Lighten Up Dog Training (2025)

31/07/2025

Awww - how do you know when you've made it in the world?!

When you're being ripped off by sites professing to be the authentic you and charging people money for whatever junk AI they've ripped off you 😂

Oh well... I guess it means it's worth ripping me off?!

Rude, though!

Anyway, if you want the authentic stuff and you're not sure whether it's authentic or not, just ask. I promise to insert as much ME into it as I can, even in the replies. Plus, I'll undoubtedly be underselling any rip-off site, so it always pays to buy the authentic stuff. I do sell stuff - but only via my teachable school or my official Lighten Up eventbrite, so never fear! You'll even know it's the authentic me in the video because it takes a lot of work to look as exhausted and harried as I do.

If there's not a malinois with her trotters up right behind me on the couch in the video, it's not me either.

I don't use autoreplies, autoresponses, AI or suchlike, so if you think 'Wow - that Emma feels a whole lot EXTRA' - well, it's so you know I'm not a bot.

It takes insane amounts of humanity to do this.

🥳🤬😩🤡💩🤖👏🐶

30/07/2025

🤩 WHY YOU COULDN'T PAY ME TO STOP LEARNING 🤩

As if you don't know already!

🐾This gorgeous sugar-coated burned toastie of a dog🐾

Oh, and all the other dogs on the planet as well. Of course. Hope that goes without saying. Including yours. And all those you know.

Hi, I'm Emma, and I have a confession to make.

Yesterday, I added another three dog books to my to-read pile on the bookshelf to pick at over the next month. I also spent an hour inhaling a newish podcast with Ken Ramirez. And I picked up a couple of additional webinars with Dr Chris Pachel. Then I read three newly-published studies - one was about how dogs change people's holiday habits, one was about trends in anxiety in dogs in Brazil, and one was a new one about the effects of music on canine behaviour.

Why?

Because who wouldn't want to know this stuff?!

It also helps me understand her world more...

You know, the her that is the greying face and the bright eyes in the photo.

Her world gets just a little more open to me the more I know.

Who wouldn't want that?!

So yeah, that's why you couldn't pay me to stop. Not for any money.

Mainlining the dog-fomation, and proud of it.

29/07/2025

LESS than a week away from the moment that a month's worth of content drops to launch the inaugural Moving Beyond Fear & Anxiety course.

Are you in?

If not... what are you waiting for?

One of the biggest issues I found in canine behaviour science over a decade ago when I started my journey was that there was SO little. Desensitisation & counterconditioning. DS/CC. That was practically all that was on the table.

My issue was that these approaches didn't always make things better. Sometimes, they made no difference at all. They seemed like blunt and inappropriate tools meaning that dogs were taking months or years to put fears and anxieties behind them.

When I think back to the skills I had back in 2015, I'm sad to say that they were not enough. They weren't always appropriate and they often left dogs struggling.

I remember a moment at a busy event back then when someone had brought their dog in desperation in the vain hope of a little desensitisation. The dog's guardians had the notion that 'getting used' to people would help him overcome his fears. In fact, their (unqualified) dog trainer had told them so.

The dog was completely overwhelmed - one step away from biting someone.

They were utterly terrified, bewildered by the noise, the smells, the chaos, the people, the music, the comings and goings.

Back then, if they'd asked for help, I'd have fallen back on the tried-and-tested desensitisation & counterconditioning. It was, I'm embarrassed to say, all I had in the toolkit.

In fact, I look back now and I'm not even sure that what we were doing *was* desensitisation or counterconditioning. Sometimes, it felt more like resensitisation and making things really salient to the dog.

Over the last five years in particular, that toolbox has expanded mightily. Thanks to the willingness and dedication of thousands of clients, I've had the blessing of being able to try things out and then import them into similar situations. Stuff that seemed so hard - how to help dogs move from being used to people to interacting with them, how to work with dogs who you can't get out of the door, how to work with dogs who won't come out from under the table unless you're not there, how to work with fearful dogs who include biting in their repertoire, getting dogs to the vet when they're in a panic, working with dogs who have years of learned avoidance, sound sensitive dogs, dogs with separation anxiety and frustration - all these things got easier and easier thanks to that expanded toolkit.

