Dave The Dog Guy

27/04/2026

I was out for an hour and a half, anyone would think id be gone a week!

18/04/2026

17/04/2026

Stress Exposure and why it should be avoided at all costs.

If you have the necessary education, you understand the science and psychology behind how a dogs brain works, and you know how to use the correct methods, you will NEVER use Stress Exposure.

If you have the knowledge of the science, you know what the impacts of Stress Exposure will be and that they are wholly negative.

You would understand what large amounts of cortisol do to a dogs brain and also to their body. You would understand that high levels of cortisol cause a heightened blood pressure, a heightened heart rate, lead to a weakened immune system and a whole host of other problems.

What you would also understand is that if you willingly put a dog into a high stress situation in the name of "Stress Exposure", that dog will end up potentially experiencing Learned Helplessness which not only solves nothing but has created a new problem.
It has destroyed any trust that you may have built up with the dog, instead of desensitising youve actually SENSITISED them.

They're not now ok in the situation that they were fearful in, they are simply shut down i.e. Learned Helplessness.

Simple put, Stress Exposure never works and should be avoided. It's completely unnecessary when we have scientifically recognised methods to deal with fearfulness. Anyone using Stress Exposure, particularly people on social media, should be avoided at all costs.

Flooding is a controversial dog behavioural modification technique that involves exposing a dog to an overwhelming amount of a feared stimulus in an attempt to eliminate its fear or anxiety response. This approach aims to achieve quick results by forcing the dog to confront its fears head-on. Such m...

14/04/2026

11/04/2026

The problem that rescues face regarding a dogs personality and why you may see something different when you get them home.

Most rescues do the best job they possibly can. They work with the money and the resources they have in order to try and ensure that a dog is ready to go to a forever home.

One of the many requirements is assessing and looking at a dogs personality.

Sometimes, you may be adopting a dog that the rescue has told you is "relaxed, chilled out, happy, loves being pet, loves company" etc or something of that nature. Then, you get them home, and the complete opposite begins to occur.

Now, is this because the rescue has lied to you? No. The rescue has listed what they have seen when assessing the dog.

Unfortunately though, some of the time there is something that has been missed. Many dogs when they are in rescue will suffer varying degrees of being shut down. Many rescues are cold, smelly, noisy, busy, with hard floors to sleep on. These things, in many cases, are this way for obvious reasons, but it can and often does impact a dogs mentality and therefore their personality.

Some dogs will let you do ANYTHING when they are shut down, not because they like it, but because they are in a position emotionally where they are literally shut down. They wont air their grievances, they wont react in that situation.

Its only when you get them home and they begin decompressing that they begin becoming confident enough to tell you "I dont like that", "im not comfortable with that", "stop that".

Rescues in this situation are not to blame. Because of the environment, and potentially other factors also, the rescues often wont see the dogs true personality. This of course does not apply to every dog but it is certainly an issue that occurs, and if the rescues attempted to keep them there until they saw the dogs true personality, the dog would never leave because the personality is not going to show because of the environment and situation they are in.

I wanted to make this post because I see rescues getting bashed a lot and hopefully ive explained the difficulty that rescues can face in regard to this.

11/04/2026

09/04/2026

Beware of the dog "training influencers".

Follower numbers do not mean you know what are talking about.

Training your own dog does not mean you hold the education, knowledge or experience to know how to properly assess a dog and make a comprehensive behavioural modification plan specifically tailored to a certain breed of dog.

Just because you have taught your dog to "sit" and to "heel" does not mean you possess the ability to deal with complex reactive behaviours, aggressive behaviours or understand how crucial a it is to a dogs development to adequately train them carefully throughout specific periods in their puppyhood.

If you want a good behaviourist or trainer, seek someone with qualifications from recognised teaching bodies not a 30 minute online course, someone who can answer all of your questions in depth and someone who can explain what methods they use, what these methods achieve and can explain other methods which can be called upon if necessary.

Dont be fooled by 5 second videos online. You cannot assess competency this way. I have seen too many cases if people who thought they'd hire a "trainer" because they "saw some videos" only to find that this person held the bare minimum of knowledge required.

Please be careful, it's important

04/04/2026

Why it is important to make sure you do not overuse treats when teaching behaviours.

Treats are used to help form many different behaviours: luring to teach the basics like "sit", "down" etc but also using during more advanced sequences of behaviours.

When using treats, we have to be careful that we dont overuse the treats. We dont want the treats to go from reinforcing the behaviour to being the ONLY REASON that the dog performs the behaviour which can happen if they are overused.

This can mean that the dog will simply refuse to perform the command unless they see that a treat is present.

They can also become far too preoccupied with the treats in general and ignore other training routines because of how focused they are on the food which can hinder their willingness to learn.

This is why you have to use treats carefully but also consider switching up the reward (this is obviously dependent if your dog is motivated by toys as well as food, although you can use verbal praise alongside treats) so that a reliance on food during training does not develop.

It's important to phase treats out of the training regime but ONLY at the right time (this is dependent on what behaviour you are trying to teach). Do this too soon and you risk the behaviour not taking effect properly, do this far too late and you're potentially already in one of the aforementioned situations.