Forbes Dog Training

11/07/2025

TOOLS IN DOG TRAINING
Like any trade, tools are important to be able to train a variety of dogs for specific purposes.

We are often asked if we use certain tools like prong collars, ecollars, harnesses, Halti’s and slip leads etc. Any decent dog trainer knows how to use these tools and more importantly when to use them to improve the training outcome.

Be wary of the cults within the dog training industry that try to make you feel guilty about using these tools, portraying them as cruel or barbaric.

Tools are inanimate objects, you can’t call them cruel. The person using them might be cruel but being cruel to animals isn’t going to get you very far as a dog trainer.

If you as an individual don’t want to use a particular piece of equipment, that’s fine, it’s a choice and your particular dog might not need them but spare a thought for the 7 Stone, 75 year old lady struggling with a 45Kg out of control dog.

If all dogs could be trained without tools, they wouldn’t exist and we would all be training without them.

Does that mean all dogs need to use them? No, all dogs are different and some dogs can be trained just fine without them. It also depends on what you want to achieve with your particular dog. Giving a high drive working breed hunting dog the freedom to run around in the countryside might need more tools than a low drive lap dog in the same environment.
https://www.forbesdogtraining.co.uk/training/dog-behaviour-modification

10/07/2025

ARE YOU BUILDING OR DESTROYING A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR DOG?
You probably believe that you have a healthy relationship with your dog, but what does your dog think? That is the question. Here are some things to consider:

1. Lying to your dog? How many times do you give commands? If it’s more than once, every other time is a lie. If your best friend told you that many lies, how would you feel?

2. If your dog has a fear of other dogs (many reactive dogs do) and you keep exposing your dog to their fear, you are destroying your relationship. That’s not how you overcome that fear (ask us for details about our reactive dog programme).

3. If your dog misbehaves in the house and you start shouting at your dog, this creates distrust in your relationship. Again, it destroys your relationship.

4. A lot of what we deem unwanted behaviours are just normal behaviours for dogs. However, in order for the dog to live in our world harmoniously, we need to implement rules, boundaries and structure in their lives. Implementing these creates respect, which improves your relationship.

5. You and your dog are a team, every team has a Captain, a leader. It’s best if you are the Captain, because if you allow your dog to be Captain, it’s going to destroy your relationship. Take responsibility for your team, which will improve your relationship.

6. Allowing your dog to interact with strangers or unknown dogs. It undermines you and your relationship with your dog. At best, it teaches your dog that other people and other dogs are better to interact with, than you. Teach your dog to listen to you in the presence of strangers and dogs, this will improve your relationship.

If you need help to improve the relationship with your dog, get in touch and ask for details about our services.
https://www.forbesdogtraining.co.uk/training/dog-behaviour-modification

07/07/2025

RULES & BOUNDARIES
Why do we keep banging on about rules and boundaries? It’s because we keep seeing the problems that occur when there is a lack of them in the dogs life.

If you have a dog with behaviour issues this is your starting point. Dogs do not make the best decisions as a general rule, so if you keep allowing them to make them, without any guidance, chances are it’s not going to end well.

What does it look like to implement meaningful rules and boundaries?

1. We don’t allow dogs to pull on the lead because to do so sends the wrong message to the dog, that they’re leading, no, they should be following.

2. Respect for thresholds - because if you allow your dog to bolt through doorways as soon as they’re open, again, it sends the wrong message to the dog. Again they are in that leading state of mind and making decisions that can get them and you in trouble.

3. Access to privileges - Some dogs need to have restricted access to prime spots like the sofa. This creates a healthy respect for the owner who gives access. If you allow your dog to have access without your permission it sends the wrong message to the dog and can lead to problems.

4. Following commands - If you give a command you must follow through with it. It has to happen! Are you someone your dog must listen to or are you someone who it’s ok to ignore? Again, if it’s the latter, you are sending the wrong message to your dog.

Each of these things on their own probably aren’t going to make a huge difference to your dog but if you implement all of them, in a very short period of time your dogs mindset will change towards you in a positive manner.

If you would like help to implement more rules and boundaries because you already have behaviour issues with your dog, get in touch and ask for details about our services.
https://www.forbesdogtraining.co.uk/training/dog-behaviour-modification

03/07/2025

SIMPLE COMMON SENSE DOG TRAINING
There is a lot of garbage information about dogs. It’s not easy to find sources of good, common sense information about dog training anywhere. We know, because we have been students of dog training for many years. We see the garbage that gets spouted.

Many people get a new dog with an enthusiasm to learn about training, only for that enthusiasm to be thwarted by wrong information. They start with good intentions but the training doesn’t work and they lose interest. This is such a shame and many of our clients tell us, they wish they found us earlier in their dogs life.

Good dog training is simple but if you don’t know, you don’t know. It also makes a lot of sense. When we explain why we do certain things, it all clicks into place, like a jigsaw. Good dog training isn’t complicated.

If you have had an unproductive experience of dog training in the past and would like to give it another go, get in touch. Ask us for details about our services, we would love to help you, help your dog to be the best version of themself possible.

We are professional dog trainers with a great reputation for handling dogs of all sizes and breeds. Contact us to learn how to train your dog.

01/07/2025

RULES & BOUNDARIES
This is a very important topic in dog training that the majority of dog owners don’t give the credit or attention it deserves. Many times, we see that it’s the dog that’s making the rules and boundaries.

Here are some examples:
Dog pulls on lead.
Dog barks at other dogs.
Dog jumps up on people.
Dog won’t recall from a more rewarding distraction.

These are a few of the more common ones we see on a regular basis. The dog is making all of these decisions, even although this is not what the owner wants. However, the owner is powerless to stop it because they don’t know how to communicate effectively with their dog.

