Stress Free Dog Walks

If your dog listens in your living room, but not outside, beware of these two common mistakes. ❌Mistake # 1: Trying to train your dog ‘like other dogs’. More repetition, firmer cues, or higher value food does not work for the impulsive puppy, the adolescent with a dopamine addiction to movement, the 100mph dog who is scanning, sniffing, tracking, listening, reacting - all at once. To your dog, th...

If your dog pulls toward every smell, zig-zags across the pavement, ignores you, and seems completely lost in their own Universe of Scent… It’s easy to assume the problem is their nose. That’s why typical advice focuses on stopping the behaviour: interrupt the sniffing, move them on. But that usually makes the problem worse. Instead of trying to suppress your dog's natural behaviour, take the exac...

Dog training is simple when you understand the 3 steps. Most dog owners start here: loose lead walking / recall / anti-reactivity / anti-predation techniques. But that’s step three. In this episode, we break down the 2 steps that need to come before that - and why skipping them is ruining your progress. When you fix the order, the techniques slide into place easily. 📈 Dog Walking Diagnostic - Dis...

What can Street Dogs teach us about making our own dogs happier? Probably more than you’d expect. Most people feel sorry for street dogs. In many ways that instinct is right. They face injury, disease, hunger and danger that our pet dogs are protected from. But there are also parts of street dog life that are surprisingly better than the life pet dogs live. In this episode, Katie shares what she o...

Ever start a dog training plan full of hope… then quietly abandon it a few weeks later? Totally normal. And it has nothing to do with your dog. In this episode, I break down the invisible mindset loop that wrecks more dog training plans than bad techniques ever could. I call it The Bail-Before-You-Fail Loop. It explains: ⚡ Why motivated, caring dog owners struggle to follow through ⚡ How your br...

Same dog. Same training. Different outcomes. Why do some dog owners fix pulling, barking and lunging fast, while others stay stuck for years? The difference is not the lead, the treats, or the dog’s behaviour. It's the human operating system under pressure. In this episode, I break down the exact mindset pattern that keeps some dog owners stuck in reactive dog training loops, versus the pattern th...

Crazy idea, but what if you *didn’t* need to drill loose lead walking or recall? Sounds mad, but it’s exactly what happened for Em and her high-energy spaniel Sweep. She didn’t train loose lead walking. She didn’t drill recall over and over. She didn’t follow 8-week programmes for either. And yet: Loose lead walking improved ‘naturally’. Sweep recalled from deer He started checking in and staying...

Here’s a scene you might recognise: Your dog fixates, weight shifts forward. You try your training cue, do what you’ve practiced. He explodes anyway. A bark that turns heads, a lunge that yanks your arm. The jogger makes a face. Someone mutters “train your dog” 🙄 That’s when the shame rush hits. Heat in your cheeks, lead in your stomach. Your body wants to fold in on itself, to disappear. Your br...

If you’re searching “how to stop jumping up,” “why my dog barks at everything,” or “how to stop pulling”… you’re playing behaviour whack-a-mole. Fix one thing this week… A new problem pops up next week… Tackle that one… another appears… Whack whack whack you go 🔨🔨🔨 Jumping, barking, pulling, reacting, ignoring you, etc etc etc. These aren’t 10 different problems. They’re 10 symptoms of the same...

If you’re trying to fix the barking, pulling and lunging whilst the barking, pulling and lunging is happening - you’re already too late. By the time your dog *does* the behaviour, their body has already fired off an entire chain reaction that you did not see. 📈 Heart rate up. 🫁 Breathing quickened. 💪 Muscles primed. ⚡ Stress chemicals dumped into the system. 🧠 Thinking brain already offline....

You know ‘The Showdown’ 🤠 The quiet walk, the long straight path, no exit route. Cue: dramatic music as a dog appears on the horizon. What do you actually do when another dog is heading straight for you on a walk? Shorten the lead? Turn around? Hold your breath and hope for the best? I explain why so many pass-bys go badly - and what to do instead. 🤠The common mistakes made in those few seconds...

Christmas is full of joy - and opinions. Ever been hit with unsolicited advice about your dog’s behaviour at family gatherings? 🙄 💬 “Oh she’s *still* barking?” 💬 “We never use treats - you’re spoiling him.” 💬 “Our dog doesn’t need a lead.” You can enjoy the festivities without feeling judged or defensive - AND feel good about how you handled it (instead of silently resentful and thinking up ‘w...