And you know I've been planning to share for a long, hot minute.

Doors are already open. There's a bunch of free pre-course material to get you up to speed (almost £100 of free materials, in fact!) before Monday, and then...

Massive drum roll please...

Things go live at 8am on Monday 4th August 2025.

Sales will close on Monday 18th August. We'll be cracking a pace!

If you've not got the link and you want to know more, stick MOVE ME! in the comments and I'll send you the link.

If you're in already, say hi!

07/07/2025

SHHHHH! 🤫

Doors are now open on for the brand new course...

The one you've all been waiting for...

MOVING BEYOND FEAR & ANXIETY: NEXT-GENERATION APPROACHES FOR FEARFUL DOGS

Because this is the first launch, it's a hush-hush kind of affair. I really want people who are going to DO the course, rather than just sit on it. For that reason, places are very limited in this first iteration. The new materials go live on Monday 4th August at 8am UTC+1, but there's a bunch of stuff in the pre-course materials so that you hit the ground running and you're not foaming at the mouth by the time August gets here.

If you want more information, just ask!
Emma

02/07/2025

THIS IS WHAT I'M MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO SHARING WITH YOU on the new fear & anxiety course for dogs ...

I'm so excited about the content for the new course MOVING BEYOND FEAR & ANXIETY WITH DOGS: NEXT-GENERATION APPROACHES

Can there seriously be any stone unturned in the dog world when it comes to fear, anxiety & panic?

Plenty, actually.

And it's all of these stones I want to unturn with you.

I'm most keen to unturn the big old stone about safety learning and safety cues. For so long, I laboured under the mistaken belief that we couldn't *teach* dogs to feel safe. If they felt safe, that was on their terms and in their own time. We're told this over and over in some parts of the industry.

It's not true, though. There's a whole bunch of safety science that unpicks what it means to feel safe and the mechanisms by which this state occurs. So I'm looking forward to sharing all this thinking with you too. And instead of trying to rush through it and just getting headlines, we get to really get to grips with the five major ways we can teach safety.

The five ways we can teach safety are a big part of the new course.

I'm also looking forward to unturning the stone that sits next to it about the relationship between safety and fear. Safety is not simply an absence of fear. In fact, feeling safe can stop us learning when not to fear.

What do I mean by that?

Well, the best way I know how to make things clear is through analogy & anecdote. And what better one than one about exam season, since so many students are finishing up with exams right now?

When I did my exams, I had a bunch of safety cues that helped me cope with my exam anxiety. You may think of them as mascots, magical talismen or simply superstition. Anyway, like Linus's blanket in 'Peanuts', they made me feel like I could triumph in exams.

The more I depended on those mascots to calm my nerves in exams, the more reliant on them I became.

Nowadays, students aren't usually allowed to take mascots into national exams as I did. Can you imagine my panic if I'd been reliant on mascots and good luck charms to help me feel like I could cope? I'd get to the exam room, have to leave them all outside and ... throw myself to the wolves without any protection whatsoever.

I learned to feel safe because of my good luck charms.

And this learning to feel safe actually blocks me learning that I can pass exams! It blocks me learning NOT to be afraid of exams.

Learning signals that make us feel safe and learning to feel safe are different from learning to reappraise the scary stuff and learn it's not so bad after all.

At no point is that more obvious than we're forbidden from relying on our safety stuff.

Safety stuff can be all manner of things. It can be relationships. It can be behaviours we perform. It can be objects. It can be places. It can be activities we do. It can be odours, sounds or bodily sensations.

So I'm MOST excited about turning over that big old stone about safety and *really* having time to dig into how we teach dogs when and how to feel safe, as well as when and how not to feel afraid. PS lots of dogs may already be using their own safety cues, and if you don't see them for what they are, it can be really confusing when fears seem to come out of nowhere. So I'm excited about sharing all that with you.

I'm also excited about some other stuff as well.

I'm really excited about putting right some massive misconceptions about counterconditioning and desensitisation - when they'll work, when they won't and why they won't. Sometimes, it really feels like we're trying to use these processes in ways they were never intended to be used. They're thrown at all kinds of problems with fear in entirely the wrong ways and then it's no wonder our dogs are left fearful when these approaches fail.

