Matts Mutts Dog Training

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Dog First Aid Qualified ✅
Level 3 Dog Training Certificate✅

Dog Reactivity Specialist, tailored plans to help your dog!

Drop me a message or contact me on whatsapp 07759 712791

01/11/2026

For Deezel, the world can be a pretty scary place.

He’s a very nervous dog when he’s outside, and one of the things I’m working on with him is building a real love for playing tug.

I don’t just want him to play because I’m asking him to. I want him to absolutely LOVE the game. I want that toy to become one of the most exciting things in his world.

The idea is to build up that motivation and desire to play so that, as his confidence grows, we can start taking that game into environments he currently finds difficult.

Rather than constantly focusing on everything that worries him, I want to give him something he genuinely enjoys doing with his owner.

We’re still in the early stages, but this is why I put so much emphasis on play in my training.

It’s not just about having fun. It can be an incredibly powerful tool for building confidence, strengthening relationships and helping dogs feel more comfortable in the world around them.

29/10/2026

Quick test you can do on your next walk. Forget what your dog can do when you ask, and look at what he does when you’re not asking for anything.

Is he scanning for the next dog? Pulling towards the gate before you’ve even got there? Or can he stand there while the world goes past and not think about it?

Neither is a failure, it just tells you what to train next. Most owners spend months on sits and stays because they’re impressive. We are always told we need to do more with our dogs and to extent that is true, however it’s equally if not more important that they learn to simply do nothing.

If your dog is brilliant at home and a different animal outside, comment HELP and I’ll send you the free Reactive Dog Roadmap.

26/10/2026

It’s that time of the year again, darker night are rolling in earlier and it’s a reactive dog owners dream! Less people taking their dogs out later in the evening.

And yeah, there are. But the ones that are out, you don’t see until they’re about ten feet away. No time to cross the road, no time to get your dog’s attention, no time to do any of the things you’d normally do. Add a head torch, a wet lead and a dog who’s already wound up, and that’s a walk most owners just stop doing.

Then it’s the garden, then it’s “he’s fine, he doesn’t need much”, and by January you’ve both gone a bit stir crazy.

It also takes a few weeks to put proper foundations in. If you wait until it’s pitch black at 4pm and icy, you’re trying to train in the hardest conditions of the year. Do it now and you spend winter walking your dog, not avoiding it.

If that’s where you are, book a free consultation and we’ll work out where to start. Link in bio.

21/10/2026

Sometimes I wonder what goes through his head when he’s dreaming…

Then I remember he’s a Spaniel. 😂🎾

19/10/2026

It doesn’t matter how long your day has been, how tired you are or how much you’ve got going on. To your dog, you’re the best thing in the world.

They’ve spent most of their day waiting for you to come home, and all they want is a bit of your time.

Get on the floor, grab their favourite toy, have a game of tug, play a game of fetch, be silly and just enjoy spending time together.

Play is one of the best ways to build a relationship with your dog. It creates engagement, builds trust and teaches your dog that YOU are worth paying attention to.

Sometimes we get so caught up in trying to train our dogs that we forget to just have fun with them.

They don’t care how stressful your day has been. They’re just happy you’re home.

Make some time for them.

16/10/2026

Meet Barnaby, a 1 year old Dachshund who wasn’t quite sure what to make of the world around him.

Whenever he saw another dog, he’d become very alert, often barking because he simply didn’t know how to deal with the situation.
He wasn’t necessarily fearful, nor was he desperate to say hello. He was just a little unsure. The same went for unfamiliar people, especially when they wanted to give him a fuss.

His owners signed up to my Off-lead Freedom Programme, and we got to work.

We built motivation through structured play, introduced clear communication through our Yes and No markers, and started teaching Barnaby what was expected of him.
A big part of his training involved learning how to simply coexist with other dogs. Watching them go by, making good choices and understanding that he didn’t need to react every time one appeared.
And as his confidence grew, something really interesting happened.
A completely different side of Barnaby came out. Underneath all that uncertainty was actually a very social little dog!

So we also worked heavily on impulse control, teaching him that just because he wanted to say hello to another dog now didn’t mean he could go charging over.

Alongside this, we conditioned an e-collar and built reliable recall, giving Barnaby the opportunity to enjoy safe off lead freedom.

Now his mums can take him to pubs, cafés and new environments without constantly worrying about how he’ll react to another dog.

He can enjoy off lead walks, explore the world and simply be a dog, while his owners can finally relax and enjoy spending time with him.

And that’s what this is all about.
Barnaby is only a year old. He’s got his whole life ahead of him, and thanks to the hard work and commitment of his owners, he’s now got the skills and confidence to make the most of it.

Amazing work from Enya and Ash! 👏🏽

If your dog’s world has become smaller because of their reactivity, drop me a DM and let’s have a chat about changing that.

15/10/2026

Had to get this off my chest.
If you adopt a rescue dog, go in expecting there might be issues, some rescues don’t tell you everything. And if something does come up, that’s not a reason to give the dog back, in my opinion, you owe it to the dog to help them. You wouldn’t return a child for acting out, you’d get support. Dogs deserve the same.

08/10/2026

Two mistakes I see all the time when one dog tells another off.

The first is the owner panicking and telling their own dog off for growling. It’s not the dog being nasty, they are communicating in a way dogs understand. Punish that, and you risk a dog who stops warning and goes straight to the next step.

The second is leaving it to carry on because “they’ll sort it out between themselves”. Sometimes they do. But if your dog has said no two or three times and the other dog still isn’t listening, they shouldn’t have to keep escalating just to be heard which can result in a fight. That’s where we come in.

And before anyone asks, yes, Bobbi’s on an e-collar, and yes, we used it at a corrective level. The e-collar has been properly conditioned at a low level for recall as well. She’s been taught what her marker means, so it wasn’t out of nowhere. It was a clear consequence she understood. Watch how she is straight after. No fear, no fallout, just a dog who’s finally got the message that Fraiser isn’t interested and went off to do something else.

If your dog is the one who always gets bombarded on walks, or the one doing the bombarding, comment HELP and I’ll send you my Reactive Dog Roadmap.

Address

12 Concord House
Washington
NE372AS

Telephone

+447759712791

Website

https://mattsmuttsdogtraining.co.uk/, https://tally.so/r/2E54B9

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