Just a Dog Podcast

Your dog can't tell you when something's wrong, so they rely on you to notice. The person who lives with a dog knows their normal in a way no vet or trainer ever could, because you're the one who sees them every day. That everyday knowledge is easy to underestimate, right up until the moment it matters. Jo Middleton found that out with her own dog, when 2 vets told her everything was f...

A puppy who only ever knew kindness grew into the most dangerous dog Trish McMillan has ever lived with. His story, and that of a dogfighting survivor who turned out gentle, sit at the heart of why a rescue dog is never a blank slate, and what the dog pays when we get that wrong. The conversation covers rescue dogs and behaviour, how shelters decide which dogs are safe to rehome, the real weight o...

A greyhound loves to run. Running across a field and racing around an oval track aren't the same thing, and greyhound racing depends on us not noticing the difference. Nadine talks to three people working to end the sport about what it looks like from the dog's side: the falls, the kennel hours, the breeding, and what happens to a greyhound who stops winning. They trace how one country aft...

If you've ever stood in your kitchen at half eight on a Tuesday with a dog who's barking at nothing, lunging at the postman, scared of the front door, scared of you, scared of their own shadow, and wondered what on earth you're doing wrong, this episode is for you. It rearranges how you see your dog. Most of what we label as bad behaviour isn't behaviour at all. It's pain, fear...

If you've ever been through it, you'll know how painful it can be.  You'll know what it's like the next morning after they've gone.  The little signs of them missing, like the pitter-patter of their paws across the floor, the sound of their tongue lapping at the water bowl, the warmth of their body as they scoot closer during a Netflix binge. A recent study from Maynooth Univer...

A border collie can track a sheep across a field from the smallest flick of movement. Drop that same dog on a busy street, and the skill that makes them brilliant is the one that comes undone. Ellen Greenwood-Sole, founder of The Urban Herder, has spent more than 10 years working with collies and the people who love them. She makes a case most of us miss. A collie's intensity is not a personality;...

A growl is one of the clearest things a dog can tell us, and it's often the most misread. Dog aggression specialist Michael Shikashio has spent 25 years working with dogs that other trainers couldn't help. His view is that aggression isn't a fault to correct. It's communication. It's a dog showing us that something is wrong. This conversation looks at where our beliefs about do...

When a dog reacts on the lead or struggles to settle at home, what we see is often the end of a biological process that started much earlier in the day. Daniel Shaw is a dog behaviourist with a master's in neuroscience. In this conversation, he explains what is happening in a dog's brain and body during a reaction, including how cortisol rises with each stressor, how the amygdala grows mor...

In this episode, we look at why dogs behave in ways that confuse or worry us. Dr. Lisa explains how pain, fear, and the way we treat dogs at home can show up as behaviour we'd otherwise call "bad". It's a conversation that asks you to look again at what your dog might be trying to tell you. Dr. Lisa Radosta is a board-certified veterinary behaviourist based in Florida. She's one of a small number...

Every spring, a double-coated dog sheds enough undercoat to knit a jumper. Most of it goes in the bin, or worse, on the garden fence for the birds, where flea treatment residue can kill hatchlings. Sebastian Salvat wants a better option. Sebastian is a fashion marketing student at London College of Fashion and the founder of Chiora, a project turning brushed-out dog undercoat into a cashmere-like...

Sally Muir is one of the UK’s most prolific painters of dogs. Her books A Dog a Day , Old Dogs , and Rescue Dogs are published by Pavilion. Her work has been selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, including Elderly Dog (2018) and Hound (2019), and she won the Holburne Portrait Prize in 2012. She co-hosts The Dog Show in Brighton with Joanna Osborne, her business partner of over 40 years...

A dog screaming during a dog training session in a pet store aisle set something in motion that became a 20,000-member global movement. Niki Tudge went in for supplies and came out in tears, and the Pet Professional Guild exists because of what she heard that day. That moment crystallised something she had already suspected: that the dog training industry was broken, unregulated, and unlikely to f...

There's a dog asleep on your sofa right now, or there was this morning. And there's a reasonable chance something in your wardrobe is made from dog leather. Abigail Forsyth is Campaign Manager for PETA Asia , leading investigations and campaigns across the region to expose animal exploitation. In this conversation, she talks through the industries designed to stay invisible: the dog leathe...