So I'm excited to shed light on what works where.

I feel like sometimes we use them because we're not sure what else to do, so I'm looking forward to bringing you a whole smorgasbord of practical strategies to help with fear... including safety cues & their application, including social buffering, including teaching 'get me out of here!' cues for your dog.

I'm looking forward to answering the big questions in behaviour modification around fear in dogs:

🐾 where *should* counterconditioning be used?
🐾 how can we habituate dogs so thoroughly they're totally unbothered about things they used to be sensitive about?
🐾 how do we best use safety to help us?
🐾 how do we know how to help dogs learn to reappraise and downgrade things they used to think of as scary?
🐾 why are some fears so easily acquired?
🐾 which fears are hardest to overcome & why?
🐾 what are the weak points of our work where fears are likely to return?
🐾 how is anxiety different from fear & why does it matter?
🐾 why do we really, really have to get our heads around context?
🐾 what are the layers of appraisal and how do they trigger fears?
🐾 what does reappraisal *really* look like in dogs?
🐾 how do we build robust puppies without risking them sensitising?
🐾 what does good puppy socialisation look like for fearlessness?
🐾 why can one generation of breeding change everything?
🐾 does breed have anything to do with types of fear?
🐾 what's the optimal training zone for working with fear?
🐾 how can we overcome pernicious and pervasive avoidance behaviours?

I have soooo many big questions I want to chew over with you. For that reason, it made it really hard to pick the one thing that I'm MOST excited about.

Yes, you've guessed it.

I'm excited about it all!

29/06/2025

COME WITH ME BEHIND THE SCENES ON THE NEW COURSE!

27/06/2025

You've all been asking what the new fear & anxiety course will have in it... 🫣

How about a behind the scenes so I can show you what's in there? 🤩 You know I'm not one to keep a secret.

Moving On From Fear & Anxiety - The Lighten Up Signature Course. Opens for sales on Monday 8 July 2025.

Preview coming on Sunday 29th June 2025 @ 6pm UTC+1

Are you ready??!

09/06/2025

DOING THINGS A LITTLE DIFFERENTLY

I don't know if you're going to see this post. I know a few thousand of you follow the page, but I also know that who gets to see my posts these days is a bare fraction of those who follow me. And our habits are changing; I don't know about you, but I can't even remember the last time I actually commented on something, even though I try.

A couple of weeks back, I was back in Manchester. I managed to catch up with a couple of friends in my lunch breaks. I was chatting stuff over with a friend whose agency handles the accounts of some quite big news outlets and a couple of large charities. She has her theories about how social media is changing, but she knows just how much is shaped by strong emotion. It's something she has to roll with... and it's left her feeling pretty cynical. If it's not got a hook, if it's not controversial, silly or fuelling outrage, it's probably going to get nowhere, she says.

If you want engagement, she said, start a fight. Call someone out. Slag someone off. Take a pop at others. Tell people you're spilling the tea on some insider secret. If it's borderline defamatory, it's all good.

My problem with this is that I never wanted Lighten Up to be that way.

It's called Lighten Up on purpose. Hate brings me out in hives.

Do I have opinions on others in the industry?

Sure.

My eyes have rolled so hard about fifty times today. I've pffted. I've issued many profanities. At one point, Lidy went in the bedroom as I turned the air blue.

There are reasons for this. Despite me treating certain "influencers" as if they are radioactive, some platforms like to use the hasty speed with which I scroll past to show me more of THAT content, it seems, not the content I try to spend time with.

I thought the platform was too dumb to work out I'm not the yank-and-jerk type of trainer.

Apparently, it's not that dumb at all. It's the actual strategy.

As opposed to a certain video-based channel that sent me a stream of cute crows, ladies of a certain age being silly and book reviews of stuff it absolutely knows I'll love - and keeps me on the platform for hours, sometimes.

Here, it feels pretty unpleasant.

It's having one effect on me... not making me want to stay on the argumentative platforms very long. Now I'm treating the whole experience like it's radioactive.

