Parker and Pooch - Dog Training & Solo Walks

19/09/2025

Would it be so hard to just look at me both at the same time 🤷‍♀️

15/09/2025

Things we've learnt on our French road trip so far:

⚓️ Alice isn't a big fan of ferry travel (we haven't broken it to her yet that it’s a return trip 😭)

🧀 There’s no such thing as too much cheese

🍷 Staying overnight for free at a vineyard can be a false economy depending on how much wine you buy

🏞🏰 France is beautiful… they do a strong line in medieval villages with big castles on top of cliffs, plus hilly hills and views that go on forever

And as predicted, our most used french phrase is not related to asking for campsite pitches or ordering coffee and cake, but: “Je ne sais pas, elle a perdu sa jambe avant de venir vivre chez nous” 🐕

03/09/2025

This photo was taken nine years ago to the very day, on our first ever van trip with the fluffy one, a couple of months after we'd started fostering her 😍

Fun fact: she growled at us when we got into bed that first night, cos she'd had the bed all to herself on the drive up to the Lakes, and wrongly assumed there wouldn't be any need for sharing 🙈

Nearly a decade later, the three of us are off to France for four weeks to make some more memories, hopefully with less growls and more pain au chocolat 🤣

So there might be some random ramblings on here about life in a van with a dog, or life in France with a dog. There’ll probably be some gratuitous shots of mountains, beaches and/or some terrible selfies featuring our smiley faces and glasses of wine. Or it might just be radio silence for the next month, who knows 🤷‍♀️

What I do know is that we'll be eating our own body weight in bread and cheese, while we attempt to make it to the Pyrenees and back in one piece, massacring the French language as we go. On that note… au revoir et à bientôt 🇫🇷

02/09/2025

You know you want to....

🐾 Mantrailing: The Ultimate Canine Adventure! 🐾
…and there’s just ONE space left on our last Introduction to Mantrailing workshop of the year! 🚨🎉

When it comes to scent work, it doesn’t get more thrilling than this. Mantrailing is the doggy equivalent of a thriller movie – full of excitement, challenge, and nose-led action. Your dog gets to track down a missing person using nothing but their incredible sense of smell. 🔍👃

💥 Why dogs LOVE it (and humans do too):
✅ All breeds, all ages – from teeny pups to golden oldies
✅ Reactive or shy? No problem – dogs work one at a time
✅ Mental & physical workout = the best kind of tired
✅ Confidence skyrockets after just one trail
✅ No training needed – just a harness, line, and snacks
✅ Sociable for humans (even if your dog isn’t!)

🌟 As voted by our four-legged participants: Mantrailing is the most exciting scent sport of all!
(Tail wags don’t lie.)

✨ This is your LAST chance this year to get started. Once this final space is gone – it’s really gone.

🔥 Past intros have sold out fast and the dogs are already sniffing at the door!
🌱 Once you're in, you’ll unlock access to exclusive progression trails – where skills sharpen, confidence grows, and your bond with your dog reaches next-level.
💬 "I can’t believe how much my dog loved it!" – said by literally every new trailer ever.

🎟️ Snag the final spot before someone else does: https://www.itsallaboutthedog.co.uk/mantrailing
(We guarantee your dog will thank you.)

27/08/2025

It's been the season for dog shows and sunny beer gardens hasn't it

And that can be bittersweet for those of us who share our lives with dogs that struggle in those sorts of situations… maybe you had a previous dog who was bombproof - you could take them anywhere, do anything. Or maybe this is your first dog, and you imagined taking them with you on cafe visits, lazy afternoons in the pub, or a dog show or two.

But the reality is - you don’t take your dog with you to the dog show, or the pub. Or anywhere else there'll be other dogs.

And you feel guilty for leaving them at home, when it feels like literally every man and his dog is out and about, enjoying the sunshine without a care in the world.

(We took Alice to a dog show once. She won Best Rescue. Of course she did, she was a rescue, and she's the best 😍‌ In hindsight, she didn't enjoy it much at all though. Loads of dogs and loads of people... who knew that would be a terrible idea 🤷‍♀️‌)

Can I let you into a little secret? One that you can spot for yourself if you spend some time watching the dogs in the cafes and the beer gardens. An awful lot of the dogs I see aren’t enjoying themselves much at all either.

We went for a drink on bank holiday Monday afternoon. Okay two drinks.