It’s not all about training, it’s about understanding the psychology of the dog and making changes that are meaningful to your dog’s psyche. Changes that your dog understands clearly. Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is, “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

If you are ready to make the changes that you need to make, in order to get behaviour change in your dog, get in touch and ask for details about our services.
“We Train You To Train Your Dog!”
https://www.forbesdogtraining.co.uk/training/dog-behaviour-modification

30/06/2025

WHAT SHOULD DOGS EAT?
YOU should decide what your dog eats. Before you get a dog, you should do your own research and decide how you are going to feed your dog.

Your decision should be based on what is important to you, your budget, your preferences when it comes to things like raw verses kibble etc.

Your dog doesn’t get to decide! Obviously, if there’s a problem like, it makes your dog sick or it gives them constipation or Diarrhea or some other health issue, you would have to change the food. However, your dog deciding they don’t fancy it, at that moment in time isn’t a reason to change it.

Your job is to give your dog the opportunity to eat, you cannot make your dog eat. It is good practice to offer a prescribed amount of food for a short window of time (no more than 15 min) at specific feeding times. If the dog doesn’t eat within the 15 minute window, the food goes away until the next feeding time. This is good practice. If your dog goes without food for longer than 48hrs, then a trip to the vet is advised.

Free feeding (making food available for longer periods of time throughout the day) can lead to fussy eaters and over eating. Not only that, if you want to use your dogs food for training, it can absolutely kill food drive. This makes training with food very difficult, if not impossible.

If you need help to build food drive in your dog, so that you can use food to motivate your dog in training, get in touch and ask for details about our services.
https://www.forbesdogtraining.co.uk/training/dog-obedience-training

29/06/2025

HOW DOGS LEARN WITH CLASSICAL CONDITIONING.
Many people make the mistake of allowing their dogs to classically condition themselves to bark at the doorbell. Some people are happy with that response but for others it’s an unwanted behaviour.

As a family, we decided that the response we wanted from Skye when the doorbell rings, is for her to go to her bed. We classically conditioned it. We can now go to the door unhindered and unflustered.

This process of linking a certain behaviour to a certain sound is called classical conditioning in scientific terms. It is a phenomenon that is credited to a Russian physicist called Ivan Pavlov who first published his research of it in 1897.

We prefer to call this phenomenon, associative learning, as it’s easier to understand. Once you understand the theories of how dogs learn, you are on the path to training your dog.

We use the science of how dogs learn, to train dogs. If you would like to learn more about this subject, so that you can train your own dog, get in touch and ask for details about our services.https://www.forbesdogtraining.co.uk/training/dog-behaviour-modification

28/06/2025

FUNCTIONAL OBEDIENCE
We see a lot of dog trainers showing their dogs that have been trained to perform competition style obedience. That’s great if you are looking for that sort of thing, if you are, they’re the trainers for you.

Whilst we have a background of training this style of obedience, we no longer compete in dog sports. We also haven’t had many requests from customers to train this style of obedience.

Skye is our family pet dog, a Working Cocker Spaniel, that is trained to be functionally obedient in specific behaviours that serve us functionally. It’s not intended to look flashy or impressive, it’s intended to be functional for us.

This is what most of our clients want from their dogs and we have therefore concentrated our efforts on perfecting this style of training.

If you are looking for a more functional obedience standard for your dog, get in touch and ask for details about our services.
https://www.forbesdogtraining.co.uk/training/dog-obedience-training

27/06/2025

SHADOW PROGRAMME
Matt has been shadowing Steve all of this week, following up from his previous training where he spent single days watching and working with Steve.

Matt is fully committed to a career in dog training, he has already completed a number of dog training and behaviour courses. He continues to build on his theoretical and practical knowledge with more courses. This week being the latest of an ever growing list of practical experiences of learning from different styles of dog training.

Matt intends to start his own dog training business in the Swadlincote/Derby area. He feels ready now to embark on this new career after 15 years in the Army as a Gunner in the Artillery.

Although Matt has enough knowledge and practical experience to be able to offer his services as a Dog Trainer and Behaviourist, the training never stops. Matt has the dog training bug now and is committed to being the best dog trainer he can be by continuing to be a student of dog training.

Like us, Matt is in agreement that no one knows it all and things change and evolve with time. It’s important therefore, to keep up with improvements to training methods as it continues to evolve.

We wish Matt the best of luck with his dog training venture and offer our support along the way whenever he feels we could help. All the best Matt, you’ll smash it! 🥊

If you are interested in our shadow programme, get in touch and ask for details. Whether you’re a dog walker looking to learn a bit more about training or you just want to learn more about dog training, this is for you!
https://www.forbesdogtraining.co.uk/

25/06/2025

So many people believe that you can train any dog using positive reinforcement only. It simply isn’t true!

I wish it was true, if it were, we’d all be doing it, trust me, but unfortunately we don’t make the rules, the dogs do!

19/06/2025

PUPPY SESSIONS
In our puppy sessions we show you how to get started down the path of bringing up a happy, content, well socialised, obedient and well balanced dog.

Meeting the dogs needs is necessary to consider at all stages of your dogs life. An area of this that people tend to struggle with, is the physical and mental needs. It’s important to find an activity that is appropriate for your dog, depending on breed/character/drives.

If you’re relying on lead walking as your sole source of meeting these needs, it very often isn’t enough, particularly for high drive puppies and dogs.

Crate training is also an important part of our puppy training programme, teaching them to go in and come out on command is where it starts. If you think you don’t need a crate for your puppy, think again! Most behaviour issues later in the dogs life could easily be prevented by using a crate. When trained properly, puppies love their crate. We can also teach older dogs to love it too.

If you would like some help to get you and your puppy on the right path, get in touch and ask for details about our puppy programme.https://www.forbesdogtraining.co.uk/training/puppy-training