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Holistic Dog Behaviour, Ridge Road, Plympton (2026)

24/08/2026

A really lovely afternoon last week spent talking dogs, development and behaviour.

I was invited along to meet this lovely group of dog owners and ended up sitting out in the sunshine having one of those conversations I could quite happily have all day.

We talked about the developmental approach to behaviour and what can change when we move away from simply looking at what a dog is doing and begin becoming curious about why they might need to do it.

So much of what we traditionally call a “behaviour problem” makes far more sense when we look at the whole dog. Their early development, their relationships, their nervous system, their emotional needs, the environment around them and the experiences that have shaped how safe and capable they feel in the world.

For me, this is where behaviour work becomes really interesting. Rather than asking, “How do I stop my dog doing this?”, we can start asking, “What is my dog communicating here, and what might they need from me?”

We also talked about the idea that dogs aren’t born emotionally finished. Development is something that unfolds through relationship and experience, and when there have been gaps along the way, sometimes what we see later isn’t a dog being difficult or disobedient, but a dog showing us where they still need support.

What I loved most was how open everyone was to looking at dogs through a slightly different lens. No quick fixes, no judgement and no obsession with controlling behaviour , just a group of people sitting in a field, surrounded by dogs, being curious about what might actually be going on underneath it all.

Definitely my kind of afternoon. ❤️

Understanding the “why” behind behaviour.

20/08/2026

I recently watched another clip from Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly, this time involving a German Shepherd whose barking had become almost constant. What concerned me wasn’t simply the methods used to try to stop the barking, but the complete lack of curiosity about what was actually driving it. Graeme Hall described the dog as “attention-seeking”, and almost immediately the focus became how to stop the behaviour.

This particular dog had reportedly been seriously unwell as a puppy. For me, that information is hugely important. Early life is an incredibly significant period for the developing mammalian nervous system. Illness, pain, reduced movement, disrupted social experiences, chronic stress or simply missing normal developmental experiences can leave gaps that become visible much later in life. We cannot know exactly what is happening for this individual dog from a television clip, but a significant early history should at the very least make us curious about development.

Instead, we get “attention-seeking”.

And I think we need to seriously rethink the way that phrase is used around dogs.

A dog seeking attention is seeking connection. Those aren’t two completely different things. We have turned “attention-seeking” into a negative behavioural label, when seeking proximity, interaction, reassurance and social contact is entirely normal for a social mammal.

Mammals are biologically designed around connection. The mammalian brain contains systems involved in attachment, caregiving, separation distress, social reward and emotional regulation. Social interaction affects neurochemistry and physiology; oxytocin, endogenous opioid systems, dopamine, the stress response and the autonomic nervous system all play roles in social bonding, safety and regulation. Connection isn’t some optional extra that we accidentally teach dogs to want. It is embedded within mammalian biology.

So if a dog is repeatedly trying to get a human being to engage with them, I don’t want to teach the dog that asking doesn’t work.

I want to know why they need me.

What is happening internally that means this dog is repeatedly barking? Is he overwhelmed? Is he struggling with frustration? Is he trying to reconnect? Is his nervous system struggling to come back down after becoming activated? Is there insecurity around connection? Are there developmental needs that weren’t fully met earlier in life? Is he communicating something that has repeatedly been missed?

Those questions matter far more to me than simply finding a technique capable of making the barking disappear.

Because behaviour is communication.

That is also why I find the recommendation of a Pet Corrector spray so concerning. A Pet Corrector creates a sudden burst of compressed air designed to interrupt the dog. But again, we aren’t addressing anything underneath the behaviour. We’re adding another external stimulus to a nervous system that may already be struggling.

If the dog is barking because he is overwhelmed, startling him doesn’t resolve the overwhelm.

If he’s insecure, it doesn’t create security.

If he’s frustrated, it doesn’t help him process frustration.

If he’s seeking connection, it doesn’t meet the need for connection.

If we’re looking at developmental gaps, it doesn’t repair development.

It simply targets the bit that humans find inconvenient: the behaviour we can see.

And this is where behaviour suppression becomes incredibly problematic. Silence isn’t necessarily regulation. Stillness isn’t necessarily safety. The absence of barking doesn’t automatically mean the emotion that produced the barking has disappeared.

