Ahead of The Game Dog Training

10/12/2025

Weekly humble request to please cast your vote for me as the Best of Forsyth Pet Trainer! Thanks 😊🐾🐾😊

https://www.forsythnews.com/external-content/the-best-of-forsyth-2026/ #/gallery/504455160

You can vote once a day thru October!!

10/02/2025

Rest in eternal peace, Jane Goodall! Thank you for paving the way for kind and compassionate dog training. 🐾🐾

10/01/2025

🐾🐾🎉🎊 Apparently I was nominated for Best Of Forsyth! What an honor!!
Voting begins today!! I’d greatly appreciate your support by voting for me at the link below- just click on the “Professional Services” tab and scroll down to the “Pet Trainer” category and click my name (Julie Haller)!
Thanks so much!! 🎉🎊🐾🐾

https://www.forsythnews.com/external-content/the-best-of-forsyth-2026/ #/gallery?group=526321

09/30/2025

So Powerful 🐾🐾🐾🐾
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPIU26kFTGn/?igsh=NzJ0YTllaDl5anZv

09/06/2025

This is so important! Every ATG training gameplan is uniquely structured to fit your specific training goals and your dog’s specific struggles.

Many trainers carry a universal vision of what every dog should know: sit, down, heel, place, etc.

But dogs do not live in universals.
They live in households with particular rhythms, families with unique dynamics, and people carrying their own needs and limitations. A universal checklist can feel reassuring to the trainer, but too often it leads to teaching skills that have little to do with the client’s actual struggles.

In many cases, that checklist becomes a crutch, used in place of creating the thoughtful and unique training plan the client truly needs.

When training time is spent mastering skills that aren’t directly relevant, frustration grows, follow-through suffers, and the dog’s issues remain unsolved.

The true measure of training is not whether the dog completes our imagined list, but whether harmony returns to the home. It is about seeing clearly what matters most to this dog, in this family, at this moment.

Full Post👇🏼
https://tylermuto.com/2025/09/06/serve-your-clients-not-yourself/

08/27/2025

Happy Dog Day!!
(But if we’re being honest- isn’t every day Dog Day?)
Love,
Anchor ⚓️

08/08/2025

This!! 🐾🐾

Whether you're a dog walker, trainer, groomer, vet, vet nurse, kennel worker, pet sitter, or any other professional caring for animals one thing must be absolutely clear: the ability to read animal body language is not optional. It’s essential, and there is no way around that.

Understanding a dog’s body language isn’t a "nice-to-have" skill. It’s a core competency, just as important as knowing how to handle a lead or administer medication. Without it, the risk of miscommunication, stress, fear, and even injury increases for both the animal and the human involved.

Dogs cannot tell us how they feel with words. Their communication is entirely non-verbal through posture, facial tension, ear and tail position, vocalisations, and subtle shifts in movement or energy. These cues tell us whether a dog is comfortable, afraid, uncertain, overstimulated, or on the edge of aggression. If you miss those signs, you miss the chance to prevent a problem.

A dog that is freezing, lip-licking, turning its head, or showing whale-eye is communicating discomfort. A dog tucking its tail, yawning repeatedly, or panting in a quiet moment is not "being dramatic" ; they are likely anxious or stressed. When these signs are ignored, dogs often escalate in behaviour because they feel they have no other option.

If you are being trusted to care for animals in any capacity, you have an ethical and professional obligation to understand what they are communicating.

This includes:
Knowing the early signs of stress and fear
Recognising when a dog needs space or support
Being able to intervene or change your approach before things escalate

This isn’t just about safety; it’s about welfare. You cannot safeguard an animal’s wellbeing if you cannot read how they are feeling in real time.

A true professional should not only be able to read dogs but should be proactive in adapting their handling and environment to reduce stress and keep everyone safe.
The ability to read body language. It’s not an optional extra. It’s a basic requirement.

07/04/2025

Happy Independence Day! 🇺🇸🐾🇺🇸🐾🇺🇸

06/22/2025

Please, please do your research before adopting a dog or purchasing a puppy—know the characteristics of the breed you’re considering and:
1. Make sure it fits into your family and your lifestyle

2. Make sure you’re prepared to dedicate the time and effort in training and enrichment that works with your dog’s genetics not against it!

06/18/2025

A thorough health screening to rule out pain/discomfort or other abnormalities should always be the first step in any behavior modification plan, especially cases of sudden onset of aggression.

‼️ If an “aggression expert” isn’t advocating for thorough investigation into possible pain as part of their work with you… they are NOT ethical! ‼️

This is a sensitive story, and as such names have been changed to protect my clients’ privacy and identity. The dog pictured below is mine.

Over the last couple of months I’ve been working with a family and their dog (we’ll call him “Benny”). A year ago, Benny turned from a loving family pet to suddenly guarding the lounge; anytime that someone made an unexpected move in the room or entered it, Benny would begin posturing and barking at them, which eventually escalated into jumping and grabbing at their clothes, and then bites that punctured the skin.

A physical examination at the vet didn’t yield any results, and Benny was taking multiple types of anxiety medication that didn’t touch his behaviour.

We started working together, and I asked them to have some scans done to further investigate pain. Behaviour changes are one of the first indicators of pain, but otherwise dogs are REALLY good at hiding pain and it can be easily missed, even in a vet exam.

