Calm the Pup Down Dog Training

07/04/2025

Want to give your dog the sh!ts this Easter?
Give them a sugary, fatty 'dog chocolate' Easter egg!

Looking for a nutritionally superior, mega high value treat?
Give them a proper egg!

Full of complete protein, essential vitamins, & minerals, eggs offer a far superior nutritional profile for many fewer calories.
No, I’m not in the pocket of Big Farmer, I just think
your dog will thank you for ditching the processed nonsense and choosing a Good Egg to help them join in with the easter celebrations.

28/03/2025

Some great tips on resource guarding

Rethinking the Swap: Resource Guarding and Consent in Dogs

In the springtime, we see an influx of puppies and new adoptions as people prepare for more pleasant weather. By autumn, many of these puppies—now in adolescence—begin to show signs of resource guarding. It’s a common trend for behaviour professionals to see such cases during seasonal shifts.

Resource guarding (RG) can be a completely natural canine behaviour—dogs may protect what they value, whether it’s food, toys, space, or even people. But because it’s often viewed negatively, a common approach to preventing RG in puppies is teaching a “swap” behaviour—offering a treat or something of higher value in exchange for the guarded item. On the surface, this seems practical and positive. However, the swap technique can fall short if it’s not grounded in a deeper understanding of canine emotional safety.

The Problem with Swap-First Approaches:

If a dog has not been taught the concepts of consent, safety, and choice, then “swap” becomes just another transactional demand. The dog may still learn that humans might take things unpredictably, and while a treat might be offered, the experience lacks trust and voluntary participation. Over time, this can actually create or exacerbate guarding behaviour rather than prevent it—especially if the dog perceives repeated loss of valued items.

Choice as Foundations:

Dogs raised with concept training—where the emphasis is on emotional safety, agency, and choice—are far less likely to develop RG issues in the first place. When a dog knows they won’t be forced, that their needs are heard, and that communication is two-way, they’re more likely to offer items freely, making a formal “swap” unnecessary.

Instead of jumping to training a trade, teaching the underlying concepts that support cooperative behaviours might be more beneficial. Concept training helps dogs understand ideas like “sharing is safe,” “giving things up doesn’t mean loss,” and “my voice matters.” These foundational lessons make behaviours like swapping more meaningful and reliable.

Passive Tips for Preventing RG:

💡Observe Body Language Closely

Watch for subtle signs of discomfort or tension when the dog has something—even if it’s not deemed valuable. Respecting their signals is essential for establishing a foundation of trust.

💡Practise “Trade” with More Choice

When offering a swap, let the dog choose whether to engage. Offer the alternative without demanding the original item. If they keep the original, that’s okay—trust is more important. Practising trades out of context (when there’s no conflict) is especially beneficial.

💡Use Consent-Based Handling and Interaction

Teach a “can I?” cue. Before reaching for an item, offer a hand and wait for the dog’s engagement. Reward curiosity, not compliance.

💡Reinforce Voluntary Sharing

If the dog brings something, praise them—even if there’s no need to take it. Reinforce the act of offering rather than focusing on possession.

💡Avoid Unnecessary Takeaways

Not falling into the habit of routinely taking things “just because.” If the dog has something safe and appropriate, let them enjoy it. Constant interruption teaches distrust.

While teaching a puppy to swap can be useful, but without the deeper work of building trust, consent, and communication, it risks becoming a quick fix rather than a sustainable solution. When dogs feel secure and respected, they’re naturally more cooperative. The real prevention for RG lies not in teaching them to give things up, but in nurturing a safe environment that builds trust.

Boo Blackhurst, CDBC

25/03/2025

It is reductive to say that dogs “exist in the moment.” It’s a fallacy, used to apply unnecessarily harsh control methods onto them.
They won’t remember it. They get over it. Move on.

Excuse me, have you ever truly met a dog?

When you leave your home with your dog, if you are sighted, you see your local area by means of your brain processing the light that hits the environment and bounces back into your eyes. You are experiencing at the speed of light when you step out into the day. That's pretty "now."

Dogs, as primarily olfactory (scent-based) animals, their experience of the world always contains echoes of what has gone before.

Chemical traces, pheromones, of dogs who have walked past your home last night, the cat that walked along your garden gate in the early hours.
Your dog is a literal time traveller.

