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http://www.rebeccaelliottdogtraining.co.uk/

Rebecca Elliott Dog Behaviour & Training, Sidmouth (2026)

29/08/2026

This is a really helpful write up about the first day of your life with a new rescue dog by Laura McAuliffe

A NEW RESCUE- the first day

I’m picking my new rescue dog up tomorrow. I’ve done this many times before but it’s still nerve wracking!

First focus is on keeping stress levels as low as possible for my lovely new boy and allowing him to decompress, adapt and to start to build attachments to us. I will cover how I will integrate him with twig over the next few days and weeks as that’s going to take some work!

My top tips for the first few days are:

💤 Expect to do very little- rest, recovery and time to find their feet in the home are key

🛁 I don’t bath dogs or wash them, it’s just added stress that can wait. It’s also introducing unfamiliar scent to a dog who has already lost everything they are familiar with

🦴 I assume they may resource guard and manage accordingly until proven otherwise. No approaching when they are eating, always swapping if I need access to something they have. I also assume they may guard their own space- we leave in peace if they are resting etc and watch body language whilst taking leads on and off etc.

🐶 I generally don’t change collars or harnesses unless they are poorly fitting or uncomfortable as it’s too much handling in the first few days and again it’s introducing things that are new, smell weird, feel weird and are potentially stressful

🥘 I don’t change diet initially, that can wait until they are settled and the last thing I want is to cause gastric upset in a dog who is already going through lots of change. I may add in a pre and probiotic after a few days if needed.

🚪 I don’t have family and friends over- as tempting as it is to show your new dog to everyone, it can wait and it’s another potential stressor.

🌳 I won’t walk them the first few days- we will make use of all the wonderful local freedom field we have (especially Dogs and Dandelions). Definitely no visits to the pub or busy places! No need to expose a new dog to loads of stimuli and potential stressors- dogs, people, traffic etc.

🏠 I won’t leave them home alone at all, most new dogs bond quickly and strongly and the only person they feel safe with suddenly leaving can be traumatic when they are still adapting to their new life. Building up to being left can wait and even going upstairs while they are downstairs is more than enough for now.

🐕 I will cover how I will integrate my new boy with my existing dog, Twig, over the next few days. A huge size difference and a tiny dog who isn’t very brave with other dogs means it needs to be done really carefully and it’s going to take AGES I anticipate

The first few days aren’t about creating the life you eventually want your new dog to have.

They’re about helping them feel safe enough to begin it. ❤️

How did you get on when your new rescue moved in? What do you wish you’d done differently?

Laura McAuliffe 2026 Dog Communication

20/08/2026

I’m attending this free webinar this evening at 7pm. It’s not too late to sign up (before midday) if you’re interested. Trevor Cooper and his team are excellent in their field!

Presented by Doglaw specialist solicitor Trevor Cooper, this webinar is aimed at informing owners of reactive dogs.

16/08/2026

This is a well-considered article by someone I hugely respect in our field, Emma Lee (she was my tutor for a course and I consider her a ‘brain on legs’!).

Early life experiences are hugely important for our dogs and so often overlooked. What’s more, we often don’t really know what has happened to our dogs in their first months of life.

This isn’t a quick read, but grab a cuppa, savour the knowledge and, if you’re considering having a new dog join your family, think about what you can do to best support them.

ADOLESCENCE IS ONE OF THE *LAST* PIECES IN THE PUZZLE

Often, my clients *think* their problems lie simply in adolescence.

What happens when we look at their dog's history, we find that there are many issues upstream of adolescence that are having a downstream effect.

It's not just adolescence.

It's the early life stuff and biological stuff too.

I remember my dog Heston as a teenager. That was some hard work! Recall and loose leash went out of the window... he was all about the exploration and the fun. I remember trying desperately to find ways to tire him out since he just seemed to have this insatiable energy. I also remember crying and thinking I wasn't enough on my own to cope with ALL of him, thinking that he needed so much more than me.

