Good Guardianship

14/11/2025

If there are things your dog struggles with in the world around them, knowing the signs to look out for that they use to communicate when they are feeling stressed makes life much easier for you both.
Here is some information on what 'threshold' means and how to read the dog's signals so we can try to get them out of a situation before they reach this point.

14/11/2025

If there are things your dog struggles with in the world around them, knowing the signs to look out for that they use to communicate when they are feeling stressed makes life much easier for you both.

Here is some information on what 'threshold' means and how to read the dog's signals so we can try to get them out of a situation before they reach this point.

11/11/2025

A damaging myth surrounding dogs, particularly puppies, when they get to their new homes is that, if the cry, they should be left alone so they learn to stay quiet overnight. This is absolutely not the best way to help that new family member feel safe and comfortable in their new home.

From :

"A puppy is like a human child. They cry when there is something they need, including comfort and connection. If they do not get a response when they are crying then yes, they will stop, but not because they have settled. They have learned that nobody is coming and so they give up trying. This will have a serious and damaging effect on the bond between them and their family, and at probably the most vulnerable time in their lives emotionally. One of the most important things we can focus on in these early days and weeks of our shared lives is helping them to feel safe and secure and responding to their needs is absolutely the best way to go about this."

In those early days have them sleeping close to you, and respond when they are distressed. It does not mean that they will always cry at night. It will, however, help them to realise that they are not alone and that they can sleep safe and sound knowing you are there if they need you during the night.

07/11/2025

"Here's where we come to the point that this starts being relevant to anxious dogs and those that have not had the chance to recover from scary experiences. My chronic condition means that I have much less capacity to cope with extra stuff. My stress levels can rise like flipping a switch. I can tell a flare is coming sometimes because the tiniest thing has me feeling upset or angry, out of all proportion to the size of the issue. I KNOW how I'm feeling isn't right or reasonable, but I can't help it. An anxious or aroused dog does not have the advantage of reasoned thought that I do."

A blog about dogs, training and the emotional impact of living with reactive dogs.

05/11/2025

It's Bonfire Night in the UK, which means that fireworks are likely to be frequent and loud in many areas (in the part of the country where I currently live, we've had them pretty much constantly since mid September...) and so it's a very appropriate day to share this image. There is nothing wrong with turning the music up loud, drawing all the curtains and settling down with your dog to try and help them stay as calm as possible.

You are not 'babying' them or going to make them worse. They are scared and need the people they trust to comfort them, even if that means cuddling them (one of my dogs will come and sit next to me for me to literally hold his paw when he's scared).

Doing whatever your dog needs to feel even a little more comfortable and less scared isn't a failing, it's being the very best person for your dog in that moment.

03/11/2025

So many of the things behaviour professionals are engaged to help with are considered problem behaviours by the dog's humans. Four examples in this image - digging, barking, pulling wanting to explore when on the lead, and chewing.

Are these problem behaviours? Not from the dog's perspective.

These are all normal and natural dog behaviours. The issue is that they can be considered problematic by the dog’s humans and societally unacceptable in certain situations or when done a lot.

Natural behaviours are important. Under the Five Freedoms, the basic template set out 45 years ago, the freedom to carry out natural behaviours is listed as essential for meeting their welfare needs.

It's clear that letting dogs do some of these things however they feel like can cause problems. Digging and chewing can cause a lot of damage, barking can absolutely be annoying and unpleasant if it's prolonged and frequent. Pulling on the lead to get to a smell or to have a closer examination of something or just to move along faster can be uncomfortable for both human and dog.

What's the solution?

Find ways for them to carry out these natural behaviours that are comfortable and appropriate for all concerned.

Give them a spot to dig. Whether a specific patch of garden or something like a child’s sandpit, direct them there to dig to their heart’s content. If they are caught digging where they shouldn’t, just redirect them to the appropriate spot. Perhaps hide things in the selected spot for them to dig up and make digging in this one place really attractive for them.

Dogs will bark, it’s part of being a dog for most breeds (although some are much quieter than others and certain breeds make sounds that aren’t barks). It’s not something that will ever be stopped entirely but what we can do is shorten the amount of time they are barking. If your dog barks at a noise or something they see outside, thank them, and give them something nice. It sounds counterintuitive but for dogs who are barking as a warning that they see or hear something it does work. (If a dog is frantically barking and throwing themselves at the door or window and seeming clearly stressed then that’s a different issue and it may well be worth finding a kind and ethical behaviour professional to help understand what is upsetting your dog).

