move in sync with their handler.

A loose lead, room to investigate, and regular, voluntary check-ins lay a stronger foundation than constant control.

Allow puppies to look around.

They’re not ignoring you they’re learning.

Cooperative lead walking builds confidence, and confident dogs cope better with the world.

14/05/2025

Looking for a Dog Trainer?

At the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT), we’re proud to have over 650 certified dog trainers dedicated to helping you and your dog's needs. Whether you're dealing with specific training challenges or simply want to strengthen your bond, our experienced trainers are here to help.

Visit our website today to find a qualified trainer near you who can tailor their approach to meet you and your dog’s needs. Let’s make training a positive and rewarding experience for both of you!

Find your local trainer now: https://www.apdt.co.uk/apdt-dog-trainer

13/05/2025

Looking forward to presenting my Rethinking Lead Walking webinar this evening to ATIs and APDT members this evening.

🚨 Spaces are still available—book now to secure your spot! 🚨

🐾✨ Join us for an eye-opening webinar: Rethinking Lead Walking with the incredible Jo Hinds! ✨🐾

With over 25 years of dog training expertise, Jo will challenge social media trends, explore the limitations of one-size-fits-all approaches, and share how tailored, behavioral-based strategies can set dogs and their owners up for long-term success.

🗓️ Date: 13th May 2025
🕖 Time: 7:00 PM
💷 Cost: £25 for non-members | £20 for APDT members

Book your place now: https://www.apdt.co.uk/event-details/rethinking-lead-walking

Don’t miss this opportunity to rethink your training approach and learn how to navigate lead walking challenges with confidence. Reserve your spot today!

09/05/2025

A gentle reminder as the temperatures rise:
Every dog has a different tolerance for heat, so it’s important to tune into what your dog can cope with and stick to this temperature guide.

Choose quieter, cooler times of day for walks, and where you can, stick to the shady side of the street and grassy areas. On hot days, focus on activities that keep them relaxed and cool.

Some dogs would chase a ball until they drop so it’s up to us to be their advocates and help them make good choices.

Let them rest, keep them safe, and enjoy the slower pace together.