Once, I lost him in the woods (too much off leash time, I know now!) and he arrived back home, 7 miles away, about an hour or so later. I have no idea how he got home. He'd put the pieces together of our various walks, maybe, and connected them up.

Who knows?

Oh for a GPS collar back in the day! At least I could have tracked that route he'd made back and even found him before we got to panic stations.

The problem is that many of us arrive at adolescence and we've not adequately prepared for it. One study I particularly love was looking at the effects of early developmental intervention with puppies from 3-5 weeks. They then studied the effects of that intervention at 12 weeks and were disappointed to find very little impact between the group who'd had the intervention and the group that hadn't.

They thought the intevention hadn't worked.

It had. They didn't look far enough into the dogs' futures.

Some years later, they re-ran a different study with the same cohort of dogs looking at the effects some months later. What they realised was adolescence was the time those early interventions had made the most difference.

Amazing that things that happen so early in life don't bear fruit until much later, isn't it?

Another problem we have when thinking about adolescence is that we fail to realise that everything up to that point is Complex with a capital C. The more we look, the more complex it gets.

I have a lot of clients whose dogs become a real challenge to live with during adolescence. So often, a single event in adolescence is blamed for everything that's troubling our dog when in reality, what we're seeing is the beginning of an adulthood built on rocky foundations.

Those foundations are made up of many intricate factors.

Genetics plays a factor, as we know, but never perfectly.

Anxious parents and grandparents give rise to anxious offspring more frequently than dogs who are 'good in their paws' as the French like to say. Sure, an anxious set of parents will have litters that vary as much as you and your own siblings do, but we know genetics plays a part. And we're not paying enough attention to temperament as societies when we're thinking about our dogs.

Gestational stress also plays a factor. It's not about cotton wool and protecting mothers from stress, either. It's not about cocooning mothers at any length. It's about optimal stress. Cortisol passes the placental barrier and helps the puppies prepare for the kind of world their mother is living in. No stress prepares you only for a life completely without stress, so you go to pieces when you're an adult. Too much stress and you're sensitised to the world before you are even born.

When we think of puppies, we often focus on the bit after the eyes have opened and the puppies are in the 'socialisation' period from 3-12 weeks. We don't think of the importance of maternal care or the impact of early neurological stimulation (ie licking and grooming as well as being moved about from time to time) on puppies - when everything says that this has a HUGE impact. This care (or lack of) contributes to epigenetics, changing the puppy's cells for several weeks. How puppies are weaned is also important.

Weaning in itself is the first real time puppies experience low grades of stress - not being able to get to mum to have their immediate needs met for short periods. Yet so often, mothers are unable to care for puppies in the way they should. In puppy farms, weaning is often forced with long absences, or the mothers are unable to get away from the puppy.

The body also tells us when weaning should be over completely.

At around 12 weeks, a puppy stops being able to digest lactose as they had been able to do. It's hard, because many Westernised countries accept 8 weeks as an optimal period for separating the litter, yet this needs to be handled sensitively. One study I read recently was about the effects of transportation at 8 weeks. It completely overlooked the challenge of separation at 8 weeks anyway.

Western habits about solitude also contribute to frustration intolerance, learned helplessness and a lack of ability to cope with stress. We put our puppies in kitchens, in crates, in conservatories. We follow advice about letting them cry it out.

"They'll soon learn."

I can't even begin to say what a sensitive age this is for emotion regulation development, and here we are, treating baby animals as if they're adults...

All of this is not even to consider the role of early familiarisation to noises, experiences, emotional states, objects, movement....

So often, when I'm taking histories, I often make a note that there was uncertain or insufficient nurturing both pre-natally and post-natally.

It's NEVER just adolescence.

The truth is also that we can't fix broken pieces. I remember with the jigsaw puzzles of my youth, when one of the sticky-out bits (it's bound to have a technical name, isn't it?!) got a bit busted or fell off... you could stick it back on if you could find it, or you could still manage without.

We can make up for some missing or broken bits with our dogs for the things that lie upstream of adolescence, like genetics & gestational experience & maternal care & early socialisation.

