Affinity Animal Training and Behaviour

21/06/2026

19/06/2026

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.

17/06/2026

17/06/2026

Can we stop putting dogs in rubbish situations and then blaming them when they finally snap?

Crowded. Grabbed. Leaned over. Hugged. Stared at. Cornered. Woken up. Followed. Pestered. Restrained. Our face in their face. Touched again, and again, after they already tried to leave.

No dog likes this on the best of days.

And they have been communicating this the whole time! If you keep missing it, you're not making anyone safer. You're just teaching the dog that communicating doesn't work.

Stiff body. Head turning away. Mouth closing tight. Weight sinking back. A lip lick, a glance away, a freeze, a duck, a small shuffle toward the door. Sometimes we miss this because no one ever showed us what to look for. Sometimes we miss it because we've decided the dog should just put up with it.

Then the dog growls, or snaps, or bites and suddenly the dog is the problem. Labeled rude, dramatic, unpredictable, or aggressive. And the most common words to follow? That nip "came out of nowhere." But no, it sure didn't. It's where the conversation goes when everything before it already failed.

I'm not saying a snap is nothing. It's quite obviously something. It's most often the dog telling you something got too difficult or uncomfortable. Call it "bad behaviour" and you throw all of that information straight in the bin.

Look at all the things we ask of dogs.
Be friendly, but don't jump!
Let yourself be grabbed, but don't pull away!
Be patient, but don't growl!
Put up with it, but don't leave!
Be good, but don't ever say no!
Then we're shocked when the only sentence left end in a warning.

I'm not suggestig every snapping situation is simple or that context doesn't matter. It very much matters! Pain, fear, startle, frustration, history, wakefullness... all of it changes how fast a dog gets there. Some dogs have had every early signal punished or ignored so often there's almost no ladder left to climb. Some dogs are carrying more than anyone could reasonably carry.

Which is exactly the point. Respecting a dog's communication is about noticing early. It's making space before things boil over. It's teaching kids and adults that a dog's body is not a public attraction. It's teaching when to ask, and when to wait to BE asked. And how.

A snap should stop us in our tracks, literally. Not only to evaluate their state of wellbing, but to ask what that snap "says about me, about what I just did, about what I've been asking this dog to put up with?"

Dogs are expected to compromise constantly. Tolerate the hug. Tolerate the stranger. Tolerate the kid. Tolerate the vet poking and proding them, hours in the crate, the random noise, the grabby hands.

Maybe it's not the dog who needs to change. Maybe it's us.

[Edit: The original graphic has been removed. I understand concerns about the use of AI for creating images and I apologise for any misstep. I have chosen to swap the image to keep the focus purely on the message itself. Thank you, as always, for your incredible support.]

09/06/2026

🐾 The SuperBowls pattern game from Leslie McDevitt's Control Unleashed® program is one of the most practical tools you can add to your training toolkit. And the concept is beautifully simple.

You place several colourful bowls in a line on the floor. Then you wait. The moment your dog looks up at you, you mark it with a "yes!" and drop a treat into the next bowl. You walk the line together, bowl by bowl, and repeat the loop.

That's it. But here's what makes it so powerful 👇

🟡 The predictable pattern gives your reactive dog structure and calm in an otherwise unpredictable world.

👁️ Your dog's eye contact becomes a start button. Their way of saying "I'm ready to keep going." If they look away, the game simply pauses. No pressure. No punishment. The dog is always in control of the pace.

🐕 Because the dog controls when the game continues, this isn't just a focus exercise. It is a counterconditioning procedure with built-in choice. That combination is what makes it so effective for dogs who struggle around triggers.

You start at home with zero distractions, then gradually introduce mild stimuli nearby. A stationary bicycle, a stuffed dog, eventually the real thing. Always at a distance your dog can handle.

