Rachel Forday - Dog At Heart

31/07/2025

It’s hard to take a step out of your home in Singapore without seeing a notice, banner, or sign that is a threat of punishment. Till this day, we also still have the death penalty in Singapore, which disproportionately impacts marginalised people in our society.

So it’s no wonder we think it’s impossible to live outside of punishment.

But while no one is immune to the pervasiveness of punishment culture, it doesn’t mean we can’t challenge this and change our way of being.

We can work towards a world without punishment, where we repair harm, engage in restorative care, meet people’s needs, invest in and build real community with ourselves and each other, and still be safe at the same time.

Starting with our dogs, we can refrain from punishment and aversives, we can meet our dogs’ needs, we can help our dogs’ feel safe, and be in community with them by understanding them and appreciating all of their “dogginess” and sentience.

Much like the notices and signs we see in Singapore, punishment and aversive dog training is about control over another being. And is that really the relationship we want with the ones we call our “best friends”, our “babies”, our “family”?

Consider this a simple example: Many of us probably did better in classes in school where our teachers were kind, thoughtful, and understanding as we felt more motivated and safer in our learning process. This goes for our dogs too.

But I’d like us to also go beyond just thinking about teaching and training dogs, because dogs are often our teachers too. And as sentient beings we brought into our lives, our dogs’ feelings, needs, and overall wellbeing need to be considered.

Challenging the pervasive nature of punishment culture and our own conditioning can certainly be uncomfortable and difficult, but we have to actively keep pushing and learning for our dogs, the beings we say we love and for the world around us.

The work of moving away from punishment culture through restorative care and transformative justice has already begun in Singapore. Please consider following folks like , .sg, , , and to learn more.

26/07/2025

I was incredibly fortunate that my first time ever really being around and working with dogs was where I learned to be force-free and use positive reinforcement.

Despite personally never growing up around dogs, never watching anything like Cesar Millan, I still highly questioned at the time whether positive reinforcement and force-free training could be effective.

Because everything around me has always been about punishment and coercion. It was the default, so how could there be another way?

But I stayed open-minded. Despite my initial doubts, I learned and stuck with it, and saw first hand how we were indeed effectively helping even reactive shelter dogs in a difficult environment through positive reinforcement.

Today, there’s also so much that I have unlearned from what I learned back then. There’s so much that I no longer do, such as turning my back on jumping dogs, asking dogs to sit on slippery flooring, and using restrictive harnesses.

And it’s because I stayed open-minded to realise there are better, kinder, more ethical ways to work with dogs.

It’s interesting to me how we often get told we’re “extremists” when we advocate for more humane and ethical care for dogs and when we change what we have previously learned and done when we acquire new information on better ways to collaborate with dogs.

Somehow for some it is only “open-mindedness” when we go backwards and accept the status quo, but “extremist” to push for more ethical and humane dog care.

There is nothing to be open to with using pain, discomfort, and fear in the name of training. There is nothing to be open to with views about dogs rooted in colonial and capitalist values, and coercion.

But questioning and changing what we’ve learned and currently do for more humane and ethical care is what actually requires us to be open-minded and to go against societal conditioning.

11/07/2025

10/07/2025

Because colonialism is so centred around ownership, control, exploitation, and having dominion over others, the idea of giving a dog more agency can only sound like “Your dog should dominate you, walk all over you, and be completely out of control” to those with colonial mindsets (and that includes a lot of binary thinking).

But we know dogs are not hierarchical beings, we know dogs are more collaborative than we give them credit for, we know dogs are not here to serve us, and we know we can be in community with our dogs.

So we also know that dogs having more agency in their lives as just a right they deserve to have as sentient beings on this earth.

Yes, we live in a human-centric world and some of our dogs’ choices may be limited at times for their safety, but because we recognise this reality, we can actively choose to give our dogs more agency whenever it is safe. And the way we can think about it can be like the way we think about how we are with people we’re in community with, because we all need help to be safe and feel safe from time to time too.

A dog being able to communicate their needs and wants, express how they feel, move comfortably and freely, engage in natural behaviours, and tell us “no” or that they need a moment, is not the downfall of humanity or leading to dogs taking over the world. Dogs don’t have colonial mindsets.

If anything, a dog who has more agency and knows their needs will be heard is more likely to engage with us and learn with us because they feel safe in their relationship with us.