This is something I think the dog world desperately needs to understand. We have become obsessed with what dogs do, rather than how dogs feel.

A dog’s behaviour is the end point of an enormous amount of processing happening underneath the surface. The nervous system is responding to sensory information, previous experiences, emotional state, social relationships, physiological state and the environment. The behaviour we eventually see is communication from that entire system.

So why would my first priority be to remove the communication?

What frustrated me even more was that when the Pet Corrector didn’t work, the next advice was essentially to ignore the dog when he barked and reward him when he stopped.

I fundamentally disagree with this way of approaching behaviour.

My work is not about dividing behaviour into “wanted” and “unwanted”, ignoring one and rewarding the other. I don’t want a dog making behavioural choices because they’ve learned which version of themselves gets a response from me. I want to understand the emotional need underneath what they’re doing and work there.

If a dog is repeatedly saying, I need something from you, ignoring them because we dislike the way they’re asking makes absolutely no sense to me.

If anything, I want to become better at hearing them earlier.

Perhaps before the barking there was staring. Following. Restlessness. Moving closer. Moving away. Increased movement. Tension through the body. Difficulty settling. Repeated attempts to engage. The barking may simply be the point at which the communication became loud enough that the human couldn’t ignore it anymore.

And then we’re advising people to ignore that too.

For me, that completely misses what relationship-based behaviour work should be about.

I don’t want to teach a distressed dog that communication is ineffective. I want to build a relationship in which communication works. I want the dog to discover that they can express discomfort, uncertainty, frustration or a need for support and the human will listen. Over time, when we consistently meet and understand those emotional and developmental needs, we can begin to see genuine changes in behaviour because the dog no longer needs the same behavioural strategy.

That is fundamentally different from making the behaviour stop.

Address the emotion, not the behaviour.

If we work with the emotion underneath, behaviour changes as a consequence. If we work only on suppressing, ignoring or manipulating the behaviour, we risk leaving the emotional need exactly where it was.

And that is why I find programmes like this so frustrating. Millions of people are watching someone presented as a dog behaviour expert demonstrate an incredibly simplistic model: identify the irritating behaviour, label it, interrupt it, ignore it, reward something else.

Where is the dog in all of that?

Where is development?

Where is attachment?

Where is emotional regulation?

Where is the nervous system?

Where is the dog’s history?

Where is the relationship?

And, most importantly, where is the question: why?

This is also why I think it is so disappointing that the BBC has now given Graeme Hall an even bigger public platform through Strictly Come Dancing. Of course, appearing on Strictly isn’t formally endorsing his dog-behaviour methods. But public platforms create visibility, familiarity and perceived credibility. Someone already presented to millions of people as Britain’s dog-behaviour expert becomes an even more recognisable household name.

Meanwhile, the dog world is desperately trying to move conversations away from suppression, correction and obedience-focused thinking and towards development, emotion, psychological safety, attachment, nervous-system regulation and genuine understanding of behaviour.

Dogs don’t need us to become better at silencing them.

They need us to become better at hearing them.

The barking isn’t the problem to solve. It is information about the problem.

So instead of asking, “How do I stop my dog doing this?”, perhaps the most important question we can ask is:

“Why does my dog need to do this?”

Because behaviour has meaning. Behaviour is communication. And when we stop obsessing over controlling the behaviour we can see and start understanding the mammal underneath it, that is where meaningful change can actually begin.

09/08/2026

Closeness is a need for a mammal.

Not a luxury. Not a weakness. Not something we should be trying to train out of another living being because their need for us has become inconvenient. Mammals are born into relationship. Our nervous systems develop in relationship, learn safety through relationship, and continue to use relationship as a source of regulation throughout life.

We seem to have developed this strange cultural obsession with independence, as though needing another being is evidence that something has gone wrong. We praise the dog who can cope alone, the puppy who doesn’t cry, the child who doesn’t cling, the adult who doesn’t need reassurance. We become frightened of creating “dependency”, so we deliberately withhold closeness in an attempt to manufacture independence.

But biology doesn’t work like that.