As if to prove my point, one of the papers my friend's agency represents came up on my feed. It was an innocuous story about something or other. I clicked the comments. There's not many times I'd say I'm flabbergasted in life, but my gasts were flabbered when I saw just how much hate, anger & violence there was. Now, it's the only way to get their content seen, my friend says.

It made me realise that I'm not sure I'm cut out for how certain platforms work anymore. I also want to do things better. I'm still trying to figure out how that looks.

I'm not going down the 7-second clip trap. No stories for me. No hooks. No gimmicks. I simply can't. Despite these platforms pushing for video, it turns out it does less well than practically all my other content anyway.

Is it my face?! 🤣

Is it my lovely Northern vowels?! 🤣

Is it, as my friend might say, that I have the face and voice for printed words? 🫣

Anyway, I'll be reshaping the stuff I do over the coming months. Do things differently, I told myself.

But that depends on giving you stuff that works for YOU. I want it to be great content for free. I don't mind if that's video, print or other. I won't be podcasting on account of I'm very averse to bandwagons and there's plenty of good podcasts out there in a crowded market that aren't listened to enough. It's not at all likely to be short, trivial or silly. Well, it might be a bit silly. I can't help that bit.

I want it to be RICH. Useful. En-lightening. Valuable to you. Worthwhile content. Genuine. Hand-crafted.

No doubt this will involve picking up with mailing lists so you've half a chance of seeing it.

But what works for you, in this age of content overwhelm?

What kind of Dogs-With-Big-Feelings type free content would really make your little face shine like you just got something good? What are you hankering for? Tell me your heart's desire and I'll do what I can to deliver.

And, more importantly, how do you want to get it?

That's what I'm here for. It's all I want to do.

So fess up and let me at it 😉

08/06/2025

WHEN CONTEXT IS KING: there's more to life than cues

I used to bother a lot about dog stuff. If my dog Heston licked MY face, which I didn't mind, would he lick my brother's face, which my brother would hate?

If my dad let my sister's dog sleep on the bed with him, would my sister's dog then struggle to sleep in his bed when my sister returned?

If someone else walked my dog Lidy in kennels, would that wreck all the work I'd done with her?

The truth is that dogs are wonderfully, frustratingly, divinely contextual and cue-driven.

They know.

Heston knew that I was fine for face licks, but my brother was not.

Harry knows my dad is a sucker for letting him on the bed, but my sister is not.

Lidy knows exactly what the state of play is when I walk her, compared to somebody else.

That was brought home to me very sharply last week. I'd been staying with my mum so that I could deliver training in Manchester over nine days. I've always known that picking up my handbag is a signal for Lidy that we're going out. I can't even look at my handbag without her getting her hopes up that a car ride is on the cards. So I was very careful to leave my bag in my mum's living room so it didn't cause all kinds of issues about what was supposed to be happening.

Cues like handbags are very important to dogs. We know this.

But context is too.

Contextual factors are just those broad, indistinct, vague things in the world that fit together into a kind of a whole. A gestalt cue if you will. The little things that differ. When it got to Monday morning, Lidy and I did things almost as normal.

Almost.

I'd packed our bags the night before. Navigating M60 and M6 traffic meant an early start and I'd sorted us out when Lidy was having her dinner the night before. All we had to do was pick up the handbag and leave on that Monday morning.

But Lidy knew long before that. Things were different, somehow.

They were different in the gestalt. The subtle things had changed in the morning as a whole. We'd had breakfast earlier. I ate in the kitchen, not with her. My mum was still in her night clothes, not dressed and ready for the day.

Lidy knew.

Something felt different. No distinct cues. No distinct differences. Nothing in the immediate moment. No handbags being thought about, let alone touched.

She knew.

The most amazing thing to me about dogs is their ability to read the room. They know the situation. They take in the wholeness of a situation.

I can't tell you how many contextual cues Lidy appreciates... the way she knows when training will be required during a zoom call with a client... the way she knows when I'm wrapping up a tutorial online... the way she knows I'm settling in to a writing session... the way she knows we're gearing up for a short drive compared to a longer one.

