Bright Animal Training

01/12/2025

On a training/behaviour group I'm in, an inside dog is left alone outside for 14 hours(!) due to work shifts & it barks a lot (well of course it will!). The advice repeatedly given is to use a bark/e-collar to shock the dog every time it barks. Absolutely shocking & completely unacceptable!

30/11/2025

Sharing with permission of a client- names have been changed for privacy.

Gracie came to me after having problems with her horse Benji displaying undesirable behaviour at the gate- whenever she came to get Benji in from the field he would rush and sometimes become aggressive towards any of the other horses around him. Gracie felt unsafe bringing her horse in, and was worried about the welfare of other horses and people who might find themselves involved in the situation.

When I went to meet Gracie and Benji I spent our session thoroughly taking note of Benji's history, discussing his managment and routine. Benji was out in a paddock with friends, but no hay was supplemented due to yard rules- the owners felt their horses had grass to eat and that the over-grazed field worked to their advantage as it meant their horses wouldn't become fat. Benji was brought in daily to a hay net and a feed, then stabled overnight until the next morning when he was turned out again.

From gathering information about Benji's daily life I concluded that the undesirable behaviour happening at the gate was most likely linked to Benji being brought in to food- this is something I see often. The issue wasn't his hay net and feed in the stable, something I would encourage, but was the lack of forage in the field. Once turned out Benji was hungry due to the lack of forage available, and so coming into his stable where food would be waiting became extremely high value to him, hence the rushing at the gate to get inside where he could eat. The aggression towards other horses at the gate was resource guarding behaviour- Benji felt he needed to warn the other horses away from Gracie to ensure she was able to bring him in to the food as she did each day.

Benji was seen by a vet and was ulcery which we all agreed was probably from the lack of forage and stress related to food. He was treated, and scoped clear. He was also moved homes to a friendly yard that allowed forage out in the field.

Benji was still happy to come in for his feed, but no longer waited anxiously at the gate all day for Gracie to arrive. He now comes in calmly and doesn't feel any need to rush in to his stable.

29/11/2025

'My horse is nappy, plants and won't go forwards, rears and bolts the other way'

What might this behaviour mean and what can you do about it?

Behaviour commonly known as napping (where horses refuse to go forwards, become stressed and try to turn around, plant, sometimes even rear, buck and bolt) has several causes.

I hear many owners refer to a napping horse as naughty, disrespectful, and rude among other things- but these are labels we use and concepts our horses don't really understand.

The truth is, a napping horse is stressed in some way. This could be pain, anxiety, distress, lack of confidence....and can be occuring for so many reasons. If a horse isn't going forwards when we ask, it's usually because they feel as though they can't- the consequences for their 'no' are often not very nice for them, so they must feel as though they're really unable to respond when this happens.

So what can we as owners do about this?
When napping occurs owners often resort to punishment and coercion- the horse isn't doing what we want so we try to force them to, either because we simply want them to or because we falsely believe that they're being disrespectful. We might kick then on roughly, tug on their mouths, smack them with a whip or shout at them- all things that aren't very nice if you think about it for a moment, and that should probably make us realise faster than we do that they're not simply saying no just because they don't want to.

Instead we should alow down. Consider what is making them feel as though they can't, and respond accordingly. This could be booking them in for a vet exam, noticing a trigger or something they're afraid of about the situation, going back to basics and building more confidence together in the saddle or on the ground. It could be asking for help, which is often one of the best things you can do, and getting the help of a kind, ethical professional.

Horses don't say no for no reason, particularly not when us humans are often not very nice to them as a result, and it's our job to take a pause for a moment and work out why they feel as though they can't do something and to kindly spend the time helping them out.

28/11/2025

Yes, this! I have said this so many times to clients - lots of times, unwanted behaviour (especiallg of an on-lead dog towards an unknown dog that has galloped up to it) is normal, appropriate & not something the on-lead dog needs to be trained out of

Meet Lucy the Border Collie.