Some bits, but not all. If all of those bits are causing problems, we're going to feel the effects downstream in adolescence.

We can't make up for the fact that if there are lots of upstream issues, we can't expect the solidity, steadiness or stability that other dogs might have.

It's not just adolescence.

Let's face it: purpose-bred working dogs often wash out of working programmes, and if they're not robust enough to work with all their perfectly fitting pieces, then it's normal that our dogs with a busted piece here or there might not be the kind of 'Hail, fellow, well met!' kind of dog we dreamed of.

Sadly, Westernised societies often expect our dogs to function as if they have perfect genes, optimal pre-natal experiences, optimal maternal care, optimal socialisation, optimal stimulation, perfect early experiences and no hormones whatsoever.

So what can we do?

First is commit to banning puppy mills. That has to be a societal decision. But they create messed up dogs and we can't put right what has gone so badly wrong.

Second is commit to informed rescues who know how to make up for those early missing bits and can place them in homes where they won't be treated as a blank slate. Ironically an accidental litter is less likely to have as many missing pieces as a puppy mill litter, but even so. We need puppy culture across puppy fosters. We need an end to sheds outside and puppies left in outdoor runs all day by well-meaning folk who are over-run and ignorant of how to make up for those broken pieces.

Third, we need to put an end to crying it out and shoving puppies behind closed doors, treating them like robust adult dogs the moment they arrive with us. We need to be mindful of how best to separate the litter and how best to support puppies when they come to us. We also need to help our puppies keep learning how to cope with mild adversity. We need really good education programmes that help us learn how to help them learn to regulate without traumatising them or sensitising them.

Above all, WE need to step up.

Dogs, like humans, are a social species.

The youngsters of a social species depend on the group. None of us are born as champions of everything. Instead of thinking of things as deficits or skills being learnable, sometimes we just need to step up and realise we need to be providing more support than we have been.

Instead of thinking of impulses as just 'naturally' controlling themselves, we recognise that THIS is the role of a society, of a group, of a family, of friends.

WE fill the gaps through support and knowing when and how to step up.

Instead of thinking of challenges as flaws in our dogs, if we see these as places we need to step up and support, we'll probably realise we're the pieces of the puzzle that was missing all along.

If we did all that, I bet adolescence wouldn't be quite as horrendous for most of us as it can be at its worst!

When the hormones finally hit, we'll have given our dogs a fighting chance to get through it rather than ending up being rehomed or in a shelter.

08/08/2026

A lot of the dogs that I support are fearful of something. Perhaps it’s down to a single experience they’ve had, or repeated exposure.

Whatever the cause, it’s important to remember that the original fear is never fully extinguished. Read on to find out more about why this is the case.

Thanks to the Dog Behaviour Clinic for this excellent article.

FEAR

If your dog has ever been scared of something — a noise, a stranger, another dog, a place — you've probably noticed the fear doesn't just vanish, even with training. There's a reason for that.

The brain doesn't delete fear memories. Instead, it builds new memories right alongside the old ones. This is well established in the fear extinction research (Bouton, 2004; Quirk & Mueller, 2008): learning that something is safe doesn't erase the original fear memory, but it creates a second, competing memory that inhibits the fear.

Every time your dog has a calm, safe experience with something that used to scare them, their brain doesn't simply erase the old fear. Instead, the brain is building a new pathway that says "actually, this is okay." Over time, with enough repetition, that new pathway gets stronger and starts to take priority (Milad & Quirk, 2012).

Progress looks like:
• A pause instead of a lunge
• A glance away instead of a bark
• Recovering faster than they used to
• Handling a little more distance, a little more noise, or a little more closeness than they could last month.

Gradual, built through repetition, but it doesn’t happen overnight.
So if your dog still startles sometimes, that doesn't mean the training isn't working. It means the old pathway is still there (it always will be, in some form) — but the new, safer one is getting stronger every time you practice.

This is also why fear can briefly resurface under stress or in a new environment, something researchers call "renewal" (Bouton, 2004). It’s a normal part of how extinction works, not a sign of regression.