Your puppy’s grown into a teenager and they’re pulling, barking, ignoring recall, pestering the kids, and bouncing off the walls. Most owners try to burn it off with more exercise. The problem with that? It can actually make things worse. In this episode, we’re talking: ⚡ Why high-energy games like ball chasing activate the same stress pathways as fear ⚡ How too much activity can make your dog m...

Your puppy’s turned into a teenager?! Here’s what’s REALLY going on - and how to survive it! Welcome to adolescence! Aka The Terrible Teens. A stage where stress stacks up fast, and bad habits picked up now can last for years. In this episode, we’ll dive into: ⚡What’s happening in your dog’s brain and why it’s driving all that barking, lunging, and ignoring you ⚡The kinds of enrichment that drai...

So you survived the puppy stage: the sleepless nights, the toilet training, the chewed furniture. You thought you were in the clear… until adolescence hits! Suddenly your once-angelic pup forgets every bit of training you’ve ever done. Recall? Gone. Loose lead walking? What’s that? In this episode, you’ll discover: ⚡️ The real science behind canine adolescence and why your dog suddenly seems to h...

It’s every dog owner’s nightmare. You’re enjoying a peaceful walk when suddenly an off-lead dog comes sprinting right at you. No owner in sight. You’ve got SECONDS to react. In this episode, we unpack how to handle one of the scariest real-life situations for any dog guardian: ⭐Why your reaction in those few seconds matters SO much ⭐Six real-world options for stopping an approaching dog - and ho...

One roar. One bang. One crash. That’s all it takes for a dog to go from curious to cautious. What happens in that split second after a scare decides whether your dog bounces back or carries that fear forward. You’ll hear the story of Creedie, who froze in his tracks when a fighter jet roared overhead. Emily had seconds to act… and what she did next completely changed how he handled every jet that...

Your dog only gets one first time. If that first time goes badly, the consequences can last a lifetime. A single experience, whether it’s meeting another dog, a ferry trip, a car ride, or a vet visit, can cause lasting fear. Car sickness, vet meltdowns, pulling, barking, or full-on reactivity that doesn’t just affect your dog - but makes everyday life stressful and unpredictable for you too. This...

Imagine spending 4 years trying every trainer, trick, and piece of advice you can find - only to still be dragged across the road by your 27-kilo spaniel. That was Derek and Margaret’s reality with their dog Charlie. Charlie had 17 different triggers - pulling, lunging, frantic sniffing, barking at dogs, chasing cats, exploding at the doorbell, the list went on. Walks were stressful, overwhelming,...

Stopping every time your dog pulls? That’s the most common loose lead walking advice - and one of the biggest reasons owners never fix their dog’s pulling. This stop/start method is supposed to teach dogs that when the lead is loose they can go, but in reality, it often makes things worse. Frustrated dogs. Frustrated owners. A pulling problem that feels tedious, miserable, endless. In this episode...

Do you know one of the biggest breakdowns in the human–dog relationship? It happens every time we clip on a lead and expect our dogs to walk neatly at our side, in a straight line, at a human pace, on a human schedule. It sounds simple, but loose leash walking is actually a huge ask! And it’s the reason so many dog owners resign themselves to a lifetime of leash pulling. In this episode, we dive i...

Does your dog pull like a train, zig-zag after every scent, or lunge with frustration the second you clip the lead on? You’re not alone. Pulling on the lead is one of the BIGGEST struggles dog owners face - and one of the most misunderstood. In this episode I’m sharing 7 reasons dogs pull on the lead - including some you’ve probably never been told before - and simple, practical things you can do...

Your dog is not a chicken. So why are we told to feed them like one? If you’ve ever been advised to scatter your dog’s meal ‘for enrichment’… that’s advice for the wrong species. What has feeding styles got to do with stress free walks, anyway? We tend to think of ‘walking problems’ (pulling, barking, lunging, ignoring you) starting only when the lead goes on. But calm walks start much earlier. Th...

Goodness me, re-training a dog can feel exhausting! 😵‍💫 Eyes in the back of your head. 😵‍💫 Cue after cue after cue. 😵‍💫 Chicken spilling out of your pockets. 🤔 The doubts that creep in: “Am I just bribing him? Shouldn’t he know how to behave by now?” If that sounds familiar, you’ve probably outgrown Level 1! Level 1 is management, distraction, keeping things under control, needing eyes in t...

You’ve tried. You’ve invested the time, the treats, the classes, the love (and let’s be real… the money). But progress is frustrating. Don’t worry! You’re not ‘bad at training.’ Your dog isn’t ‘stubborn’ either. My guess is that you may be making a few quiet, almost invisible mistakes, that are undoing your effort - without you even realising it. I’m diving into 4 of the most common ones in today’...