For a social mammal, proximity to an attachment figure can carry information about safety. Touch, warmth, scent, voice, familiar movement and simply the physical presence of another trusted nervous system can all matter. Attachment isn’t some sentimental extra layered on top of survival; attachment systems evolved because staying close to protective others had survival value.

A young mammal does not begin life emotionally self-sufficient. Regulation develops within relationship before it can become increasingly internalised. The nervous system learns through thousands upon thousands of experiences: When I am frightened, somebody comes. When I am overwhelmed, I am not alone. When I need proximity, proximity is available. I can move away because I know I can come back.

That last part matters enormously.

Security isn’t the absence of need. Secure attachment does not mean never seeking closeness. In attachment theory, a secure relationship functions as both a safe haven during distress and a secure base from which exploration becomes possible. The confidence to move away is supported by the knowledge that connection remains available.

And yet with dogs, we so often reverse this.

A dog follows someone from room to room and immediately we hear: Don’t let him become too dependent.

A puppy cries when separated and we’re warned: Don’t go back or you’ll teach her that crying works.

A frightened dog presses into their person and someone says: Don’t reassure him or you’ll reinforce the fear.

A dog struggles to be alone and the relationship itself somehow ends up on trial: Maybe you’re too attached.

We take behaviours communicating a need for safety, proximity or support and turn them into problems of obedience.

And I think we desperately need to ask ourselves why.

If an animal’s nervous system is telling us, I don’t yet feel safe enough to do this without you, why is our first instinct so often to prove to them that they must?

There is an enormous difference between being unable to cope without someone and having learned through repeated experiences that someone is safe to depend upon. Meeting attachment needs does not automatically create pathological dependence. In fact, attachment research gives us good reason to challenge that assumption: reliable access to safety can provide the foundation from which confident exploration and greater independence develop.

Think about what happens when you genuinely feel safe with another person. Your shoulders drop. Your breathing changes. You don’t have to monitor everything quite so intensely. You have somewhere to put some of the weight.

Dogs are mammals too.

Their social world matters. Their relationships matter. Their bodies matter. Safety isn’t merely an intellectual conclusion that nothing bad is currently happening. It is something experienced through the whole organism, and trusted relationships can be part of that experience.

This doesn’t mean a dog should never learn to spend time alone. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t help them develop resilience, flexibility or confidence away from us. It means we need to reconsider how we believe those capacities develop.

Independence should not have to be built through abandonment of need.

If a dog cannot cope alone, perhaps the question isn’t, How do I make them stop needing me?

Perhaps it is:

What does their nervous system still need to learn before being apart from me feels safe?

Because there is something deeply backwards about deliberately withdrawing security in order to teach security.

Sometimes the path towards needing us less begins with discovering, completely and repeatedly, that they are allowed to need us at all.

Closeness is not the enemy of independence.

Connection is not a behavioural problem.

And needing another living being does not represent some failure of development.

It is one of the oldest pieces of mammalian biology we carry.

We were quite literally built to find safety in one another.

01/08/2026

The First Language of Relationship

Before food became something we bought from supermarket shelves or ordered through an app, it was deeply woven into relationship. It wasn't simply fuel; it was shared. The hunt, the gathering, and the meal were all acts of connection rather than transactions. In many ways, relationships were the true currency. Food symbolised trust. It symbolised belonging. It represented the unspoken understanding that everyone would survive because survival was something achieved together, not alone.

From an evolutionary perspective, this makes perfect sense. Humans evolved as cooperative foragers. Sharing food wasn't simply an act of kindness; it was a survival strategy. It built alliances, strengthened communities, and reinforced social bonds that increased the chances of survival for everyone involved. Our brains did not evolve expecting meals to be eaten in isolation. They evolved around shared experiences, where food became intertwined with safety, security, and connection.

Neuroscience supports this understanding. Feeding is entangled with safety and bonding from the very beginning of life. From the very first feedings of a newborn, nourishment is never just about nutrition. It is wrapped in warmth, touch, eye contact, predictability, and care. The nervous system learns that food arrives through relationship. Long before language exists, food becomes one of the first experiences of safety, attachment, and belonging.