Photo ref: Macy with German Shepherd Dog Welfare Fund who is looking for her new home

References: Bouton, M.E. (2004). Context and behavioral processes in extinction. Learning & Memory, 11(5), 485–494.
Quirk, G.J. & Mueller, D. (2008). Neural mechanisms of extinction learning and retrieval. Neuropsychopharmacology, 33(1), 56–72. Milad, M.R. & Quirk, G.J. (2012). Fear extinction as a model for translational neuroscience. Annual Review of Psychology, 63, 129–151.

06/08/2026

This is a really interesting article thanks to Stephie Guy and Alyssa Ralph 😊

Won't touch breakfast...clears the bowl by two.

It's easy to read that as fussiness, and it usually isn't. It's cortisol, and where that pattern comes from can tell you something useful about what's going on underneath.

I wrote about it on my blog, including what Alyssa Ralph shared with us on the gut-brain connection, why it matters so much for separation anxiety, and what actually helps 👇

29/07/2026

I love this post by Dr Teresa Tyler …

It wasn’t until I started studying dog behaviour that I realised that dogs have a repertoire of body language signals that they use to communicate with us and others…and I was blissfully unaware of most of it. It now makes sense how many situations escalate more quickly than we expect, because we aren’t able to spot the subtle communication signs. The ‘yawn’ is a prime example

Have you ever seen your dog yawn during training, at the vet, or when meeting another dog? Most people think it simply means they're tired but that's only one possibility!

Yawning is what we call a multifunctional behaviour, meaning it can occur in a variety of situations and for different reasons. Your dog may yawn because they are:

• Tired or waking up.
• Feeling slightly uncertain or conflicted.
• Experiencing stress or emotional arousal.
• Processing information during learning.
• Responding to a socially challenging situation.

As behaviourists, we don't interpret behaviours in isolation, we look at the whole picture.

What was happening immediately beforehand?
What does the rest of the dog's body language tell us?
Has the dog yawned once, or repeatedly?
What happened next?

Context is everything.

The next time your dog yawns, don't immediately assume they're bored or sleepy. Instead, take a moment to look at what else is happening around them. You might discover they're telling you something much more interesting.

Have you noticed your dog yawning in unexpected situations? Let me know in the comments.

23/06/2026

I have to say that I’ve not really stopped to think about the impact of humidity on our dogs - I’ve always focused on the actual temperature.

This is an important read for us all given the current scorching temperatures in the UK.

HUMIDITY is very important!

✋🏻 ⛔️ STOP focusing on the ambient temperature alone.

Humidity is highly related to hydration and dogs dissipating heat via panting.

There is published research stating that the ideal humidity range for animals is between 30-70% (it varies a little from different sources), and over 35% panting becomes progressively less effective for dissipating excessive body heat, and when the relative humidity exceeds 80% this body cooling mechanism in dogs is negated.

If the air is already saturated with moisture (high humidity), the water v***r from panting cannot ev***rate. This makes panting ineffective, and their core body temperature rises, because they can't cool down efficiently, they pant more, rapidly losing body fluids through heavy respiration and saliva production upto a point, when they then become dehydrated they conserve body water at the expense of higher body heat.

Dry air (low humidity) acts like a sponge, drawing moisture directly from the dog’s breath as they exhale. This constant exposure to dry air depletes the dog's internal moisture levels, making it a constant threat to their hydration.
Dry air drastically increases the risk of rapid dehydration.

Depending on the dog's exercise intensity, and the environmental temperature and humidity, ev***rative water losses may increase 10-20 fold during exercise.

One of the most common pieces of advice shared over social media in the UK (especially by owners/dog walkers/trainers) is to exercise dogs early in the morning or late at night, yet often times that's when the humidity is very high here.

Look at the environmental conditions, not the time, and be aware of your dogs exertion level.
Remember, higher intensity means more internal heat production, which means more excess heat they need to get rid of.