Because context precedes cues, it can often act as the cue that sets up a behaviour. How many of us have dogs who appreciate 'oh, this is my mantrailing harness?! Clearly we're mantrailing today!' or know 'oh, you're doing things differently... I feel like you're going to take me to the vet imminently?!'

Cues are so significant to dogs. I'm sure you've seen the lovely video of the sleeping dog who wakes up the moment the word 'chicken' is said.

But context is often doing so much more of the work - especially if we think our training isn't working and especially if our dogs struggle with anxiety.

Knowing how to work with context is a whole different game altogether.

06/06/2025

EMBRACING UNCERTAINTY

There are weeks that feel like the universe is sharing some wise theme they want me to pay attention to.

This week's theme seems to have been uncertainty.

Tomorrow, I'm delivering a short webinar on the neuroscience of emotions for the 21st century. Much of it is challenging a lot of dogma that surrounds how we think about emotions in animals.

When I finished my degree back in 1994, psychology was just beginning to embrace the new technology of fMRI. It felt uncertain to me then - so much more biology than my degree had contained, focusing on cognitive, social, developmental and abnormal facets of the subject.

This uncertainty served me well. I was never seduced by what some researchers disparagingly refer to as neurob*llocks. It's always reminded me to stay light on my feet when it comes to understanding the brain, behaviour, cognition and interactions.

That was the first lesson from the universe.

The second came earlier in the week with a bunch of clients whose dogs require a more thoughtful approach to trained behaviours.

Sometimes, that's a size thing. Teaching little dogs is different than teaching big dogs.

One of the dogs is going to be learning a cue for 'back up.'

It's a useful cue for dogs who struggle in some situations, and it'll be a really good addition to his repertoire. I taught Lidy a back up cue using Susan Garrett's approach of aiming a treat under the chest between the dog's two front legs and marking when they step back. Lidy can back up easily on cue and her intuitive understanding of what I'm trying to mark & reward makes it easy.

But that's not so easy with a dog who has little legs. I mean you've got to have really, really good aim. That space is tiny between their chest, the floor and their two front legs.

It's a great way to capture backing up without using a lure, but you need SKILLS.

I also like Kay Lawrence's 'chair' approach of putting a treat under a chair and marking when backing up occurs, but this is a quite involved approach that doesn't suit every dog, especially those who are wary of our hands and legs.

Both of these are also quite contrived and require a lot of fading of environmental props that have been the ideal nest for nascent behaviour.

I'm also a fan of targeting, teaching dogs to target with each paw. Teaching them to move backwards towards a pad or cushion can be helpful, but it's not useful if you want your dog to back up out of those circumstances.

And I've used stepping in to the dog's space as a way to cue it as well, much as I dislike using physical pressure. I appreciate that it's useful to have a dog who can back up rather than stand still if they feel someone in their personal space. It sets my ethical ick factor aflame, causes sit behaviours more than it should, but I'd kind of like an uncomfortable dog to know that backing up is an option in that situation other than biting legs.

It's tough to have all these in my head and not have absolute certainty over which will work, which is best, which is appropriate. Oh, and ten other approaches as well!

There is no certainty for me. I don't have categorical thinking that this or that approach is RIGHT. Only which approach might be reasonable in the circumstances.

That was the second lesson from the environment.

The third related to another dog I've worked with this week who really struggles with unpredictability. Like my dog Lidy, she struggles when things change. I've worked hard to keep Lidy from falling in to predictable routines. This is tough because she's fizzy as a shaken can of pop in new places, and things easily tip her over the edge into impulsive movements and grabbing if we're careful. I understand that her arousal levels and likelihood of sensitising is very much related to uncertainty and unpredictability and it's easy to play it safe. My new client has been playing it safe - a totally understandable approach. It always works, until it becomes a hindrance. Working to shake things up is disorienting for her dog, who tends to easy anxiety and fearfulness.

The truth is that the perfection of mammals is their ability to adapt in changing circumstances. This is our talent. It's our strength. Instability is our niche. Even so, many of us would prefer things to be fixed, to be rigid, to be ever unchanging. Certainty is comfortable and safe.

Whenever we leave that comfortable place, it can feel scary.

But, as with many things in life, the more you do it, the better you get.

That sounds like salacious advice.