Chewing is one of the most natural of dog behaviours. Seen often in young puppies when teething, it is also something many dogs continue to do and enjoy throughout their lives. Chewing is good for cleaning their teeth and (along with licking) it is a calming activity that helps them to relax. Obviously, we don’t want them chewing our furniture or things so it’s vital to give them appropriate things to chew. There are many chew toys and dog chews that are available, although some can damage teeth or cause issues if the dog bites off large chunks and swallows them and others like rawhide can contain nasty chemicals, so care is needed in selection. Once you have found a safe chew that your dog likes, redirect them to that ‘legal’ chew to save your belongings.

Walking on the lead does not come naturally to dogs. They need to be taught how to walk on a loose lead and match our pace. Many dogs naturally move faster than we do when walking, so it is up to us to show them where we would like them to be when on the lead. Sometimes this might be right beside us when next to a road, for example, and sometimes we can maybe use a longer lead to give them a bit more room to explore. The key is to help them understand the lead needs to be loose. I use a very relaxed form of loose lead walking with my own dogs – no matter how long the lead (I use a 15-foot lead as standard and shorten or lengthen it as needed) as long as my arm is not pulled away from my side, that’s absolutely fine. The important thing when it comes to allowing natural behaviours is to let our dogs explore things when on lead. Let them go over to the water to have a look. Let them sniff that tree they are looking at longingly. Give them time and space to carry out natural behaviours even when we are in places they cannot for whatever reason be off the lead.

Letting dogs do those natural dog things, letting them BE dogs, is a vital part of being the best dog people that we can possibly be, so find the ways that we can let them be dogs safely and comfortably for everyone.

29/10/2025

I often talk about trigger stacking and the need to understand how different events can combine to overwhelm our dogs out in the world. Usually I do this with an image of a graph to show how the different things add up to reach a 'threshold' level over which the dog feels they have no choice but to react.

There are some more analogies that can be used to help understand how this happens, and different imagery can help as many people as possible to understand what is happening with their dogs. This is an excerpt from my 'Supporting a 'Reactive' Dog workshop (available via the Learning Hub on my website) that explains these other ways of looking at how stress triggers can mount up.

"There are other analogies that we can use to explain how this phenomenon works, and different ones will work best for different people to really understand what is going on with and inside the dog.

One involves envisaging candles underneath a bowl of water. Each candle will heat the water up a little, and the more candles there are the hotter the water will become. Eventually, with enough candles, the water will heat up to the point it goes over the boiling point and can, if the heat is not removed, boil over the sides of the bowl.

Another analogy that is often seen is that of the stress bucket. Every event and factor that causes stress to the dog is like water flowing into the bucket. If the dog’s stress levels are not able to drop then the bucket will become full and the liquid will overflow as it becomes too much for the bucket to contain.

A third way to explain this concept, and one that I have also used in my books, is the ‘spoon theory’, often used to describe how people deal with chronic pain and illness. The theory also works well to explain how dogs can become overloaded with triggers. On any given day, your dog has a certain number of spoons in his mental repository that correspond with the resilience he has to deal with triggers that he might encounter, and those spoons are all he gets to cope with his day. Every trigger takes a certain number of spoons away from the dog, depending on how much fear it provokes in the dog. At some point, if he encounters more triggers, your dog will run out of spoons so has no capacity to deal with any more triggers and will go over threshold and react.

These illustrations show the importance of a period of decompression, to let those stress levels reduce and the hormone levels in the dog’s body drop down into the ‘normal’ range for that dog and homeostasis returns. This can help the dog to be more relaxed and happy in his day to day life, and also gives an excellent platform from which to start helping the dog be more able to cope with the things he sees as triggers."

27/10/2025

Looking back at the history of our dogs, many breeds were deliberately devloped by humans to carry out specific jobs. This was done by selecting the dogs who had the right traits and were the best at those jobs to breed together.

Due to this, over time, the result was breeds of dogs who all tend to have these particular traits. In the times when dogs were needed to carry out these jobs this was ideal, and they would spend their working day doing the very things they had been bred to do.

Fast forward a few hundred years and, while there are still working dogs today, the proportion of dogs working at the role for which their breed was developed is much lower. A great many of these dogs from working breeds are now in companion roles. (In my case, I started out working sheepdogs on the farm and, although we are no longer on the farm, the Border Collies remain).

The fact of no longer performing their roles does not mean that those traits have gone away. A terrier is still likely to dig. A scent hound will follow their nose. Retrievers want to carry things around in their mouths. A herding dog will often find something to herd - possibly the kids in the home.

When we look to find a dog to join our family, it is vital that we think about their history and whether our home can honestly provide the things they need. If not, a different breed or type of dog would be a better choice for all concerned. If we think we can, then it's time to think about exactly how we are going to meet those needs.

When we bring these dogs with history in specific roles into our homes it's so important to think about the breed and what they might need. Find ways for them to carry out these behaviours that for many generations they have been bred to carry out.

