You’ve brought your dog home and you’re dreaming of your perfect life together. Lots of lovely long walks, evenings snuggling on the sofa watching TV and the odd trip to a café or pub together… You know that to have that dream life you need to train your dog. But you’re not actually sure what you should be teaching them…

If you’re struggling with your dog pulling on-lead you’ve probably seen some very conflicting advice about what equipment to use. Some people will tell you that putting your dog in a harness will teach your dog to pull and there’s no way you’ll ever train your dog to walk with a loose-lead if they’re wearing a harness. These people will probably tell you that the only way to train loose-lead walking is with a slip lead or prong collar (I do not EVER recommend you use either of those). And then there are other people who tell you that buying the right harness will instantly stop your dog pulling.

One of the first questions many people ask when they start training their dog is ‘when can I stop using treats?’. And I completely understand why. A lot of people have concerns about the cost of constantly buying dog treats, whether their dog will become overweight and the impracticality of always carrying treats. We’re also all told by society that dogs should respond to trained cues ‘just because they’re told’ without expecting rewards.

No dog is perfect. We all have things we wish our dogs would stop doing. Your dog might be pulling on-lead, not coming back when you call or jumping up at visitors. Or maybe they’re stealing and destroying your stuff, digging at your carpet or eating things they shouldn’t. You could just punish your dog to try and stop the problem behaviour. But that’s going to affect your dog’s welfare and damage your relationship with them. And it’s not going to deal with the root cause of the behaviour so it’s unlikely to work long term.

Bringing your new puppy home is one of the most exciting days of your life. But it can also be one of the most stressful. Puppies need to learn so much to grow into amazing adult dogs. You’ve got this overwhelming list of things you need to teach your puppy. But you have no idea what you should teach them first and whether you should start training them now or wait until they’re a bit older.

A lot of people wait until they go to puppy classes to train their puppy. But this isn’t a great idea. Your puppy is constantly learning all about the world and how they’re expected to behave. If you wait weeks to teach your puppy anything then they’ll probably have learnt a lot of things you would rather they didn’t…

Our dogs live in a human world and the rules and expectations are often very different to the dog world. Your dog doesn’t automatically know why they can’t jump up at people, why they need to walk on a lead and why they shouldn’t steal food from your kitchen counters. They don’t understand that not everyone likes muddy paw prints on their clothes, that they could be injured or killed if they get hit by a car and that some human food is poisonous to dogs. Life skills training teaches your dog everything they need to know to live in our confusing human world safely.

We all dream of those lovely, relaxing walks with our dogs where they walk calmly next to us. But if you’ve tried training your dog to walk calmly on a lead you’ll have found it’s harder than it looks. That’s because those exciting walks come with lots of distractions for your dog. There’s so many things to see, hear and smell and it’s really hard for them to focus on walking with you when there's so much other stuff happening.

Choosing a dog trainer is confusing. Especially when every single trainer seems to use different training methods. It’s hard to trust any professional when you can easily find another who’s saying the exact opposite. Unfortunately dog training is an unregulated profession so anyone can say they’re a dog trainer, even if they’ve got no qualifications, experience or skill. That’s why you’ll see so many different opinions, a lot of them come from trainers who are quite literally making it up as they go along. Other trainers are relying on myths that were debunked over 20 years ago or are using methods that are proven to harm your dog and your relationship with them.

You got a dog dreaming of taking them out on lots of relaxing walks. But then you discovered that reality is very different. Your dog pulls you to every person or dog they see out on a walk and as soon as you let them off lead they fuck off as far away from you as possible. Now you're dreading taking them out because what should be the best part of your day has become a huge chore.