Duchess Dog Training

03/19/2026

A great day with my day training pups! ☀️

03/14/2026

Hi, I realized I’ve never properly introduced myself here. I’m Jessica, the one behind Duchess Dog Training. I’m based in Edmonton, Alberta.

I specialize in helping dogs and their people understand each other better by focusing on wellbeing, communication, and behaviour change that lasts.

I can help set your puppy up for success, your reactive dog cope around others, your bully be a great ambassador to their breed, or your anxious dog feel more comfortable and confident.

If you’re new here I’d love to know- what’s the biggest challenge you’re currently facing with your dog?

03/09/2026

Little trick for getting your dog to take pills. Marlowe is on antibiotics for an infection in her knee and she does not like these drugs at all. This hack works pretty well!

03/08/2026

Ping Pong game with Otis. Good practice for basic recall, helps get some focus on a walk, and I’m reinforcing loose leash walking here too.

03/02/2026

Real life example walking past a trigger.
✨Aim to keep dog under threshold by managing the environment (as best you can)
✨High value food
✨Already conditioned a solid recall or attention cue

03/01/2026

Little PSA- thanks everyone for being patient with me and giving me a platform to be vulnerable. If you can’t listen to it all, short version is: if you are missing something from me please reach out and remind me. Need to book a follow up? Haven’t gotten a summary? Asked me a question I haven’t answered yet? Permission to bug me.

03/01/2026

In most cases, your dog is not protecting you. They’re protecting themselves.

This is one of the most common misunderstandings around reactive behaviour.

When a dog barks, lunges, growls, or reacts strongly while beside their person, it can look protective. The dog is positioned near you. The reaction happens when someone approaches. The behaviour stops when the person or dog goes away. From a human perspective, that looks like guarding or loyalty.

But behaviourally, something very different is happening.

Dogs do not think in terms of social duty or protection roles unless they have been specifically bred, selected, and professionally trained for that purpose. Pet dogs are not making conscious decisions to defend their owner. They are responding to how safe or unsafe they themselves feel.

A simple analogy:

Imagine you are afraid of spiders. You’re standing beside a friend when a large spider suddenly appears. You jump back, shout, and move away quickly. You are not protecting your friend. You are reacting because your nervous system feels threatened. Your friend just happens to be standing beside you when it happens.

Reactive dogs are doing the same thing.

When a dog barks or lunges, the behaviour usually serves one function: increase distance from something that feels uncomfortable, unpredictable, or overwhelming.

If a dog were truly protecting you, you would expect confident, controlled behaviour. Protection requires calm assessment, emotional stability, and strategic response.

Reactive dogs show the opposite:

- heightened arousal
- loss of impulse control
- frantic or explosive responses
- difficulty disengaging
- behaviour that escalates rather than resolves calmly

That’s stress.

That is why helping the dog feel safer and the environment more predictable is what actually reduces reactivity.

02/22/2026

Petting consent test- pet for 3 seconds, stop petting and see what the dog does. Do they ask for more pets or not? And respect their choice. Great especially to help keep children safe around dogs.

01/27/2026

12/18/2025

🐾 "The X-Rays Showed Nothing." Let's Talk About What That Really Means.

I hear this phrase so often when getting results from my clients, and while it brings a moment of relief, it can also leave us with a false impression that "nothing is wrong."

I find it frustrating when X-rays are clear and the vet declares that the dog 'Just has a behaviour problem' and thats after we have evidence from the Functional Movement assessment I have performed on the dog that indicates a probelm and also the pain relief has had a positive impact on the dog in question.

But here is the vital context: an X-ray is a highly valuable tool, but it only shows one page of your dog's story.
What an X-ray CAN Show:

🦴 Bones and their structure

🦴 Major fractures or dislocations

🦴 Severe, advanced joint abnormalities

What an X-ray CANNOT Show:
Your dog’s body is a complex system of soft tissues—the cause of most mobility issues and discomfort:

❌ Muscle pain, strains, or spasms

❌ Ligament or Tendon damage (the classic sprain)

❌ Nerve compression or irritation

❌ Early stages of Arthritis

❌ Spinal cord inflammation

❌ The Pain your dog is actually feeling

The Deeper Truth

When an X-ray "shows nothing," it does not always mean your dog is fine.