Firstly. Isn’t she so bloody cute?!

Lucy came to me to work on her reactivity to other dogs. She would lunge and bark and snap at them on and off lead and has made huge strides forwards in her training. She can now walk past other dogs without issue and is improving every day. This week her owner presented me with the next problem to tackle.

‘When dogs come up to her in the park, she will mostly ignore them now, but if they sniff her and won’t leave her alone she will snap at them’.

My reply?

‘That’s normal. We won’t change that. I can teach you how to advocate for her, but we cannot stop her correcting a rude, out of control dog’.

Imagine for a moment that you’re in a pub. You’re there with your friends and having a lovely time but this one guy (or girl!) just won’t leave you alone. They keep touching your leg and standing just a bit too close. They keep staring at you. They ask to buy you a drink and you say no, but they keep pestering. You say ‘no thank you’ politely. You turn your back on them. They still persist. Eventually you turn to them and shout ‘I’ve told you six times to leave me alone! F**k off!’ and suddenly everyone looks at you like you’re the problem.

This is what dogs like Lucy face on a daily basis. Dogs are absolute masters of body language. They don’t communicate with language like we do. They communicate with shifts of body weight, a change in tail set, a tongue flick and a look. As humans we are such APES with our communication we often don’t see the subtlety of our dogs conversations. We jump to action when we can hear our dogs rather than watching for their language.

In the park, Lucy shows she isn’t interested in dog interaction, and this is fine. Not every dog needs to interact with dogs. She loves her humans and that’s all she wants. She isn’t broken. She isn’t ‘antisocial’. She does not have behavioural issues that need to be fixed.

City parks are full of oversocialised, overly social dogs. They come careening in at top speed and they too, like us apes, don’t recognise or read body language. Dogs like Lucy will tolerate so much before they have enough and eventually tell the offending dog to F off. This does not mean that Lucy is the problem.

Overt aggression, going out of their way to have a pop at other dogs, ott controlling of movement, over correction into biting causing damage are all reasons to book a good trainer. In Lucy’s case, we worked this week on how her owner can better recognise when Lucy is overwhelmed and defend her. We looked at body language, how to manage interactions safely, and when to control Lucy and fend off the offending dog.

It’s lovely to see this team progress in confidence every time I see them!

28/11/2025

I was scrolling social media the other day and came across a video about how to solve a dog's reactivity in one hour! My heart sank as I knew what was coming for the dog in it and yep, the dog ended up in a grot collar. Grot comes from the word garrotte, which means death by stangulation with wire or cord.

If we were looking at practitioners working with human mental health, it wouldn't be deemed ethical to ask such a question as 'can I solve your mental health issue in an hour?' because we know that is not how it works. I draw this comparison between human and canine mental health for several reasons i. canine and human brains are quite similar (the only differences being the size of the olfactory bulb, size of the prefrontal cortex, and brain to body mass ratio) ii. the physiology of stress in humans and dogs is similar.

So why are some people so persistent in the idea that it is possible and ethical to fix a reactive dog in a matter of hours?

👉People often conflate a dog who is suppressed due to punishment ,or shut down, with a dog who is calm. Just because a dog isn't displaying reactive behaviours in that moment, it doesn't mean that they are 'fixed.'

They are likely not displaying the reactive behaviours because every time they do they experience a painful or uncomfortable sensation from a tool such as a grot, prong, or e-collar. Why is this an issue?

1.) The dog can begin to predict the presentation of their trigger with the painful or uncomfortable sensation, which leads to worsening reactivity further down the road.

2.) The dog can associate you, the owner, with the sensation which can result in a whole host of issues including a breakdown of trust (goodbye recall!), escape or avoidance tactics, and even bites.

3.) These tools can cause physical harm to your dog. I had a dog the other day who had been through residential training and was on a grot collar. The collar had begun to slice into the neck leaving open wounds.

Just imagine the damage that can be done when a reactive dog is lunging or pulling with a thin bit of cord around their neck.