The first place was crowded and busy and loud, and there were at least five dogs there. There was a LOT of barking. None of them were remotely relaxed or settled. I saw one dog air snap at another when he got too close. The only dog who looked comfortable was the one who was off-lead and free to move around, which included wandering around harassing the other dogs and wandering outside next to the main road. So you can pass your own judgement on that. We did 🙈

The second place was much quieter, lots of people sat outside but lots of space between the tables. There was just one dog there, a chilled out spaniel, laid on his side, asleep. He got up every so often, checked that his humans were still there, and then because the lead was long enough without him being in the way of anyone, he found a new spot to doze in for the next five minutes. And repeat.

I still bet he’d rather have been at home though.

And of course, I know - there are dogs that struggle to be left alone, and for them, being in a pub, busy or otherwise, might be the lesser of two evils.

But for those of you that leave them at home? Ditch the guilt... your dogs are the lucky ones 💕 The ones whose humans are fully aware of what their doggos need and what they don’t.

[one of my favourite pics of Alice in her happy place - which isn’t a crowded beer garden or a cafe ❤️]

20/08/2025

It turns out you CAN teach an old dog new(ish) tricks…

We went mantrailing last weekend with the wonderful Jo at It's All About The Dog

For those of you who don't know, mantrailing is a dog sport - tapping into our dogs’ superdooper noses and their amazing sense of smell to teach them to find people, by following the person’s unique scent trail. Kind of like search and rescue for pet dogs - but way more fun than that sounds 🤩

Me and Alice did a few sessions about three years ago, but hadn't done anything since - so not entirely new tricks, but definitely very dusty ones 🤣

And other than getting a little bit distracted hunting in the long grass a few times, and needing a couple of reminders that she was meant to be searching for a missing person, not furry critters 🙈 she mostly nailed it 🥳

I recommend mantrailing to lots of my training clients. It's a brilliant activity for pretty much every dog regardless of breed, age, ability etc. As an example, at our session on Sunday we had: an english bulldog, a cocker spaniel, a labrador, as well as our fluffy little Heinz 57, with ages ranging from 10 months to 12 years, and of course varying numbers of legs 🥰

The reason I recommend mantrailing to so many clients is that it’s great for so many reasons:

⭐️ Excitable dogs… it harnesses some of that pent up energy as a force for good not evil 🤣

⭐️ Nervous, anxious, or fearful dogs… a brilliant confidence builder

⭐️ Frustrated dogs… gradually building up the trail difficulty supports them to increase their ability to cope with manageable doses of frustration as they’re searching for the scent, which translates to being better equipped to deal with frustration in other situations too

⭐️ Dogs that can get barky and lungy with other dogs for any reason… while it’s a group session, the dogs are worked individually while the other dogs wait in cars, so the perfect activity for dogs that struggle to be around other dogs, while their owners still get the chance to be sociable for a change

⭐️ Dogs that are worried by strangers… you can start off using a friend or family member as the missing person, then progress to people who aren’t in their inner circle. I know of so many dogs who are classed as “people-reactive” who have absolutely thrived doing mantrailing, some of them to the extent that their reactivity has massively improved overall, not just in the context of mantrailing

⭐️ Dogs with mobility issues… trails can be tailored to the individual dog, and individual person - so trail length and terrain can be adapted to whatever suits you and your dog

⭐️ And if you’re struggling with your dog in any way shape or form… taking some time out away from the issues, and just enjoying a zero-pressure activity with your dog in the great outdoors? Well it's just good for the soul ❤️ Especially an activity where you get to watch them aceing something (because every dog will pick it up, I can guarantee that - if Madam Couldn't Give A Crap About Training can do it - any dog can 🥰)

If you’re local to Tod, I can highly recommend Jo and Helen at It's All About The Dog and Wainwright’s Canine Academy On the off chance you're anywhere near Bedford, a shout out to the lovely Di at Paws 4 Trails Mantrailing And for anyone else, I will pop a link in the comments to the Mantrailing Global website so you can find your nearest instructor

If you haven’t tried it, or even heard of it - go check it out. And if you have tried it and you love it - tell me why you love it so much 😍

07/08/2025

Dogs aren't manipulative.

They aren’t vindictive.

And they aren’t doing things just to p**s you off.

Don't get me wrong, they might still be doing your absolute head in. But they're still none of those things.