Give your terrier a digging spot - either a patch of garden where they are allowed to dig, or a sand pit.

Find out about scentwork for your scenthound - mantrailing is a popular pastime where dogs learn to follow scent trails and find people.

Let your retrievers have something to carry to greet visitors or returning family at the door, and maybe look at finding some activities involving retrieving for them to do. Avoid lots of repetitive ball throwing for fetch as this can cause issues with joints. Instead look at maybe getting some of the gundog training dummies and doing a few gentle tosses with those or asking your dog to wait while you throw. You can also hide the dummies and send your dog to find them.

Herding games can be fantastic for herding dogs. Look at Kay Laurence's Sheepballs, or Treibball, both of which involve balls to let those herding moves and instincts be used (links to both in the comments). Think about finding games that involve them following and controlling movement such as a flirt pole - a stick with some cord attached and a lure or toy attached. These can be bought from a store or made at home.

For every type of dog there are activities and games that are breed-appropriate and will let them do those things humans have bred them to do. Take some time to find out about the history of the breed (or breeds) of your dog and find these activities that are designed for them and their traits - you will both be happier for it!

24/10/2025

So many of the things that people consider 'behaviour problems' in dogs are in fact perfectly normal and instinctive canine behaviours that stretch back over their evolution. The problem is that these behaviours can be inconvenient and potentially problematic in human homes.

Understanding dogs, where they came from and the traits that were vital to their survival in the past, lets us see that we need to provide ways for our dogs to carry out these behaviours. It is a vital part of ensuring their welfare and mentioned in the Five Freedoms - the freedom to express natural behaviour.

Of course we don't want them chewing the furniture, shredding the cushions, digging up the flowerbeds etc. The key is to find ways to let them carry out these behaviours that both they and we find appropriate and acceptable.

A child's sandpit filled with dirt or sand makes a great digging spot, and you can hide things in there for them to find. Alternatively, select a specific spot in the garden and direct the dog there if you find them digging elsewhere.

Make sure they have plenty of appropriate chewing material and redirect them to a chew if they start nibbling on the sofa or the chair leg.

Provide soft toys to be eviscerated to save the cushions. The great thing with soft toys is that you can restuff them and sew them up - often several times before they are beyond repair. Charity shops can also be good sources of budget friendly soft toys for this purpose (always making sure they are safe with no bits the dog may swallow).

Shredding dogs often also love cardboard. Use the household recycling to fill a cardboard box with things like egg boxes, other pieces of cardboard, packing paper and so on, anything that is dog safe. Scatter their food or some treats through the box contents and let them hunt the food out and then have a great time shredding the box and contents. Yes there is a little clearing up that needs to be done, but it saves the furniture or other items from destruction.

With a little imagination it's simple to come up with ways to fulfil these natural drives and your dog will definitely thank you for it. 💛

22/10/2025

Children represent a massive proportion of reported dog bite cases.

These pictures, selected from a massive library of similar stock photos of children with dogs, show some of the reasons for this.

Humans like physical contact. We're generally huggers, particularly with a gorgeous animal like a dog - that soft coat and gorgeous faces just look perfect for a hug, especially to a child.

Dogs are definitely not like us in this way. True, there are some dogs who may enjoy cuddling up with their people, and even like or don't mind hugs. One of my dogs is very much in favour of physical contact. Importantly, however, it is only with the people he chooses. The ones he knows and trusts.

Kids often cannot read canine body language. The signs are here in the photographs used of a tense and unhappy dog, but the children in these pictures can't see and interpret them.

It's up to us as adults, whether parents, dog caregivers, or both, to make sure that we are educated on canine body language and can see the signs of stress.

That we make sure to advocate for the dogs so that they are not put in this position.

To make sure that the children around us are educated and taught about the likes and dislikes of dogs.

To stop putting children and dogs into potentially dangerous situations for the cute photo or video (the videos of babies propped up against dogs make most behaviour professionals shudder because that is so not fair on either species!)

Let's be fair to both dogs and children and use education and understanding to keep children and dogs happy and safe together.

20/10/2025

🎉 I earned the emerging talent badge this week, recognising me for creating engaging content that sparks an interest among my fans! So happy to be able to help people and their dogs live happily together 💛 🐶

20/10/2025

Good or bad are just labels that humans put on behaviour to mean desirable or undesirable to us (or perhaps convenient and inconvenient). There is no good or bad, only behaviour.

Behaviour communicates to us how the dog is feeling inside. Once we can learn how to use that behaviour to understand how our dogs are feeling, we can begin to see what our dogs need in that moment, and what they need us to do for them.

With that understanding comes a greater harmony, bond, and trust, and that is invaluable for life with our dogs.