I know one dog who got into trouble last week at 6am, 17°C, humidity 90%, and needed active cooling, I've seen multiple dogs struggle in the morning and late evening... why?

It's important to understand the humidity you have, the intensity of exercise, hydration status, as well as the ambient temperature.

High ambient temperature combined with high humidity is dangerous.

It is less dangerous to have a higher dry temperature with lower humidity around 30-40% which allows for more ev***ration, but dehydration is a risk, so pay close attention to hydration, and intensity within that environment matters.

Hotter ambient temps mean more work to keep cool. Because they rely on a heat gradient, so the difference between the heat of their body, and the temperature outside their body. The closer the dog's internal body temp is to the ambient temp outside the harder it is for them to manage.
Dogs can acclimate to higher temps upto a point, which is different for individual dogs.

Can dogs acclimate to higher humidity like they can higher temperature?...

I don't know the answer to that, I suspect not, atleast not to the extent they can temperature, as their physical limitations would make it much harder and less efficient.

• Example 1:

With a very warm temp of 25°C with a very low humidity of 25-30% dogs can dissipate more heat through panting than at 18°C with 85-90% humidity which can be more dangerous.

• Example 2:

I went out for a walk on my own at 6pm, temp was 27° with cloud cover (no direct sun), humidity was 40%, there were multiple dogs out walking, not chasing balls or anything high intensity, just walking, they were all fine, in a temperature some people would crucify their owners for and tell them they should be out early or later.

By 10pm the temp had dropped to 19°, but the humidity was 85%, it felt worse.

I would have been walking my own dog at 6pm on that day, because I knew my dog, and managed hydration, giving him a drink of water every 15-20 mins can go a long way to staying in the green.

• Example 3:

I've seen multiple dogs running in harness over the years in temps around 10°C, but humidity above 80%, often in the 90s, even pushing 100%, get extremely hot, sometimes needing active cooling.

I once spoke with a musher about heat injury after an incident, this person always trained very early morning, when it was warm often in these high humidities, had had multiple cases of overheating over the years... I wonder why!

If you're honest, and understand what you're looking at, why are some dogs struggling in the heat when the humidity is in their favour, while others are doing fine?... there are various factors but often because owners push their dogs too far, for too long, before stopping for a break and re-hydrating, they get hotter, dehydration increases, they get hotter.

Is the answer simply to "go out early" ?

No one is saying exercise your dogs in the hottest, sunniest part of the day in temps they are not acclimated for, but "early" or "late" is not necessarily safer, there can be an area in between that may be better.
Just saying "exercise early" with no context can be dangerous.

Higher temperatures are a well known risk. Moderate temperatures with high humidity, combined with higher intensity exercise are less well known, it's a bit more sneaky you could say, but it can get a dog in trouble pretty quick.

But again, good hydration management is a huge part of keeping dogs safe when temps rise.

There's a LOT to heat tolerance.

"In dogs, the nasal turbinates provide a large surface area for water ev***ration, from the moist mucous membranes, thereby playing an important role in heat dissipation through panting, while hypersalivation increases the ev***rative efficiency through ev***ration from the oral mucous membranes and the tongue. With high environmental temperatures and increased relative humidity (>35%), panting becomes progressively less effective for dissipating excessive body heat, and when the relative humidity is >80%, this body cooling mechanism in dogs is negated. In addition, with a progressive increase in core body temperature, metabolic derangement ensues, cardiac output decreases, leading to heat dissipation failure, aggravating body heat accumulation. When hyperthermia, combined with dehydration, progresses, cutaneous and splanchnic blood pooling results in decreased circulating blood volume and hypotension.... "
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5800390/