It's a slippery slope I think, as soon as we start assigning emotive human motivations to dogs.‌

And it's not like we’re always the best at assigning motivations and emotions to human actions, so why would we think we’d be better at dogs? 🤷‍♀️‌

A guy in a BMW cuts you up. He’s automatically rude and arrogant.

Or is he?

Is his mind elsewhere - has his dad had a fall and ended up in hospital, or has his daughter been excluded from school and he’s worried about what’s going to happen next…

He might have been a bad driver in that moment, but that doesn’t make him a bad person.‌

When our dogs do things like…

❌️ run off when we call them, or worse run back, do a fly-by and then run off again

❌️ pull on the lead to get to other dogs or the best sniffs, even though we’ve spent what feels forever trying to teach them to walk nicely on the lead

❌️ chew our shoes rather than the tasty chews we’ve left out for them

❌️ jump up at us or other people, even though we’ve told them no and gently pushed them back down

❌️ whine and whine and whine to get our attention, mostly when we’re desperately busy to get a report finished on time or on a zoom call with our very important boss

They’re not being bad dogs and they're not doing it to wind us up. Even if it might feel like it.‌

They're usually just doing what works.

I often say that dogs actually aren't that clever. They just learn what works, and they do it again.‌ And if it works again, they do it again.

Which is exactly how we teach stuff purposefully to our dogs, when we reward them for doing what we ask.

It’s just that they’re learning all the time … so even when we don’t think we’re training them, we are.

They’ve learnt that:

⭐️ when the human calls them, they can turn it into a fun seemingly never-ending game of chase by not ever getting close enough to have that boring lead back on.

⭐️ if they pull hard enough, the human will follow them. So if they keep on pulling, they can get to what they want.

⭐️ what they really enjoy is the sensation of chewing fabric, so why would a boring very tough chew be more preferable, even if it does have a nice stinky smell to it.

⭐️ jumping up always gets rewarded with physical and verbal attention - a little bit pushy with the hands, and the the human is saying that “no” word rather than the “good boy” one - but attention nonetheless

⭐️ if they keep pestering, the human will eventually cave and fuss them or get them something to do to keep them quiet. They become world-class mitherers, because persistence pays off.


I generally go to bed before Chris, and at our old house which wasn’t open plan, I used to shut the lounge door so the noise of the telly didn’t keep me awake.

Alice is usually second to bed, and so she quickly learnt that if she wanted to come up and join me, if she got up and stood by the door then Chris would open it and she could go upstairs.

But after a while, she figured out that if she wanted to go to sleep on the sofa, and Chris was sitting in “her” seat… when she stood by the door and Chris got up to open it, she could move back past him and reclaim her rightful seat 🤣❤️

She wasn’t being manipulative, she wasn’t trying to take over the world. She just learnt how to get what she wanted.

She learnt what worked.

If you want some help figuring out how to help your dog learn what YOU want them to learn, then message Alice. No wait - message me, and let’s get you started 🤩

05/08/2025

It was little and large dog training at its most extreme last week: first sessions for toy poodle Bobby and deerhound x greyhound Daisy ... size does matter but it also doesn't. Whatever size or shape dog, the most important thing for me is meeting them where they're at - whether that's a wee little puppy who's just starting to learn how the world works, or a teenage tearaway who’s finding that world a frustrating place to be right now - they both need to be heard, to be understood, and to be given the chance (and some help) to make good choices ❤️

[stock photos of toy poodle pup and deerhound lurcher, because I don’t ever think of taking photos during training sessions 🙈 - but believe me when I say that both of them are even cuter than these pics 😍]

01/08/2025

Today is one of my favourite days of the year: it's officially the end of nesting season up on the moors, which means dogs don't have to be on leads on open access moorland 🥳

Most of my walking doggos still won’t be roaming free though. Some of them can't be trusted 🙈 (you know who you are 🤣) And even for the ones that can, we often walk on sheepy land, as it's one of the best ways I know of avoiding other off-lead dogs.

Which means long line time… I love a long line - it gives a dog freedom to run, to explore, to choose which way to go, to just be a dog ❤️ While still keeping them and other living beings safe 🥰

They need to be handled with care though, and they're not right for all dogs in all situations - I was going to write a whole post about long lines, and then I remembered that awesome fellow local dog trainer, the lovely Gemma at Wutheringhounds, did just that the other week 🤩 So have a read of this for an excellent write-up of the pros and cons of long lines:

On last nights connection webinar we discussed the 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙡𝙤𝙣𝙜 𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙨. So I thought I’d do a post about it as some people may find it useful.