Because they had already been to see the vet, I was met with some resistance. We did implement safety measures and some training strategies to try to help Benny feel more at ease in the lounge, but his behaviour wasn’t improving.

Eventually, Benny did have an MRI, and it was revealed that he has a chiari malformation in his brain - that is, part of his brain was pushing down into the spinal canal. We could have done all the training in the world but it wouldn’t have mattered, because this wasn’t a behaviour issue.

How many trainers would have slapped a shock collar on this poor dog, who was already suffering? How many would have simply said that he needed to learn boundaries or hear the word “no” and not looked any further? How many would say that it’s all well and good to use positive reinforcement, until it “doesn’t work” and then you need punishment?

It’s estimated that up to 80% of aggression cases have some kind of underlying medical issue. You NEED a behaviour expert who can liaise with your vet and who will advocate for *thorough* examination, not just a quick check over to tick a box.

It’s an unregulated industry. Be careful who you trust with your dog, even if they call themselves an expert or have tons of followers. And if your dog’s behaviour suddenly changes, they’re probably in pain.

05/25/2025

Treatment for Trauma induced reactivity goes far beyond traditional dog “training”!

You're a dog trainer and your dog behaves like that?!

I have had many cruel things said to me about Mando's reactivity because it is assumed that if I specialise in canine behaviour, I should have the perfect dog. In all honestly, I have achieved greater behavioural change with other dogs than I have with Mando and that is for one crucial reason: Reactivity has different causes.

There are many causes of reactivity, so if I am dealing with frustration or a ritualised behaviour, its much quicker and easier to address. However, if I am working with a dog that has suffered a trauma, like Mando, the process is much more complicated. Here's why:

When a dog suffers a traumatic experience, several things occur in the brain:

- The hippocampus (crucial for memory) may actually shrink, inhibiting a dog's ability to process and retain new memories (in this case positive experiences with other dogs)

- The amygdala (responsible for processing emotions such as anxiety and fear) can become hyperactive, increasing fear based reactions, like barking and lunging at other dogs. This can greatly reduce a dogs threshold, requiring greater proximity from dogs to achieve emotional change.

- Trauma can also inhibit the prefrontal cortex ( the control centre of the brain which helps regulate emotions) triggering impulsivity, poor emotional regulation and aggression. Therefore, we see the dog struggle with anxiety or impulse control in other areas of their life, such as when we have guests or go to the groomers.

- The HPA Axis (hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis) can become dysregulated, triggering chronic stress and sensitivity to triggers.

- Trauma can also cause maladaptive neuroplasticity ( the brains ability to adapt by creating new neural connections) making it challenging to overcome fearful responses.

- Trauma can impact the levels of neurotransmitters, such as dopamine, serotonin and noradrenaline, which are essential to emotional regulation.

So it is not as simple as "train your dog", when the cause of the reactive behaviour is trauma. Trauma creates significant neurological changes, meaning the training journey is entirely different to other dogs, even if they are displaying behaviours that appear the same to the untrained eye.

Understanding that reactivity is not simply a lack of training or socialisation, is crucial to showing compassion for guardians with reactive dogs. We should never make snap judgements and assume that because someone has a reactive dog, they are a bad guardian or a bad trainer/behaviourist. You don't see their daily struggles and you will never appreciate the time, effort and tears that goes into supporting their dog's emotional struggles.- Holly Leake

Please feel free to share, but please do not copy and paste the text or edit the graphic in any way. Thank you.

References

Algamal, M., Ojo, J.O., Lungmus, C.P., Muza, P., Cammarata, C., Owens, M.J., Mouzon, B.C., Diamond, D.M., Mullan, M. and Crawford, F., 2018. Chronic hippocampal abnormalities and blunted HPA axis in an animal model of repeated unpredictable stress. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 12, p.150. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2018.00150.

Seksel, K., 2014. Stress and Anxiety - How Do They Impact the Pet? World Small Animal Veterinary Association (WSAVA) Congress Proceedings. Available at: https://www.vin.com/apputil/content/defaultadv1.aspx?pId=12886&id=7054740&print=1.

05/15/2025

“Every interaction is a conversation”-

Interestingly this trainer posted this as a knock on positive reinforcement training (he’s not a fan) yet his own words below actually support it (aside from the fact he doesn’t know the difference between reward based training and bribing).

Every interaction with your dog IS a conversation- and the more positive your conversations are, the more you pay into your relationship bank account with your dog. The more they trust you the easier true behavior modification becomes. Why would you want to have interactions/conversations that purposely damage your relationship?

I’m fascinated by the vast disconnect between what should be wildly obvious, and what 99% of trainers and owners actually see/perceive.

Ask an “expert” trainer what precisely rewards and punishment do. If they *only* say that they increase or decrease behaviors, I’m sorry, but you’re not talking to an expert.

These are people who are so consumed by the superficial intellectual components of dog training that they’re incapable (or unwilling) to see deeper into the second and third order effects of this work.

Every interaction is a conversation, and if you dont think there’s a massive, and powerful conversation transpiring between you and the dog as you share reward after reward, and omit any negative consequences — and that this conversation is shaping your relationship dynamic — you’re asleep at the training wheel.

This doesn’t mean using positive reinforcement isn’t a fabulously powerful teaching aid, it just means that the truly savvy trainer, and owner, are keenly aware of all the nuance that’s transpiring between the human and canine animal, and how it’s forming the nature and flavor of your interactions.

Just a little something to think about. 🙂