"Since dogs have minimal sweating capacity, thermoregulation relies primarily on ev***rative mechanisms through panting. Heat, humidity, and hydration are thought to impact the dog’s ability to thermoregulate. High ambient temperatures decrease the heat gradient from the dog to the environment and add external heat to the dog. Humid conditions impair effective ev***rative cooling. Humid environments can contribute to heat stress. In addition to the environmental factors of heat and humidity, the dog’s adaptation to environmental conditions (also called acclimatization), overall fitness/conditioning and state of hydration are thought to be major factors that impact heat tolerance. Canine thermoregulation involves the inhalation of cooler, dryer air through the nose and mouth, which causes ev***rative heat loss from the nasal and oral mucosa and tongue, and the exhalation of hotter, moister air. In conditions in which the rate of heat generation is greater than the rate of heat dissipation, increased salivation and lingual blood flow allow for convection and ev***rative cooling. Ev***rative cooling results in electrolyte-free water loss (estimated at ~10 mL/kg/h) which can contribute to dehydration.
In hydrated dogs, salivary loss is estimated at 7 mL/kg/h during exercise. In dehydrated dogs, the amount of water lost to cooling was approximately 7% lower than in hydrated dogs, but salivation was reduced by over 90%.
As dehydration increases, the availability of water for ev***ration, salivation, and circulation will be diminished; heat tolerance and physical, mental, and olfactory performance will be reduced.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5662554/

"The most remarkable increase in water loss observed in working dogs is due to the increase in ev***ration from the mouth and respiratory tract. Depending on the dog’s exercise intensity, and the environmental temperature and humidity, ev***rative water losses may increase 10- to 20-fold during exercise.
At cold temperatures, the air a dog breathes in has very little moisture in it. When this cold air reaches the lungs it is saturated with water so that about 6% of every exhaled breath is water. In warm climates the inhaled air is more nearly saturated with water and so the dog loses less water from its lungs with each breath. However, since dogs pant to cool themselves off, water loss through the ev***ration of saliva often leads to ev***rative losses in warm conditions equal to or in excess of those seen in cold
environments...
Dehydration is almost always easier to prevent than it is to treat."
https://www.academia.edu/69683140/Hydration_Strategies_for_Exercising_Dogs?fbclid=Iwb21leASl0_xjbGNrBKXT9GV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHh69bl4iFpdUuNHMdj85Ohg8-sAoTH3mmIJFbA4XeF5WukBr8BFV7T0l6x-A_aem_ichxhXIUlUKUHUz2B_sutg

"Even more concerning, in our latest paper we reported the highest daily "feels like" temperature (this is "wet bulb globe temperature", which takes into account air temperature, humidity, wind speed and solar radiation) recorded at the nearest weather station to each HRI event we studied. The average (median) temperature was just 16.9°C. The lowest temperature was 3.3°C (for an exercise induced HRI case), whilst the highest temperature was 23.1°C. These are not high temperatures...
When judging temperature conditions for your dog, you also need to consider how temperature is being measured... "
https://heatstroke.dog/category/research-news/

● Related Posts:

• Differences in Heat Tolerance between dogs and factors to consider
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1ELixL5xjQ/

• When is it Too Hot?
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1JRyDYfhBK/

• Hydration
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1cjGDs9qhC/

20/06/2026

Just like The Mutty Professor (a highly experienced and knowledgeable Clinical Animal Behaviourist) I also see a large proportion of my client cases have signs of gastrointestinal health issues - whether that is excessive flatulence, runny poo, regularly eating things that are non-food items (aka pica). It’s important that we have a team approach with owners, vets and sometimes nutritionists to support our clients (as well as helping the behavioural issues)

PREVENTING BEHAVIOUR PROBLEMS IN DOGS : THE IMPORTANCE OF GASTRO INTESTINAL HEALTH

A significant number and majority of our behaviour cases have a history of compromised gastro intestinal health or an ongoing, unresolved issue with their digestive health.