Most of us try to do right by our dog(s). The problem is that almost everything we've been taught about how to do that was built around human needs, human comfort and human expectations. My guest for today's episode is Dr. Jessica Pierce, a world-renowned bioethicist and author of 13 books on animal ethics and moral philosophy. She's spent nearly two decades writing about dogs and expl...

In this episode, I speak with clinical animal behaviourist Tom Candy BSc Hons MSc CCAB CSBS CDBC CBATI KA, whose career began in rescue at 15 and has spanned 15 years of frontline shelter work, behaviour support and staff development. Tom has worked across multiple rehoming centres within the UK’s largest dog welfare organisation. He now supports clinical animal behaviourists in their professional...

You've done the classes. Watched the videos. Tried the tools. And your dog is still struggling. What if the answer isn't another training method? Andrew Hale is a certified canine behaviourist with a background in human psychology. He specialises in dogs labelled aggressive, reactive, difficult or broken. And he'll tell you straight: they're none of those things. They're trying...

What does it really mean to understand a dog? In this conversation, Dr Marc Bekoff explores how dogs experience the world and what helps them thrive emotionally, socially, and psychologically. Marc Bekoff is Professor Emeritus at the University of Colorado Boulder and one of the world’s leading voices on animal emotions. He is a long time collaborator and close friend of the late Dr Jane Goodall t...

In this episode of Just A Dog Podcast , I speak with Ádám Miklósi , Professor of Ethology and one of the most influential researchers in dog behaviour and cognition. Professor Miklósi is the founder of the Family Dog Project in Hungary and has spent decades studying how dogs think, learn, and form relationships with humans. His work has shaped much of what we now understand about dog human attachm...

What does it actually take to change a law that harms dogs? In this episode of Just A Dog Podcast , I speak with Dr Marc Abraham OBE , the veterinary surgeon and campaigner behind Lucy’s Law, which banned the third party sale of puppies and kittens in England. Marc shares the moment that shifted him from treating individual dogs to challenging the system itself, how grassroots campaigning really w...

Marisa Heath has spent over 15 years working inside UK Parliament to improve the lives of dogs. She runs the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare (APGAW), leads the Canine and Feline Sector Group, and co-founded the Innate Health Assessment , a tool that helps people recognise extreme conformation before buying a puppy or choosing which dogs to breed from. Extreme conformation refers t...

Morocco agreed in 2019 to manage free roaming dogs through catch, neuter, vaccinate and return. That agreement was never made law, and many regions continued killing instead. Since Morocco secured co hosting rights for the FIFA World Cup 2030, the pace and scale of killings have increased. The IAWPC has documented shootings, poisonings and mass removals near proposed stadium cities including Tangi...

This episode looks at what happens when a dog’s inner world does not match the life we imagine for them. Sam Walker-Arends is a force free trainer who works with dogs carrying fear, uncertainty or history in their bodies, and our conversation keeps returning to one truth. Every dog is an individual. Their needs, thresholds and ways of feeling safe are never the same. We talk about Ivy the ex racer...

Every February, as Spain’s hunting season ends, thousands of Galgos and Podencos are discarded. Some are abandoned, some are killed, and most are simply forgotten. They are fast, intelligent and deeply sensitive, yet still treated as disposable tools rather than sentient companions. In this week’s episode, I speak with Gemma and Adva, the organisers behind Free Spanish Hounds , a UK-based movement...

In this episode, I speak with Jenna Miller , Chair of the Board of Trustees at Spirit of the Dog Rescue , an independent charity run entirely by volunteers. With more than fifteen years of experience in animal care and rescue, Jenna offers an honest look at what really happens behind the scenes — far beyond the social media snapshots and success stories we usually see. We talk about what it takes...

In this episode, I speak with Rose Bao , a canine behaviourist and counsellor whose work explores the emotional lives of dogs and the systems that have taught us to value obedience over understanding.  Rose brings a rare mix of science, empathy and cultural reflection to the conversation, drawing on her background in biomedical engineering and her current research in Clinical Animal Behaviour at t...