A long line is a long fixed ( not extendable ) lead. It should be used in conjunction with a harness. It allows your dog more freedom whilst you are training them to be responsive to your cues/commands outside. They are great tools but they have many downsides too, and it’s important to be aware of these should you have to use one or choose to put your dog on one whilst training.

𝙋𝙍𝙊𝙎

✅ It is a great tool when teaching recall. Some owners may be worried about letting their dog off the lead straight away, so a long line can provide a safety net and confidence whilst cues are being established and proofed to various distractions.

✅It can be great for preventing unwanted behaviours becoming established in young dogs- chasing behaviours, running over to other dogs and people etc.

✅ They can be used for older dogs who have learnt to bog off as soon as the lead is removed. Disconnecting as soon as the lead is removed is something we really don’t want, especially with working breeds who can learn that the environment is so reinforcing. If a dog has learnt that the environment is fun, a long line may be required to keep them close in order for training to happen. You can’t train a dog that is 3 fields away!

✅ They are great for safety. An out of control dog is not a safe one, so whilst behaviours are established a long lead can be helpful in some cases. A good example of when I used a long line for safety reasons whilst training my own dog…. Newt was frightened of traffic, I wanted to make the traffic less scary but food just wasn’t cutting it. There was a patch of grass near a quiet ish road near me. We went daily and played hunting games on that patch of grass. This built Newts confidence around traffic noises as hunting is her favourite thing to do and I paired the sound of traffic with something she loves. It simply wouldn’t have been safe to do this activity off lead when she was so young.

✅In instances where you cannot manage the environment as well as you’d like, a long line can be useful.

𝘾𝙊𝙉𝙎

✅ People can sometimes get complacent when their dog is attached to a long line. We know they are safe and they’re not going anywhere so we might rest on our laurels a bit and not be as engaging and interesting ( people generally try harder when their dog is free!). If you want to work towards a great connection and the end goal of the long line being removed it’s important that you train your dog that is attached to the line in the same manner you would if they were free!

✅ Environmental management is still so important even if your dog is attached to a long lead. As above, if your end goal is to work on getting a great connection and a good response to cues, you still need to work in an environment and around distractions that are conducive to your training goals.

✅ If you don’t manage your environment appropriately this can result in frustration. In a high distraction environment that your dog is not ready for, you will likely get frustration. As discussed in the webinar last night, with these working line gundogs we don’t want to constantly be the person who prevents them from doing the things that their genetics are telling them to do. The long line can work as that barrier that prevents these things if we don’t work at a level that our dogs can manage. This can be relationship damaging, and incredibly frustrating for both your dog, and you. Work with their genetics, not against them!

✅ Dogs can sometimes become what is known as long line savvy. This generally happens when owners sometimes put the long line on and sometimes don’t. Dogs can quickly learn that the same rules don’t apply when they are fully free. When using a long line with your dog it is best to keep the line on and be consistent until you worked through the issues you’re having. Dogs can be weaned off long lines gradually for those that have become savvy, but it prolongs the process compared to a dog that has had consistency.

✅ It can be difficult managing dogs on long lines properly in regards to entanglement and also risk of injury. You can go online and google correct long line management and you will find correct techniques that will minimise risk of injury to yourself or your dog. But it can be hard work having a busy dog that likes to dive into cover, or to train hunting whilst a line is attached, but sometimes the difficulty out weighs the negatives.

The end goal for the vast majority of dogs will be that the line is temporary whilst training is put in place. How long a long line may be required will be individual to each dog, and often depends on their life experiences and previous learning. Long lines are great tools, and are invaluable for management in some cases but there are things to be mindful of if you have to use one, or choose to use one as discussed above.

𝘿𝙄𝙎𝘾𝙇𝘼𝙄𝙈𝙀𝙍: I couldn’t find a long line picture, so here’s one of a young Badger with his lips stuck on his teefs 😬

29/07/2025

When I stopped walking the legend that is Layla Dog a few months ago, her lovely human Fran gave me a card with some very kind words inside and a very healthy looking houseplant.

(Side note: me and Fran are very much on the same wavelength... she sellotaped the card to the plant pot when she left them out for me. My overthinking brain was very appreciative of that, so I didn't have to worry about whether I was actually just stealing her favourite plant that happened to be sitting on the kitchen table propping up the envelope 🙈)

She said she hoped I like plants. And I told her I do, but I'm not gonna lie, I'm better with dogs.