One small step at a time. 🐾

📥 I put together an illustrated step-by-step guide you can download, print, and keep on your fridge or share with anyone you like (and you will support my work by doing so):
👉 https://buymeacoffee.com/trainmeplease/e/546548

▶️ Watch the full explanation on YouTube:
👉 https://youtu.be/wGs394SlbNM

This post is inspired by the SuperBowls pattern game from Control Unleashed® by Leslie McDevitt. All credit to Leslie for this wonderful tool. We just love sharing it with our community. 🐶

06/06/2026

Horses Are Not Grazing Animals… They’re Specialist Browsers

This might be one of the biggest misconceptions in horse management.

We often describe horses as grazing animals, standing with their heads down eating grass all day. While they certainly graze, their natural feeding behaviour is actually far more complex than that.

Wild and feral horses spend huge portions of their day browsing. They don’t just eat grass. They seek out hedgerows, shrubs, leaves, bark, herbs, flowers, seed heads, weeds and even certain tree species. They constantly move across the landscape, selecting different plants to meet different nutritional and behavioural needs.

Think about a horse turned into a field with a healthy hedge line. How often do you see them reaching through the hedge for hawthorn, blackberry, rosehips or fresh leaves rather than standing in the middle eating grass?

That isn’t boredom. It’s natural behaviour.

The irony is that many of our modern horse paddocks bear very little resemblance to the environment horses evolved to live in. Vast areas of single-species grass provide plenty of calories but very little variety.

Much of the UK’s improved pasture has been heavily selected for agricultural productivity, particularly for cattle production. Ryegrass has become a dominant species because it produces high yields and supports milk and meat production extremely efficiently. The problem is that what works brilliantly for a dairy cow doesn’t necessarily work brilliantly for a horse.

Many improved ryegrass pastures contain significantly higher levels of readily available sugars than the diverse meadow systems horses would naturally encounter. Yet we continue to place animals designed to browse a wide variety of plants onto fields dominated by a single, energy-dense grass species.

Then we scratch our heads and wonder why we are seeing increasing numbers of horses struggling with obesity, insulin dysregulation, laminitis and other metabolic disorders.

Of course, metabolic disease is multifactorial. Genetics, exercise, management and overall diet all play a role. But it does raise an interesting question:

Are we feeding horses in a way that matches millions of years of evolution?

Browsing provides:

🌿 Nutritional diversity
🌿 Natural enrichment
🌿 Increased movement
🌿 Mental stimulation
🌿 Opportunities for self-selection of plant material
🌿 Access to a wide range of plant compounds not found in monoculture grass systems

Perhaps the question shouldn’t be “How much grass does my horse need?”

Perhaps it should be “How much variety does my horse need?”

Because when given the choice, many horses don’t behave like lawnmowers.

They behave exactly as nature intended — as specialist browsers.

30/05/2026

While the first 3 domains focus largely on the inputs that influence welfare, the Fourth Domain also asks us to look at behavior itself as evidence of welfare.

In other words:
▪ Is this animal doing what they would naturally be doing if captivity were not preventing it?
▪ Are the behavioral interactions this dog is having with the environment, other dogs, & people reflective of their natural history, behavioral ecology, & natural motivations?
▪ What does that actually LOOK like in dogs?
▪ How can we effectively support natural canine behavior when, as an industry, we have barely identified which natural behaviors dogs need to express for good welfare in the first place?

Worse still, many of the natural behaviors dogs are most motivated to perform have been mislabeled as “behavior problems” when expressed in modern pet environments.

Too often, our efforts have focused on suppressing these behaviors rather than understanding what they were for in the first place or why they are important now.

We were never taught to see many of these behaviors as welfare needs.
But animal welfare science is changing that.

We now have the frameworks, principles, & evidence to begin flipping the script on canine behavior entirely.

Not by creating less dogness in the name of “good” behavior.
Not by shaping unnatural performances.

But by creating healthier, more complete expressions of true dogness.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be exploring these Behavioral Interactions.

We’ll discuss how to identify these behaviors & provide some hacks to support them appropriately in modern life.

