If you’ve ever found yourself wondering how rough should dogs play there are plenty of considerations that affect this answer, and ultimately it is down to you as their owner to step in when you feel that it’s not appropriate. Dogs naturally play with their mouths, so ‘play fighting’ is very normal. It is your role to determine whether this behaviour is safe in the situation, and whether Read the rest of this entry

How to go about stopping a dog from chewing will depend on the reason it is chewing, and when it is chewing. Chewing usually occurs for 2 main reasons. One is early in life, a dog will chew while it is teething, to relieve the pain and pressure on its gums. The other main reason a dog will chew is out of stress or anxiety. Chewing provides comfort, as it releases endorphins, and gives them an outlet Read the rest of this entry

Not ALL dogs are scared of vets, but not many of them like going there. So why are they scared, and what should you do if your is?

The fact of the matter is that vet surgeries aren’t a very nice place for a dog. Their first sense is smell. A vet will smell to them of a number of different unknown chemicals, it will smell of illness and death. It smells of the fear hormones of other dogs who’ve Read the rest of this entry

Being able to get your dog back when running off lead is really important. It keeps your dog safe from busy roads, would be dog nappers and it also prevents your dog from making an unwelcome approach to a nervous and/or aggressive dogs… If you want to train your dog to come when called off a lead reliably then read on for the basics of how to do it; and for those who wish to get a deeper understanding, Read the rest of this entry

If I’ve learnt one thing from watching The Simpsons, it’s that the use of song and rhyming words are very effective for making a point, so when deciding on the best way to describe what dog behaviour training can help with, I thought “why not through verse?!” and so below is my first poem as a Dog Listener…!

If you want your dogs snuggled up relaxing like the dogs in this picture, then its important to understand why first, then you can stop dogs from fighting. The simple answer is that fighting is their playful way of finding out what the hierarchy is between them. Usually it starts and play fighting. Unfortunately, in some cases things get out of hand if both dogs are adamant that they should be higher Read the rest of this entry

I was saddened today by a lady who explained that she had decided to go for castration as the option to ‘calm her dog down’, rather than learn a natural way to do that, because she had read a bit of criticism of Jan Fennell‘s method. It was a sad, but necessary, reminder that not everyone is prepared to put in the effort to ensure that they have a happy and relaxed dog, preferring to listen to the Read the rest of this entry

I ask the question about having an untrainable dog, because it surprises me how many people I meet in passing who tell me about their dog’s behaviour as though it’s just something that they have to put up with (e.g. “Daisy jumps up at all of our visitors, it’s so embarrassing, we are constantly apologising for her, but that’s just the way she is”). Or tell me about what modifications they’ve Read the rest of this entry

Yesterday I met a beautiful rescue dog called Benson, who is very lucky to have new owners who are dedicated to giving him the best life possible, and to removing his stress and anxiety. Benson came to them with concerns about being touched, and with nervousness associated with other dogs – causing him to pant excessively and bark profusely whenever he went out for a walk. Some of this behaviour Read the rest of this entry

Through conversations and observations recently I’ve realised that not everyone is aware of the signs of a stressed dog. For me the ultimate point of dog training or being a Dog Listener is to remove the stress from the dog. Yes, we all want well behaved dogs that are enjoyable and easy to live with too, but knowing that by treating any dog using Amichien Bonding I am removing its stress, keeps Read the rest of this entry