Hi, I’m Ted, and I’m fed up. Every day I go for a walk with Big David and we generally have a great time, sniffing around, checking out the pee-noticeboards, leaving my mark, riding in the bike basket between bridle-path and park before coming home for a good towelling down. So why am I fed […]
In these uncertain times we all have to try to scrape by as best we can and, to coin a phrase, “look after the pennies …” or as those on the Scottish side of my family would say, usually after several pints of heavy, “mony a mickle maks a muckle”. So I got to thinking, […]
Teaching your dog to make eye contact on request is extremely useful because it is an easy behaviour that you can reward with any of your reward options (food, interaction or activities – see Guide & Control for an explanation). It can be variously described as teaching a “look” or “watch me”, or simply paying […]
Those of you who have been to one of my seminars will have seen video of our last dog Fox stooging for me (that’s her on the front of the Bite & Fight book). She was a fantastic communicator and helped many dogs. When she died we knew we couldn’t replace her, and we won’t […]
I hate socialisation. Well, not socialisation, but “socialisation”. You know, puppy “socialisation”; that thing where you take your pup to three “puppy socialisation classes” on consecutive Tuesdays in the village hall when they are twelve weeks old, unless the last one coincides with a specially gripping episode of your favourite soap, when you can officially […]
The DEFRA draft practitioners’ manual “Tackling irresponsible dog ownership” outlines the measures that can be taken to deal with people and their dogs, introduced and consolidated by the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. This is the same act that extends the Sec 3 Offence of “dog dangerously out of control” to private places […]
It is with horrible irony that whilst the press were reporting another fatal dog attack on a baby, I was in Court all day, explaining why a five year old collie that had never before shown any aggression to anyone, had bitten the face of a two-year-old girl. I only have press reports to go […]
Once again we hear of a tragedy in which a human being has lost their life through the actions of a dog. I have the greatest heartfelt sympathy for anyone whose lives are affected by such a traumatic event. I can only imagine the heartache and sorrow, not to mention the guilt, that one must […]
I’m NOT a “Positive Reinforcement” Trainer (and neither are you). I’m fed up with being called a ‘positive’ or a ‘positive only’ dog trainer. It is usually in the form of an insult as in, “Them positive dog trainers with their clickers and their treats don’t understand what it is like to train a really […]