Yet somewhere along the way, society has shifted. Food has become packaged, priced, marketed, and consumed in ways that often disconnect it from its original relational meaning. It has become increasingly transactional. We exchange money rather than relationship, convenience rather than community. While this has brought many benefits, perhaps we have also lost something quieter and far more profound: the understanding that food was once one of the deepest expressions of social connection.

This becomes particularly interesting when we look at dogs and other social mammals. Food was never meant to be purely transactional for them either. It has always existed within the context of relationship. Yet in modern dog training, food is often reduced to a simple exchange: do this, get that. When we treat food purely as payment for obedience, we risk shrinking something ancient, deeply social, and profoundly relational into nothing more than a business deal.

What if we looked at food differently?

Food can be shared as a gesture. It can become a moment of co-regulation. It can communicate, "I see you. You're safe. We're together." Instead of asking, "How do I get my dog to perform this behaviour?" perhaps we could ask, "How can this meal become part of our relationship?"

When we use food as part of a shared experience rather than simply as payment, the entire interaction changes. We are no longer just motivating behaviour; we are strengthening connection. We are participating in something that both humans and dogs have evolved to understand over thousands of years: that food and relationship belong together.

That tiny shift, from buying behaviour to building relationship, has the potential to completely transform how we interact with another mammal. Perhaps what we need is not more control, but more shared moments.

Food was never supposed to be a currency for controlling behaviour at all.

Maybe it has always been the first language of relationship.

23/07/2026

"Cry it out" is not a sleep strategy; it is an experience of repeated, unbuffered stress during a period when the brain and nervous system are still developing. When a young mammal cries for safety and connection without receiving a response, the body activates ancient survival mechanisms that shape neurological development.

Whether we're talking about a human infant or another social mammal, crying is not manipulation. It is a biologically programmed survival behaviour. A young mammal cannot regulate its own nervous system. It relies on a safe caregiver to help bring the body back into balance.

When a baby or young mammal cries and nobody comes, the nervous system initially responds by increasing its signals for help. Heart rate rises, stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline are released, breathing changes, muscles tense, and the brain shifts into survival mode. The body is doing exactly what evolution designed it to do: call for protection.

If comfort still doesn't come, something often changes. The crying may stop, but this does not necessarily mean the individual has become calm or learned to self-soothe. More often, they've entered a state of conservation. The nervous system reduces outward protest because it has learned that signalling is ineffective. This is very different from feeling safe.

From a neurological perspective, prolonged or repeated activation of the stress response during early development can influence how the brain wires itself. The developing brain is extraordinarily plastic. Repeated experiences shape neural pathways, particularly those involved in stress regulation, emotional processing, attachment, and social engagement.

Research suggests that chronic or repeated activation of the stress response without adequate co-regulation can affect areas such as the amygdala, which detects threat; the hippocampus, involved in learning and memory; and the prefrontal cortex, which supports emotional regulation, decision-making, and flexible thinking. These systems develop in the context of relationships.

The autonomic nervous system also learns from these experiences. When distress is consistently met with warmth, responsiveness, and protection, the brain begins to predict that the world is safe and that support is available. Over time this creates greater resilience, flexibility, and an increased capacity to regulate emotions independently.

When distress is repeatedly experienced alone, however, the nervous system may become more organised around protection than connection. For some individuals this can contribute to hypervigilance, anxiety, emotional shutdown, or difficulties trusting others. Not everyone who experiences "cry it out" will have these outcomes; development is influenced by many factors, but from a biological perspective, early responsiveness plays an important role in shaping stress regulation.

This is why co-regulation matters so much. Mammals are not born able to regulate themselves. They develop that ability through thousands of experiences of being regulated by someone else first.

The goal isn't to prevent all distress. Distress is part of life. The goal is to ensure that distress occurs within the context of safety and connection, because that is how mammalian brains have evolved to grow.

For any social mammal, one of the deepest biological needs is knowing that when they signal for help, someone comes.

15/07/2026

The Modern Dog Lives in an Unnatural Social World

One of the biggest misconceptions we have about dogs is that they are naturally social with every dog and every person they meet. We often assume that because dogs are domesticated, they should happily greet strangers, enjoy busy parks, cope with crowded streets and interact politely with every dog they pass.
But when we step back and look at dogs through an evolutionary lens, a very different picture begins to emerge.