4.) The reactive dog begins to push through the punishment, due to adrenaline increasing the pain threshold, and so the punishment needs to be escalated to have an effect. It's why you often see these trainers start on a slip, then a grot, then a prong, then an e-collar.

5.) Your dog can develop learned helplessness. One study in 1967 found that dogs exposed to inescapable electric shocks failed to learn to escape the shocks in a different situation, where escape was possible. They experienced maladaptive passivity; this shows the effect that trauma can have on the brain and decision making.

Or simply put, I don't want to have to hurt a dog to force them into performing a behaviour. It's not communcation, it's barbaric and cruel.

When people promise these quick fixes, they do not have your dog's welfare at heart.

28/11/2025

When you need to collect the post & decide to use it to do a bit of training ... check out the socks-with-sliders & muddy hallway. 🥴

Inka is very jumpy jumpy at the door (more so at visitors). My partner & I usually rather enjoy this cuddle opportunity with Inka the Tinker, but feel we should probably get back onto it again training-wise. ☺️

Good training often looks like this - ruddy boring! I am simply marking & reinforcing Inka for keeping all 4 feet on the ground.

To set Inka up for success, I picked a time of day when he is settled, when nothing stressful/exciting is happening, & used myself rather than a visitor. This is why Inka doesn't actually jump up in the video - he is learning what TO do rather than being set up to offer the unwanted behaviour so that he can be punished for it. I also popped my hat on as this is another trigger for Inka (when he loses impulse control, he likes to kindly take people's hats off for them!).

28/11/2025

What cheaper & easier way for Freja to keep herself entertained than to snaffle an empty cardboard food packaging from the 'burn on the fire' pile!

28/11/2025

As an equine behaviourist, one of the things I'm most fed up of seeing recently is horses without enough forage.

Unless there is ample grazing, and by ample I don't mean a field that is simply green, your horse should be getting enough forage that they aren't ever running out. As an owner of an overweight EMS horse myself that I rescued, the alarm bells start ringing at unrestricted ad lib forage- but I'll get to how to provide enough forage without your horse becoming the size of a house in a moment.

Horses need appropriate forage at all times- their guts are designed to eat almost constantly (for around 18 hours a day) and without this upset occurs through disruption of the digestive system and also the lack of anything to neutralise gut acid which then splashes around the gut causing damage and ulceration to the gut walls. Many owners will look at me like I'm crazy when I ask where their horses hay is because there's green on the ground, and they don't make the link between this and the behavioural issues they're seeing in their equines.

Just because the floor is green, doesn't mean a horse has enough food. If your horse has eaten all of their hay by the time you come visit them again this is very often a sign that there isn't enough forage available to them to meet their requirements. The horses that I see eating bare, short fields are often stressed, hungry and begin to show behavioural issues such as resource guarding which is horrible for them, dangerous for you and can be dangerous for other horses too.

If you're worried about feeding loose hay and your horse gorging, consider appropriate slow feeders to slow down consumption.

Usually if grass is available horses will choose it over hay as it tends to be more tasty and sugary, so if your horse is running out of the you bring, please consider providing more to ensure their health isn't suffering. Particularly in winter I see these issues commonly arise, and both the horse and the owner pay the price.

27/11/2025

Why eat your piles of hay when you can snaffle the scraps from the quad bike trailer? 😅

25/11/2025

Eddie the teddie practising her mat stationing!

Unlike Clio(!) Edna finds stationing very easy: she is naturally a low energy, laid back horse & this temperament really helps her with her stationing.

PS I wish my hair grew as long & thick as Eddie's! 😍

25/11/2025

Shiny beauty ❤️

Today, Clio & I practised her standing-at-a-target & starioning-on-a-mat training. Stationing (standing still for duration at a particular spot) is a such useful slill for so many things, including:

- Tying up
- Lining up at the mounting block
- Foot trimming
- Horses that resource guard in the field against other horses (send them to the target/mat as soon as you arrive)
.. and Lots more!