Maybe I should add a caveat there.

The more you do it, the better you get - as long as you take feedback from past performance and work on it.

Doing it the same way if it's failing you, well that's just crazy.

Anyway, embrace that uncertainty and lean in to it. It's the place where we grow.

04/06/2025

SO YOU KNOW HOW TO START BUT DO YOU KNOW HOW TO END?

What are your exit strategies? Do you know how you'll end your play session, your off-lead session, your training session with your dog?

If you want to teach an ordinary dog a thing, you can find yourself any number of videos on any social media channel that will show you how to get started.

Oh, those ordinary dogs!

If you've got an ordinary dog, feel free to scroll by!

Oh. You're still here?

You're here because your dog is EXTRA-ordinary, right?

One of the things I'm much more mindful of when I start teaching anything these days is how it ends.

How does the dog know it's over?

And what emotion will they feel when that happens?

This is particularly important if your dog struggles with frustration or with anxiety.

Arley is the one dog who made that really obvious to me. This golden retriever had been a bit of a lad, let's say, at the vets. Arley's guardian thought that it would be a very good idea if she muzzle trained Arley, because he was a bit of a lad in all kinds of situations, like the time he broke into the house next door and wouldn't let the homeowners in the kitchen where he was helping himself to snacks. She'd decided it was time to start putting some training in with Arley before things got worse. The muzzle was the beginning.

There are lots of great ways to start muzzle training.

His guardian had watched a video. She'd bought a muzzle. She'd got herself stocked up with cream cheese and paté and peanut butter. She'd decided to help him get used to the muzzle by putting lickables inside it and holding it out for him.

For the first couple of minutes, things were great. Arley had his nose inside the muzzle enjoying his licky snack.

Only when his guardian came to end the game, Arley took offence. He didn't want her to take the muzzle away. It was his new toy. He wanted the muzzle, and the remnants of paté.

So Arley snatched the muzzle and ran out into the garden.

Knowing better than to try and get it back off him, his guardian first started trying to trade with Arley. That didn't work. There was no way on earth he now wanted to give up his prize treasure. Not for a pot of paté. Not for a peanut butter lickimat. He'd never really been very good at trade anyway.

Bribing him, trying to move him away, trying to trade with him - all of these failed.

Worse, then Arley started demolishing the muzzle. Yes, a sturdy muzzle. He was tearing that bad boy up and eating it.

Yes, Arley ended up back at the vet again, this time to get the fabric strap removed from his intestines.

If you have an ordinary dog and you're still reading, go thank them for all the times they've never, ever made you wonder how you're going to get out of a situation. You've never had to wonder what your exit strategy is.

We're very good at getting in to things.

And we're not very good at getting out.

That's especially true with frustrated dogs, who may very well object to the end of the training session or play session. Who'd want the good stuff to stop, after all?!

It's also true for dogs off lead with poor recall. What's your exit strategy if you need to get them back?

And it's true if you're playing with your dog as well. Or even petting them.

I waited 17 minutes into my own hour at the local dog field last week because a guy was having that recall problem with his dachshund. Who'd want to go home when you're having ALL the fun?!

17 minutes, I listened to him calling, cajoling, bribing, chasing, getting into the car and starting it, pretending to drive off... 17 minutes of extra time for Mr Dachshund.

If there's one thing I know about working with dogs - especially unfamiliar dogs, and especially dogs in kennels - it's think about your strategies to end interactions or training sessions without ending up at the vet or without having to apologise profusely because you've overstayed your welcome. This is also true of playtime and meals as well.

If we take it as a given that not all dogs feel comfortable when the good stuff ends, we'll be more mindful of our exit strategies. It's nothing to do with being stubborn. It's nothing to do with poor obedience. If you'd object to someone switching your favourite show off halfway through a new episode, I know you appreciate how annoying it is when others decide the good stuff is over.

It's one of the reasons why the frustration stuff I do always starts with the exit strategies. If you don't have the strategies in place to get you out of there without getting your arse bitten by a grumpy dog behind you or ending the session with a lot of conflict and tension.

Plan your exit. Frustration Masterclass 101.

Lighten Up Dog Training

31/07/2025

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