Sensing residual paths of others moving through space - Those paths are stronger on the most recent footprints.
Your dog knows which direction they went, hours ago, when you were all asleep.

The mixture of scent, the layers that are relevant to them versus those that are not.
Your dog can distinguish, they know who on the dog field has treats on them, even if that person forgot they had them in their pocket.

Scent carries emotional learning experiences, as with us, the smell of your gran’s perfume or Sunday dinner will stick with us. But our olfactory system is pathetic, we get 20% of what our dogs do when we take in a scent.
Your dog can have an emotional response to a molecule of a scent that was laid down a day ago.

…If they have vision, they also see. They experience the present now, too, like you do.

Try to think how that must feel.

Today, last night, yesterday. Friends, foes all there in front of you all at once.
Imagine all this, while someone is simultaneously demanding your attention and expecting you to perform a command before crossing a road.

Never forget that your dog experiences things you could never imagine. Your brain is human, your culture and lived experience are human. You will never truly be able to get into the mind of a dog; it is not within your imaginative capacity to do that. Such an intense sensory experience would be overwhelming, even for a short time. You’d go mad, you are not set up for it.

We are forever hobbled by our human-centric way of seeing, but that’s fine, if you are open to accepting that and using it to inform your behaviour.

If you are open to engaging with dogs as complex thinking, feeling, experiencing entities and give them space to dog.

You share your home with an animal, maybe multiple animals.

If you aren’t prepared to engage even a little with their animality then you should not live with them.
Or, indeed, be taking peoples money to train them.

21/03/2025

𝗕𝗜𝗚 𝗡𝗘𝗪𝗦! 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝘂𝘇𝘇𝗹𝗲 𝗠𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗟𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗮𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗖𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗔𝗰𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗺𝘆!

We are SO excited to announce that The Muzzle Movement will be with us on 𝗦𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝟭𝟴𝘁𝗵 𝗠𝗮𝘆 as part of their nationwide tour!

This is your exclusive chance to have your dog professionally fitted with a muzzle, ensuring comfort, safety, and confidence for you and your dog. Whether you’re a seasoned muzzle user or new to the idea, this is an opportunity not to miss!

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝘂𝘇𝘇𝗹𝗲 𝗠𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 are leading the way in changing the conversation around muzzles – promoting responsible dog ownership and helping dogs feel empowered and safe.

Spaces are limited, so don’t wait!

Book your slot directly through their booking system and join us in making muzzles part of normal dog ownership.

https://calendly.com/muzzles

https://www.themuzzlemovement.com/pages/the-muzzle-movement-up-and-coming-events

𝗟𝗲𝘁’𝘀 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗨𝗞 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗱 𝗟𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗮𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗴 𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲!

17/03/2025

Train -for- the moment, not in the moment.

You wouldn’t learn to read with War and Peace, run an Ironman triathlon with no training, or take your driving test without lessons - so why expect your dog to handle tough situations without learning how to do it beforehand?

In order to succeed your dog needs to learn what you want them to do, and get good at it first!

Building skills before they’re needed, not just hoping for the best when you’re there: That’s literally training.

05/03/2025

MANAGEMENT: setting the environment up to reduce unwanted behaviours.

Often we use barriers to manage a dog’s behaviour, but it is more than that.

Here’s some management I’ve installed to help limit rehearsal of unwanted behaviour in Barb.
Last week I set about clearing the bed near the fence. I hadn’t had a chance over the last year, and it was wildly overgrown, inaccessible to her.

Having cleared it and revealed the fence and a lovely bed which the dog may decide to dig in, given the chance, as that part of the garden has no lighting, I realised we would need a way to keep an eye on her.

If she’s out at night, I often follow her around with my bouncer torch to watch what she is up to, so I can call her in before she kicks off at perceived misdemeanours on the other side of the hedges. “Someone walking past my house? At night? Laughing and joking? HOW DARE YOU—bark bark bark.” Or to deter her from using the cover of darkness to access forbidden areas of the garden to dig and bury her chews.

To make it a little easier to police Captain Rules in the dark, I bought some solar-powered down-lighters so she isn’t in the dark when round the corner.

When I was putting them up, I realised the fence was rattling.