If we look at wolves, their closest living relatives, we see animals that live within stable, close-knit family groups. Their social world is structured, familiar and highly dependent on relationships. Every member knows their role within the family, relationships are built over time, and daily life revolves around those trusted individuals.

Wolves are not spending every day walking past unfamiliar packs or being expected to interact with strangers simply because they happen to be nearby. Encounters with unknown wolves are relatively uncommon and are often significant events. They may involve keeping distance, communicating through space, territorial behaviour, or, in some cases, the slow and careful integration of a dispersing wolf into a new family group. These are complex social negotiations, not casual greetings.
Now compare that to the life of the average pet dog.

Many dogs leave the house each day and are expected to walk through environments filled with unfamiliar people, unfamiliar dogs, traffic, bicycles, runners, children, loud noises and countless unpredictable situations. They may pass dozens of strangers within a single walk. From an evolutionary perspective, this is an incredibly unnatural way to live.

Our dogs are navigating a world that was designed for humans, not for the social and emotional systems they inherited. Their brains and nervous systems are being asked to process far more novelty, uncertainty and social demand than they were ever naturally designed for.

Some dogs cope with this remarkably well. character, early development, life experiences and genetics all play a role in shaping resilience. These dogs seem able to move through busy environments with little difficulty.
But many others cannot.

For these dogs, what we often label as "reactivity," "overexcitement," "anxiety," or even "stubbornness" may actually be the nervous system communicating that the world feels too much. They are not choosing to struggle; they are responding to an environment that asks an enormous amount of them every single day.

This is why behaviour cannot be understood through obedience. Before we ask whether a dog can perform a behaviour, we first need to ask whether they actually feel safe enough to do so.
When we stop expecting dogs to fit effortlessly into our human world and instead begin understanding the challenges that world creates for them, our perspective changes. We become less focused on controlling behaviour and more focused on creating emotional safety, predictability and support.

Sometimes the kindest thing we can do isn't expose our dogs to more of the world. Sometimes it's helping them feel secure enough to cope with the world they're already living in.

13/07/2026

You Can’t “Train” Calm

One of the biggest misconceptions in dog training is the belief that calmness is something we can train. We often hear people say, “Teach your dog to be calm,” but calm isn’t a behaviour that can be trained in the same way we train a sit.

Think about a sit for a moment. A dog can learn that when they hear the word “sit,” placing their bottom on the floor earns them a reward. They have learned a behaviour. But that behaviour tells us very little about how they actually feel.

A dog can be sitting perfectly while their heart is racing. They can be sitting while they are overwhelmed by the environment, anticipating the next trigger, or desperately trying to cope with the situation they’re in. From the outside they look calm because they are still, but internally their nervous system may be anything but calm.

This is where we often confuse compliance with regulation.

A action can be trained through repetition, reinforcement and consistency. Emotional states cannot. Calm is not a cue. It is not a position. It is not something we can ask for and expect the nervous system to produce on command.

Real calm is the result of feeling safe.

When a dog’s nervous system experiences safety consistently, their body no longer needs to remain on high alert. Their breathing softens. Their muscles relax. Their attention widens. Rest becomes possible because the brain no longer believes it needs to prepare for danger.

That is why my work doesn’t begin with trying to teach calm. Instead, it begins by asking why calm isn’t there already. What experiences has this dog had? What foundations were missing? Does their nervous system know what safety feels like? Have they experienced enough co-regulation, predictable relationships, meaningful touch, and emotional security for calm to develop naturally?

When we focus solely on behaviour, we risk creating dogs who look settled but don’t feel settled. When we focus on the nervous system, behaviour often changes as a consequence of the dog genuinely feeling different.

A sit can be trained.

Calm cannot.

Calm is something that grows when a dog repeatedly experiences safety, connection and trust. It isn’t something we teach. It’s something we create the conditions for.

This shift in perspective changes everything. Instead of asking, “How do I get my dog to act calm?” we begin asking, “What does my dog need to feel safe enough for calm to emerge?” That question leads us far closer to lasting change than any cue ever could.

02/07/2026

There is a huge difference between being safe and feeling safe.