Because the expression of natural behavior can be evidence that welfare needs are being met.

And their absence, as well as “behavior problems”, can be evidence that they are not.

This series will also pave the way for the public release of the complete Total Welfare Ethogram, & the Total Welfare client management and behavioral diversity tracking app this July.

We will be redefining our field - together - as welfare literate & competent professionals in 2026.

Whatever your next step is, get ready to take it.

The dogs are counting on us.


Images Commissioned By: Trick Woofs

30/05/2026

🐾 What if the thing your dog is obsessed with is actually your biggest training asset?

That's the Premack Principle in a nutshell — and once it clicks, it changes how you see the whole environment around you.

Here's the concept: behaviour that your dog finds highly rewarding can be used to reinforce behaviour they find less rewarding. You're not fighting against what they want. You're using it.

Grandma's Rule puts it best:
🥦 Do the less fun thing first → earn the more fun thing.

In practice it looks like this:

📣 Dog rockets back to you on recall → gets released straight back into the game
🚪 Dog waits calmly at the door → the door opens
👁️ Dog checks in with eye contact on a walk → gets to go investigate that smell

No food needed. The real world becomes your treat pouch.

This is one of those concepts that sounds simple but has a huge ripple effect on your dog's impulse control and their relationship with you — so I made a full video breaking it all down:
📺 https://youtu.be/RNkT_oOhLYA

29/05/2026

I hear this almost every day -

“I buy him so many toys - and all he does is destroy them!”

My response? “And?”

Imagine if I said to you “I buy them such good dog food, and all they do is EAT it!”

It’s the SAME THING.

Dogs are not children. They don’t play with toys the way they do. They are different species and therefore have different needs. They don’t put their toys on shelves and wait to play with them again tomorrow.

Shredding, dissecting, chewing, biting, gnawing, shaking, are all part of behavior diversity in toy play that encourages and gives WELFARE to dogs.

They do not give a hoot or know how much it cost. Or how cute it is. They need to do these behaviors and dog toys are how you prevent them (hopefully) from doing it to your other stuff - that again, dogs understand value of. The dog toy industry has increasingly created toys that are not only expensive but also hold sentimental value to us (coffee cup stuffies or favorite cartoon characters etc) and therefore we are always intervening the destruction process. That needs to stop.

You buy the toys. They destroy them, however they choose. That’s all lumped into the cost of living with another species. They NEED to do these behaviors and suppressing them only causes more problems elsewhere.

Kipper is a shredder and tearer. More than most of my dogs combined. So, I go to goodwill and buy stuffed toys in bulk. He shreds and dissects them, i sit and watch and I throw them away and give him another. I supervise so he doesn’t ingest them, and when I can’t I give him something else like an antler. Does it cost money? Yes. But that is all part of the deal I made when deciding to accept the responsibility of having dogs in my house.

To answer a typical rebuttal I hear "if I let them do that then they will do it to other things, including the ACTUAL kids toys. I hear the same with "if I give my dog people food for treats, he will beg at the table"

I have the opposite experience and many clients do too. By giving the toys I've bought in the context I do, I've had my dogs steal less of the kids toys, and actually WAIT until they are given their "okay to shred" toys. Context can and does absolutely matter to many dogs. The majority of stuffed dog toys today resemble kids toys anyway, so Goodwill toys provide a much cheaper outlet without the feeling of throwing away money for 5 minutes of joy. Cardboard boxes, iceberg lettuce, watermelons etc are all great shredding options too, but they don't replace the true joy for many dogs of ripping an ear off a stuffy.

They eat the food, they shred the toys, they dig the holes, they shed, they bark, they need management, they need training, they need medical care. None of this is their fault. They are dogs. If we look at meeting their basic needs as an inconvenience, then we are already doing them an injustice before we’ve even begun to understand them fully.

Here’s kipper destroying his 3rd squish mallow of the week. Thank god for goodwill.

- Helen St. Pierre