Not as much of an issue when there were bushes in front, but now likely to give Barb the impression something—squirrel, cat, monster—was walking along the top of the fence, causing it to rattle. She can sometimes run at the fence furiously if it rattles, on the off chance there may be a very stupid cat hopping over.

I found a piece of wood and cut some down to wedge into the space that the fence was rattling about in.
No more rattling!

These two adjustments to the garden should help to reduce the amount of “bad” behaviours Barb does in the garden, whilst still allowing her the freedom to patrol.

When you are working out what management to use for your dog, it’s important to try to get into their heads a little, identify their triggers for behaviours you’re not too keen on, and then adjust the environment where you can.

Sometimes it looks like putting up a baby gate, sometimes it looks like sawing wood in your pyjamas at 8:30 in the morning before the dog’s out of bed.

21/02/2025

Another fantastic post

WHEN ANIMAL ADVOCACY IS AN ACT OF DEFIANCE

trigger warning: discusses acts of animal harm and coercive acts around dog training

I'd like to share a story from a more recent client family. They've given me permission to share as I thought that what had happened to them was important enough to talk about and think about.

They are genuinely lovely people. Their dog Cally has nipped a couple of people who've reached out to grab her in public, and we're dealing with the repercussions of that.

Because of the nature of my work, the first few sessions are often by zoom. I really don't want to add to a bite statistic! That way, I can chat with people, get to know them virtually, take background information and not have to ride a tide of anxiety from people wondering if my dog will bite them or not. It also means we can all relax, take a breath, stop if we need to, share video and I can also record it if they want me to.

It transpired that their dog had, in fact, bitten another trainer. They didn't tell me this until their fourth session when we were up close and personal. It wouldn't have made me do anything differently because any dog could, in theory, take umbrage and decide today is the day.

That's a pretty serious thing not to tell someone, though.

I didn't need to ask why. It came in the midst of a conversation we were having related to something else and we were talking about the challenges of shame and guilt.

It was our second in-person session. I turned up at the house to walk the dog with them so we could talk about some of their challenges advocating for their dog on daily walks. We'd had coffee and a chat before we'd gone out, chewing over the practicalities.

As we all moved to get ready for a walk, I noticed a prong collar on the side next to Cally's harness and lead.

"I hope you don't mind me asking," I said, "but is this something you've used?"

"No..." they said, with hesitation. I left space for them to decide whether this was something they wanted to share or not.

"We took her to a trainer before you," Diane, one of Cally's guardians said. "He recommended we buy it from him. He showed us how to use it in the session, but we didn't like it so we've never used it."

There was a change in the air. They both seemed hesitant to go further, so I left it at that. We put Cally's lead on and we stepped out of the house for a walk.

Cally isn't reactive to people. She's largely tolerant of whatever they do. She's happy to approach and she has a great relationship with her family. But when she's approached by a stranger who reaches out to grab her and she's cornered, she now has a history of not being listened to.

Same for her guardians.

They are polite, kind, gentle people.

Where I might tell someone to sling their hook if they try to pet my dog without asking, and especially if they ignore my request for space, they don't have that history.

They live on the edge of a small market town with a large park, which they all enjoy using. From time to time, they've walked Cally in town, which has been the usual scene of the crime. In the park, either off-lead or on-lead, there is space for them to move away. In a narrow and restrictive cobbled alleyway, it's much easier for people to decide that petting Cally is their right. This also means Cally can't move away, especially if it's busy.

We were talking about strategies to advocate for Cally, rather than restricting walks completely to open spaces.

"The thing is," I said, "sometimes being polite is such a habit that we forget to advocate for our dog and other people take advantage of that."

Diane went quiet.

"You know," she said, "I think that's what happened with that awful collar."

"What do you mean?"

"I paid £50 for that! We've never used it and we knew there and then that we never would. I looked at Ken and we both knew we wouldn't use it on Cally. Our advocating is coming after something bad has happened, not before."

She was visibly upset. We all sat down and the full story came out - the story they'd been too ashamed to tell me.

Cally had twice nipped people who'd petted her - that much was true. I don't mean to minimise this description. She put teeth on people but it was quick and did the job it was designed to do: make unwanted hands go away.