Symptoms can include;

💩 Stools that are frequently of a liquid > soft consistency
💩 Eating grass to the extent it appears in faeces or vomit
💩 Consumption of inedible and non food related (wrappers etc) items
💩 Gurgling stomach
💩 Terrible flatulence
💩 Inappetite or 'picky eating'
💩 Excessive appetite
💩 Low body condition score
💩 Tear staining
💩 Copraphagia and excessive gorging of herbivore poo
💩 Excessive scavenging (seeking/searching rather than opportunistic)
💩 Repeated a**l gland issues
💩 Frequent infections (skin, ear, a**l glands)
💩 Frequent licking behaviours
💩 Excessive mouthing and chewing
💩 Restlessness
💩 Conflict behaviours around food such as resource guarding or caching (relocating/moving/burrying/hiding food).
💩 Paying sudden attention (head flick around action) to the back end.
💩 Not wanting dogs to sniff their hind end.
💩 A roached spine / tucked up abdomen
💩 Touch sensitivity > can include avoidance of harnesses (walking equipment)

Some of these symptoms can be labelled as 'behavioural', and a suitably knowledgable and qualified person will know how to pick apart information via in depth assessment and narrow potential causes down.

Too often, symptoms are dismissed or normalised as 'just the way the things are for this dog'. This is quite commonly the case with 'picky eating' or varying stool consistency.

Occassional boughts of loose>liquid stools are often swiftly blamed on 'something the dog must have eaten'.

This is especially the case with puppies. Assumptions can be too quickly made, risking acute issues turning into a chronic problem.

There is now an abundance of research in humans as well as dogs that show the role the gut plays in emotional health.
A 2026 paper found that dogs with chronic enteropathy had compromised emotional health (linked in comments).

Compromised gut health can interfere with neurotransmitter activity. Neurotransmitters are 'chemicals' that are produced in the gut and brain and regulate emotions, arousal, the immune system and digestion.

Additionally, discomfort and pain (stomach cramps/spasms, bloating, inflammation of the gut etc) can all affect behaviour.

Trying to get on top of compromised gastro intestinal health can be challenging and for this reason it is important that people realise the sooner you identify that your dog's gut health is not at optimum and act- the better.

Long-term chronic issues can be harder to address!

Whilst hypo-allergenic food can support some dogs well- it is not uncommon for us to meet dogs who have been put on these these diets as a prilimary intervention who continue to exhibit the same symptoms as before the change of food.

These diets can make training much more challenging due to unpallatable food reducing motivation. The stress of exhibiting /engaging in some behaviour problems can then compomise gut health further.

Whilst it's important to relieve symptoms (and that sometimes involves medication) if the reason for compromised GI health has not been addressed- then the issue very likely won't go away.

Things to consider if your dog has ongoing GI issuees:

👩‍⚕️ Obviously, book them in with your vet!
But unfortunately, for many dogs the standard consultation time of 15-20 minutes is not always enough to understand and successfully treat the issue, including consideration as to what diagnostic tests may be best carried out. If your dog has a chronic issue, I would encourage you to request a double -slot so you and your vet can discuss things thoroughly.

🍖 Consider changing them to a food that has one animal protein and one carbohydrate. Caution if your dog has struggled with diet changes in the past. In some instances, a qualified nutritionist such as Junior @ Heal the Dog can support you and work alongside your vet.

👅 Doing a Nutriscan test for food intollerances

🦠 Running a microbiome screen (we recommend Biome4Pets)

🧠 Consider if your dog is too frequently stressed or too frequently in a heightened state of arousal.

🪱 Run a screen for parasitic infections such as Giardia and Campylobacter. You'd be surprised at how many of our cases test postive despite routine anti-parasitic treatments.
Link to a recent paper on Giardia in dogs and behaviour in the comments.

We recommend wormcount.com but your vet can test also (although there are two different ways to screen for the parasites).

Imagine if you had an upset stomach as often as your dog exhibits symptoms.

Would you just accept it as 'the way things are'?

Let's stop normalising sub optimal gastro intestinal health and increase awareness of how important a health gut is for emotional and behavioural health in dogs.

If your dog has compromised GI health AND behaviour problems, it is paramount you work with someone who works via VET REFERRAL.

This means the vet will send them your medical history and reading this will form part of the assessment process. You'd be amazed at what we can tell from some of our cases medical histories!

Your vet and behaviourist can then work together to support you as a team.

Rebecca Elliott Dog Behaviour & Training

29/08/2026

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