My approach to caring for plants is one of feast and famine. Or rather famine and feast.

Step 1: Never remember to water for weeks. Possibly months.

Step 2: Realise it's a near-drought situation, but somehow still forget to get round to watering it.

Step 3: Finally action stations - water it every day for a week in desperate hope of keeping it alive but actually just nearly drown it instead. Sort of waterboarding for plants if you will. Kind of.

Step 4: Realise I've managed to near-simultaneously both under-water and over-water it. Arguably a skill in itself.

I know you're wondering how I can bring the topic of waterboarding back to dog training. But I can. And I will.

I never set my training clients tonnes of stuff to do between sessions. (And I try to stop myself from calling it homework, because who wants homework - except teachers and ex-teachers, who it turns out love the stuff 🤷‍♀️)

Because tonnes of stuff to do is over-watering. It's too much for the human and it's too much for the dog. It's too much for the soil and it's too much for the plant. The human gets bogged down in everything, just like the soil. And the dog wilts with the effort of it all. (Just let me know if I'm milking the analogy too much 🤣)

But nothing to do between sessions is just as bad in a different way: not practising skills is not the way to make progress. Just like not watering plants is not the way to keep them alive.

So as it turns out, the goldilocks formula for both watering plants and dog training is little and often.

Every day, grab 5 or 10 treats, practise something new or something that needs sharpening up. Done.

(And keep little pots of treats round the house and/or get yourself a treat pouch for walks, so you always have rewards to hand)

And meanwhile Fran, I promise I will do my best to salvage the plant situation 🙈 I did tell you I was better with dogs…

24/07/2025

If you could go back in time - what's one thing you wish you'd known when your dog first came into your life, or when you first started encountering issues?

I'll go first. I mean I can think of tonnes, but here's just one...

Back in the day, when Alice started growling at dogs that we walked past, rather than playing “Growl or No Growl” (true story… please don’t judge us 🙏) and gradually realising there was no point playing anymore as it was all Growls and no No Growls 🙈 - I wish I’d known that she was scared and felt trapped on the lead.

And I feel a bit stupid saying that. Because it seems so obvious to me now. But that's the point isn't it, you don't know what you don't know 🤷‍♀️ And that's ok. Maya Angelou may or may not have said it, but the point still stands: “Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, you do better.” 🥰

So how about you? What do you know now that you wish you'd known then?

[back in the day photo from 2018 - not much has changed: I had shorter hair, she’s still staring longingly off into the distance 🤣]

22/07/2025

Our little monster (affectionately known as, due to her mouse eating habit 🤮) is definitely slowing down these days, 9+ years with only three legs has well and truly caught up with her. Although not that you'd know it when she catches the scent of a deer / squirrel / rabbit / pheasant / hedgehog 🙈

And thinking on it has put me in a reflective mood.

I'm not going to lie, sometimes I get jealous when I hear how other people describe their relationship with their dog(s): they're excited to see them when they get home, they enjoy cuddling up with their humans, they comfort them when they're upset or not feeling 100%.

Whereas a lot of the time I don't feel that we have much of a connection at all with Alice, even after all these years.

She’s as independent as they come, she's always kept herself to herself (although some of that we know now was pain related).

Outside the house she is way too interested in sniffs and wildlife for anything like eye contact or interaction most of the time.

She'll still make a dart for an open doorway, the call of the wild is strong. We half joke that she'd be happiest if we released her up on the moors, where she could live out her days hunting little critters, without all the trappings of ‘pet ownership’.

And yet...

Sometimes she'll choose to lie with her nose or her head pressed into my leg. She doesn't want any more physical contact than that, she doesn't want to be stroked - but she wants to be near, just on her own terms.

I know her inside and out.

I know that a single cheek puff means she can just about cope with the dog coming towards us but really she'd like a little more space.

Or the briefest of glances up at me means she just needs a bit of verbal reassurance.

I can tell from her coat swirls and how she holds her ears as to whether her hind muscles are tight and if we need to take it easy for a couple of days.

And while I'm not 100% fluent in her howly growly chat, I can have a pretty good stab at what she's saying (mostly that it's tea time).

So we do have a bond, me and my beautiful girl.

Not in an overly obvious shout it from the rooftops kind of way. But instead a more subtle gentle connection, that in fact I think I'm all the luckier for ❤️