They'd gone to see another local trainer for a private session. He'd charged them five times my price, saw Cally only at his facility, insisted they buy a prong collar from him (at a mark-up, it transpires) and proceded to use it on her. He showed them how to use it and then played the role of someone coming up to Cally to pet her.

"Just give it a tug," he'd apparently said. "Say, 'no!' in a firm tone and then tug her again if she shows any sign of aggression."

He'd played the role of a person approaching her, and, as he stuck his hands in her face, Cally bit him.

"Tug her!" the guy said.

They did, and they left having settled the bill.

Because they are such polite and decent people, it didn't cross their minds to say no. They don't have a history of doing so. They work on the notion that people are like them - good and kind on the whole. That's the world they live in.

They did that thing we all might do: we decide not to go back. We write off the costs, chalk it up to experience and find another way to get our needs met.

No negative feedback. No reporting the guy to the council, the police, or even trading standards. They just didn't go back. The collar sat on the side where it had been ever since they returned home that day.

Diane shared a lot that session. Most of it was her realisation that she did the same in both situations in town as well as with the trainer.

She had APOLOGISED for their transgression.

SHE felt bad. SHE felt ashamed.

The truth is that many advocates of abusive tools and punitive, coercive approaches with animals depend on OUR compliance. They know that most of us don't have a history of saying no to so-called experts. They know they have us over a barrel and they exploit it. Their history is one of coercion and bullying. They rely on us to simply comply with it.

It made me realise how many of us end up in situations where we have been pressured to adopt strict methods, told that being gentle equates to passivity and lax or permissive behaviour. The old moral sa**sm: you've got to be cruel to be kind.

Sometimes we opt out. We simply don't go back. I wondered how many other people had paid up £250 for a single appointment and £50 for a prong collar and then never gone back.

Sometimes, we are seduced into normalising violence by the role of the so-called expert. They're the dog trainer, after all. Surely they know what they are doing. They are also experts in coercion, dipping a toe in the water to push boundaries, using social groups to exert pressure and using logical fallacies to trick us into conforming. Even if it felt a bit wrong at the time, we invest in it and it becomes ever more normal over time. They may even use their social media 'influencer' credentials and the power of social referencing to convince us of the 'new' normal.

It's rare for people to notice some of the subtle ways that these things occur. Or they just vote with their absence and never return.

There can be repercussions for active defiance. Never more so when you have a dog who has bitten members of the public and the pressure of euthanasia looms over you.

Nowhere is 'informed consent' part of the agenda. In ten years, I have discussed the use of punishment with clients. I've also explained the risks, side effects and predictable fallout. That's my job. I do the same with any approach, including the use of food, treats and even environmental management.

To Diane and Ken, we intended to muzzle train Cally and do some cooperative care so that this didn't happen with the vet. We also spoke about ways to advocate up front for Cally, before she has to do it for herself.

No intervention is without tensions. No intervention is neutral. We can advise with the most benign of motivations but if we don't understand the tensions of our suggestions, we behaviour folk and dog trainers cannot give full information to our clients so their consent can be truly informed.

Whenever we change something, there are repercussions. Speaking up for Cally sounds righteous until it puts you in conflict with a hateful bully, for instance. There is never a time that advocating for our dog is risk-free. We depend, ironically, on other people's compliance when we do. My clients need to be prepared for this moment. I'm a defiant individual with a long history of clearly defining my boundaries. I was also physically assaulted for doing so. There are tensions in any behaviour choice we make.

I wonder how many of us have been manipulated into actions we'd not otherwise have taken with our dogs, or have simply walked away from conflict as our mode of advocating.

It's hard - defying strong cultural pressures. I can't even tell you the number of uncomfortable dogs in head halters I see on our walks. Ideas pass between us without anyone ever sharing the tensions, and few people stop to question it.

To truly advocate for our dogs, we need to be comfortable with the spectrum of defiance.

Sometimes, that's simply proudly walking my dog in her bright and colourful harness with her long lead. Sometimes, it's a firm 'no!' to strangers. I don't care about their feelings.

But I also understand that many of us may have made decisions we feel ashamed of because we put the feelings of a strange bully, violating our boundaries, over the feelings of our dog.

This human malarky... never as easy as it looks!