Agency is a basic need, a basic right, and an important part of a sentient animal’s wellbeing.

Enjoy being in community with your dog, enjoy your dog having fun doing what they enjoy, and enjoy your “ungovernable” dog like I do mine.

ID: The background photo is of Dave, a brown Singapore Special dog with pointy ears, standing off leash on the beach and looking out to the other side of the beach across the stream. The text here says “Colonial mindsets are based on ownership, exploitation, and binary thinking. That’s why when people hear ‘Dogs deserve more agency’, they can only imagine ‘Your dog is going to dominate you and run wild’”.

07/02/2025

People often tell me how cool Dave is and how fit he is for his age.

The great thing is that Dave was a shelter dog, and you can find dogs who are cool and fit like Dave in a shelter too. There are many even more sociable than him too (but I love my independent little man just as he is).

Most dogs in shelters are there due to poverty and the violence of capitalism, not because of behavioural issues. Their current circumstance does not equate to them being “genetic messes”.

Some shelter dogs, like Dave, are also former free living dogs, not selectively bred by people and are genetically diverse. Some free living dogs are incredibly social, and some may not be, just like all individuals.

While some shelter dogs may display challenging behaviours, ANY dog can too, and the inherently stressful shelter environment they are in often plays a part in this.

Having struggles and displaying behaviours people might label as fearful or reactive in certain situations is not unique to shelter dogs. Any dog, including ones from established breeders, can experience this.

Any dog, shelter dogs and dogs from breeders alike, can also experience pain which can result in displays of concerning behaviours.

There are simply no guarantees when it comes to a living sentient being’s behaviour.

This claim that shelter dogs are “genetic messes” is also harmful to dogs from breeders and guardians who obtained their dog from a breeder, as the stigmatisation of shelter dogs means people have their expectations of dogs from established breeders to be “perfect” and they feel shame or disappointment when their dog develops any behaviour challenges.

At the same time, there are also purebred dogs from established breeders who, due to the standards of the breed, may have more health and pain conditions.

There is a real issue in the way many dog training and behaviour professionals, including in the R+ and force-free side of things, talk about and treat shelter dogs and how often the people who speak negatively about shelter dogs are platformed. It’s incredibly harmful to already disadvantaged dogs.

And honestly, it is sounding eugenics-adjacent at this point. Shelter dogs deserve better.

ID: The text on top says “When people claim ‘All shelter dogs are genetic messes!’” and the text under this in black says “Me:” referring to the image below. The image is a screenshot of the Nickleback “Photograph” music video where the singer holds up a photoframe but this time it’s Dave, a brown Singapore Special dog with pointy ears standing on a stacking board, in that photoframe.

01/02/2025

In the days ahead, we will probably either see animal training and behaviour organisations reiterate their DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) statements or quietly stop doing anything to do with DEI, if they haven’t already stopped ages ago.

This is a reminder that DEI is only the basic, bare minimum starting point, and that not one organisation in our field has even successfully implemented this.

The lack of accessibility, lack of mask-wearing at in-person events, platforming only the same BIPGM professionals who will coddle whiteness, prioritising protecting “industry leaders” and famous people no matter the harm they cause to dogs and people… the list goes on.

Pay attention to “industry leaders” who are making statements now about being a “safe space” but who have never said a word about Palestine, Sudan, Congo, or Tigray.

Many of us have moved beyond DEI and we have been working towards decolonisation and collective liberation, which is urgently needed right now.

These organisations do not move us forward. They keep us stuck in mediocrity, and that is both when it comes to anti-oppression AND animal behaviour considering the lack of pain awareness with any of these organisations and institutions.

I am grateful to always be learning from my peers in this industry who care about collective liberation and the whole wellbeing of dogs. I love that we can keep improving and changing what we do when we learn to do better.

If you’re starting out as a dog trainer or are thinking about starting out, I can no longer in good conscience recommend any large, well-known institutions and organisations to go to. But there are still lots of great, accessible resources as well as many amazing professionals out there to learn from and I’ll regularly share them to my IG stories.

A future that is force-free requires us to interrogate all of punishment culture. Learning about and working towards decolonisation, collective liberation, and restorative justice will get us there and guide us to provide better care for animals and people.

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