Psychological safety isn't something we can simply think ourselves into. For mammals, whether human or dog, it is a lived, embodied experience. It happens when the nervous system recognises that there is no need to defend, perform, hide, or survive. It is the moment the body quietly says, "I can let my guard down."

When we experience real psychological safety, something incredible begins to happen. Curiosity replaces hypervigilance. Play returns. Learning becomes possible. Connection deepens. We become more flexible, more resilient, and more open to the world around us. This isn't just true for people, it is true for dogs too.

So often, behaviour we label as "stubborn," "reactive," "clingy," or "aggressive" is actually a nervous system searching for safety. The same can be said for people. When we have spent years living in uncertainty, criticism, inconsistency, or emotional unpredictability, our brains and bodies adapt to survive. Those adaptations can stay with us long after the danger has passed.

This is something I have struggled with myself.

For a long time, I thought safety was simply the absence of harm. But I have come to realise that real safety is something much deeper. It is being with someone who allows your nervous system to soften. Someone who doesn't make you brace for rejection, conflict, or abandonment. Someone whose presence allows you to breathe differently without even noticing.

That understanding has completely changed the way I see dogs.

I no longer ask, "How do I stop this behaviour?" Instead, I ask, "What would help this dog experience enough safety for a different behaviour to become possible?"

Healing doesn't happen because we force change. It happens because connection creates the conditions where change naturally emerges.

Whether we are raising children, living with dogs, or trying to heal parts of ourselves, the question isn't simply, "Are we safe?"

The deeper question is, "Does our nervous system know it?"

Because when safety is truly felt, rather than simply understood, relationships become the place where healing begins.

01/07/2026

Attachment: The Relationships That Shape Us

Before we ever understand the world with words, we understand it through relationships. As babies, our nervous systems are shaped by the people around us. We learn whether the world feels safe or dangerous, whether our needs matter, whether closeness brings comfort or pain. These early experiences become our attachment patterns, and although they begin in childhood, they often continue to influence us throughout adult life.

Attachment isn’t about being “needy” or “independent.” It’s about how our brains and bodies learned to survive. If love was predictable, emotionally available, and safe, we are more likely to develop secure attachment. If love was inconsistent, frightening, emotionally absent, or conditional, we may carry attachment wounds into adulthood. These wounds don’t disappear simply because we grow older. Instead, they often show up in our closest relationships.

Some people become anxious, constantly seeking reassurance, fearing rejection, or feeling responsible for keeping relationships together. Others become avoidant, finding closeness overwhelming, pulling away when relationships become emotionally intense, or convincing themselves they don’t need anyone. Some people fluctuate between the two, desperately wanting connection while simultaneously fearing it. None of these responses mean something is wrong with you. They are adaptations that once helped you survive.

The challenge is that our nervous systems are wired to seek familiarity, not necessarily what is healthiest. Research suggests that early attachment experiences shape our expectations of relationships, meaning we are often drawn towards dynamics that feel familiar because our brains have learned to predict them. Familiarity can feel like safety, even when the relationship itself isn’t healthy. Until we become aware of these patterns, we can unknowingly recreate the very experiences that caused the wounds in the first place.

Healing begins when we recognise the pattern instead of becoming trapped inside it. Secure relationships don’t erase our past, but they can gradually help our nervous systems learn that connection doesn’t have to involve fear, abandonment, control, or emotional instability. With enough safety, consistency, and compassion, our brains remain capable of forming new pathways throughout life.

This understanding also has something important to teach us about the dogs we live with. Dogs, like humans, are deeply social beings whose early relationships influence how they experience the world. The principle that safety and responsive caregiving shape emotional development is supported across both species. A dog struggling with fear, separation, or emotional regulation is often communicating something far deeper than simple obedience or disobedience.

Perhaps that’s one of the reasons dogs can become such powerful companions in our own healing. They don’t just respond to our actions; they respond to our emotional state, our consistency, and our ability to create safety. As we learn to understand our own attachment patterns, we often become better at recognising the emotional needs of the dogs beside us. For me Healing ourselves and supporting our dogs are the same journey, they move in the same direction, towards trust, connection, and relationships where both individuals feel safe enough to simply be.

Holistic Dog Behaviour

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