Be proud in your defiance when it means advocating for your dog though. It doesn't matter how expert the other individual is. I had to quietly prompt the chief vet to listen to my dog Lidy's heart & lungs last week. You can be a vet of 39 years' experience and get carried away, of course. I'd like to hope people would do the same with me too. My vet was very gracious, and I was happy Lidy wasn't being sedated without that useful data.

Advocating for a dog can be big acts or small ones. But like everything in life, it gets easier the more you do it.

11/02/2025

Thoughtful piece as always by Emma

IS VIOLENCE A SIGN OF THE TIMES?

trigger warning: discusses violence towards animals and people

It's easy for me to get lost in a progressive and thoughtful world. My clients are, without exception, caring and kind people who want the best for their dogs. The people who come to my webinars are focused on making a better world for dogs. When I talk to colleagues, I get the sense that everyone is trying to move towards building behaviours that benefit animals and make the world a little less awful.

I've not been out much recently, between the wind and the rain and the snow. My dog Lidy and I have our normal early morning and late evening walks, and a fair bit of sitting on the house steps watching the world go by. The neighbours who stop to say hi often have their dogs with them and there is a tenderness and care that led me, seductively, to believe that the world is moving towards a more compassionate and caring relationship with the world around us.

My library is filled with increasing reverence for life. Whatever I'm reading - be it theoretical or philosophical neuroscience, biology, ethology or literature - has been marked with a move towards appreciating animals for the species they truly are. There is a wonder and a respect in the words I find.

Yet beyond this tiny bubble, I realise just how many mundane acts of violence there are around us.

On Friday, I drove to the post office to drop off some gifts for a friend's son for his birthday.

The road into town is hilly and filled with blind bends. Several potholes have claimed tyres and suspension springs and arms, so I drive with some care. It's also a road filled with wildlife and lost livestock, so I'm perhaps more alert to the life around me in that thin ribbon of decrepid and fragile tarmac that cuts through forest and farmland.

At one point, a car came up fast behind me. I wasn't going at the speed limit, but I wasn't far off, and I don't like to think I was holding anybody up. However, the impatience of the driver was obvious. He flashed me four times, drove in the middle of the road too close for comfort, overtook me on a blind bend and caused oncoming traffic to slam on their brakes.

When I got to the post office car park, I realised his car was there too. He was just getting out. When he saw my car, he stopped.

A part of me thought hard about getting out of my car in such circumstances.

"Just drive off!" I said to myself. "Come back in ten minutes. He'll be gone!"

But another part of me thought that I wasn't going to be intimidated by this bullying.

I parked up and got out, taking my time.

His fury by the time I actually walked towards him was palpable.

I stared at him. I pointed to my collar where I'd clipped my go pro and I tapped it.

"I have your registration and your car on dashcam footage." I said. "And I'm filming right now. I'm not being provocative. I'm just letting you know."

He stared right back at me and seemed to be thinking things through.

"I am going in the post office to post this parcel." I said, not really knowing why. Maybe by way of explanation about why I'd had the temerity to end up at the same spot he did, moments after he had.

Another lady had stopped some distance away, perhaps sensing something was wrong.

He seemed to back down. He pushed past me and seemed to walk off. I let him go, letting all the held breath go with him. I switched my go pro off and removed it from its holster, embarrassed by my need for an electronic witness.

In the post office, it was a fragile refuge from the thick layer of potential violence. The lady stopped and asked if I was okay.

"I'm fine!" I said. "Thanks for asking. Just bad driving. Not sure we'd agree on who the bad driver was!"

The joke made her smile. I admired her lovely scarf and another lady in the queue in front of us turned to compliment it also. In front, a man seemed to be hesitating and holding us up a bit, unable to see that a large gap had opened up.

"Are you okay?" the other lady asked.

"I'm so sorry!" he said. "I'm partially sighted and I'm struggling to see what I need!"

She helped him find the envelope he was looking for.

It was a fragile sanctuary, a fragile safety, that burst as soon as I closed the door behind me once I'd done what I needed to.

I clutched my camera in my pocket, just in case.

It wasn't without cause. Back at the house some half an hour later, I watched the dashcam footage back and realised he'd gone to my car straight after I'd gone into the post office. I heard Lidy issue a volley of barks as he got too close to her window. I imagine a Belgian shepherd going nuts is more of a deterrent than a conscience or a camera these days.