It simply means that one layer of the investigation has been completed, and the missing puzzle piece we are looking for is in a different box.

What this outcome does give us is crucial: We've successfully ruled out major fractures and severe bone disease, and now we know to look deeper into the soft tissues.

Taking the Holistic View

If your dog's behaviour changes, their mobility shifts, or you still see those subtle signs of pain, it’s a clear signal that the investigation must continue.

Understanding the whole picture requires a holistic approach, which often includes:

🔎 Hands-On Assessment: Feeling the muscles and joints.

🗒️ A Behaviour report: Explaining the behavioural challenges and clinical signs of discomfort.

🐾Functional Movement Assessment: Watching how your dog moves.

💊 Pain Trial: A carefully managed medicinal approach.

🔬 Advanced Imaging: Ultrasound, MRI, or CT scans when needed.

No single test gives us all the answers. But each step helps us rule out what it's not, bringing us closer to understanding what is really going on so we can create an effective, gentle care plan for your beloved dog.

It also highlights the importance of your canine professionals working together and with you, to find the answers that will undo your dogs behavioural challenge.

Check out my FREE course 'So You Think Your Dog Isn't in Pain?' to learn more about hidden pain in your dog and how it effects behaviour.
https://edinburgh-holistic-dogs.newzenler.com/courses/so-you-think-your-dog-isnt-in-pain

11/19/2025

So relevant to dogs too.

There is a phrase I see constantly in the horse world ESPECIALLY on social media:

“Medical issues have been cleared.”

People use it as if it means the horse has been fully assessed, fully understood and confirmed pain free. I have even seen it followed by things like

“This horse has been cleared of pain. It is just behaving like a pig.”

That kind of statement shuts down the conversation before it even starts. Once someone believes the horse is “cleared,” every behaviour afterward gets interpreted as a training issue, a character flaw or a lack of respect instead of a possible sign that something in the body still needs attention.

But pain does not work in neat, simple categories. And neither do horses.

A single appointment can absolutely rule certain things out. It can give important direction. But it cannot confirm that a horse is not experiencing discomfort. Many physical issues are not visible in a basic exam, a static scan or a straight-line trot up. Some do not even show clearly on imaging until the horse is moving or loaded in a very specific way.

We see this even in post mortem diagnostics.

A static image alone is not enough to tell the full story. Tissue changes, joint function, muscle compensation patterns and micro injuries often only come to light when the structures are examined dynamically or from multiple angles. If that is true after death, it is certainly true in a live horse whose behaviour is part of the diagnostic picture.

This is exactly why pain ethograms exist. They give us a structured, research-backed way to identify behaviour patterns that correlate with discomfort long before imaging can. Without a behavioural component, our understanding of equine pain is incomplete.

There are three major things that equine pain research keeps showing us:

——

First:

Many pain related behaviours are subtle, inconsistent or suppressed when the horse is stressed or excited. Horses compensate far longer than people expect. A lack of dramatic lameness does not mean a lack of pain.

——

Second:

A horse can present “normal” in a basic exam and still be uncomfortable. Low grade or multi site pain can be missed in standard checks but becomes obvious under saddle or during specific movements that recreate the problem.

——-

Third:

Behaviour changes are often the earliest and most reliable indicators that something is going on. Hesitation in transitions. Shortened stride. Loss of softness. Increased tension. A shift in posture. These patterns usually show up before imaging does.

This is why the phrase “the horse has been cleared” is misleading. What we actually have is a snapshot of what was ruled out on that day, under those specific conditions.

A more accurate and welfare centred approach sounds like:

“When these behaviours show up, we ask what the horse is communicating and whether the pattern aligns with known pain indicators, instead of assuming defiance.”

That mindset keeps the horse’s communication open instead of shutting it down. It keeps the door open to understanding rather than labelling. And it acknowledges that pain is far more complex than a single visit, a single scan or a single moment in time can capture.