It seemed one of those casual moments of frustration and anger that I'd witnessed only a couple of weeks before - the incident that had already led me to set up my dashcam in my car and to carrying my go pro, just in case.

I didn't think much about it until Saturday afternoon when I drove to the supermarket and ended up in another confrontation in the car park. The car next to me - an expensive and powerful one - had an older couple wrestling a labrador in the boot.

"Sit!" the man said, jerking hard on a choke collar around the dog's throat.

"Sit!" he repeated, even though the dog was sitting already. Another jerk. The dog coughed. "Sit!" Another barked command, another jerk on the choke collar. "Will you sit!" he said.

Both he and his wife in their expensive coats were crowding a dog I could not really see, other than to know that he was clearly already sitting and I had no idea why they were trying to get him out in the supermarket car park.

I shut my car boot, having retrieved my bags. As he grabbed the dog again by the throat and je**ed the collar with another "Sit!", I winced visibly. His wife watched me.

"Sit!" it came again.

"Oh good grief!" I snapped. "Will you stop yanking that awful collar!"

His wife looked over at me with derision.

"What are you? A dog trainer?!"

"A behaviourist actually." I said. "But you don't need a degree to know that your dog is already sitting and that dreadful collar is making him cough!"

She looked a little surprised that I was actually a dog person after all. Even so, her scorn was evident.

"Where do you live?" she said. And that same sense of threat and menace crept over me as it had the day before.

"Just outside town!" I said, vaguely. She asked me tartly if I worked with naughty dogs.

By this time, their poor dog was out of the car and on the tarmac. The sad thing was I knew they were struggling, but the man's casual violence and frustration wasn't something I was able to just brush off. I couldn't just reclaim that politeness, that helpfulness, that concern that everyone in the post office had had for each other in our bubble of otherness where we take care of one another.

The petty acts of casual violence towards other humans and towards animals seem prolific right now. I've never known a time when such violence, resentment and aggression seethed, simmering just below boiling point. I've never known a time when, looking out beyond those fragile bubbles of care I usually occupy, I'm confronted with such entitlement towards using methods of coercion, towards abuses of power.

It seems ironic to me that such norms of anger and displays of brute force are often excused as victimhood, as if something terrible has been done to those wielding their physical power as a weapon... as if a frightened dog pulling on the lead in panic is an assault on the personhood of the man who is walking on him... as if a slower car is an assault on the time and patience of a man who arrives at a destination only seconds before the people whose lives he endangered through recklessness... as if I caused his recklessness and violence simply by existing... as if an overwhelmed dog in a car who is struggling and conflicted is an assualt on the authority and skillset of his so-called caregivers.

It's always someone else's fault. It's the dog's fault. It's that slow driver's fault.

They MADE me do it.

I'm seeing so much more of that these days, it feels.

The fraying of limited patience...

The redirected frustration and aggression on to those who are well-used to behaving subordinately so as not to anger those in power...

I spend so much time in the lightness, kindness and goodness of the animals and people around me that it is even more shocking when I realise how much anger there is in the world right now. Nothing, it seems, is allowed to threaten or challenge violence or status. Anything we do is seen as a threat to their entitlement to use violence if they please, and the fallout goes everywhere: towards any individual - human or animal - who doesn't use aggression in response.

What worries me more is the not-so-subtle creep of violence, of coercion and of force into spheres that were previously less tolerant of such approaches... dog trainers normalising conversations about the use of rank reduction approaches, head halters, shock collars... the creep of language towards 'e-collars' ... the derision and scorn directed to kinder ways of doing things... the resurgence of terms like 'dominance'... the studied use of affection and interaction in manipulative and seductive ways with dogs to create instability and uncertainty in relationships that border on coercive abuse... the use of flooding... the push for a shut-down dog.

It's hard sometimes not to stare so hard at that darkness that it becomes a part of you or that it crushes you completely.

All that it reminds me to do is remember to look to the light and celebrate it more noisily than ever. It's frightening to do that when that light is so very offensive to those who prefer violence and abuse of power.

It's perhaps all we can do to reach out to protect those who shine a light in the darkness and who stand up to be counted.

I firmly believe there is much, much more light in the world than darkness, so promise me that for all the darkness you witness, you'll reach out to those who stand up against it and let them know they're not alone?