YES to LEARN, Force Free Dog Behavior and Care

06/16/2026

Most pet owners have never heard of New World screwworm, yet it’s one of the most destructive parasites affecting animals. Unlike typical maggots that feed on dead tissue, screwworm larvae invade and feed on living tissue. Combined with the fact that a single female fly can lay hundreds of eggs in or near a wound, a minor injury can quickly become a serious medical concern.

With confirmed New World screwworm cases in Mexico, Texas, and New Mexico, and concerns about spread to neighboring states, pet parents should know the warning signs, prevention and treatment strategies.

To help protect your pet in high-risk areas:

🪰 Check your pet daily for wounds, cuts, swelling, and skin irritations. Screwworm flies are attracted to open wounds, tick bites, ear infections, hot spots, surgical incisions, and other areas of damaged skin.

🪰 Keep all wounds clean, protected, and treated promptly. Any cut, scratch, or skin lesion should be monitored closely and never left unattended.

🪰 Know the warning signs of infestation. Watch for swelling, discharge, a foul odor, excessive licking, pain, or a wound that appears to be getting larger instead of healing. Contact your veterinarian immediately if you notice any of these signs.

🪰 Use fly-control measures and repellents consistently, especially if your pet has a wound or recent surgical site.

Join us today, Live at 12pm ET. We’ll be discussing New World screwworm, plus surprising new research on doggy dementia, gut health and epilepsy, indoor fungal pollution, and other important pet health updates.

Plus, Inside Scoop subscribers can now download our complete New World Screwworm Guide inside the community group. The ebook includes prevention strategies, treatment information, recovery guidance, wound-support protocols, and DIY fly deterrent recipes. 🐾

👉 Drop SCOOPERS below and we’ll message you a link to join the Inside Scoop, our Planet Paws community where you can watch the full replay, submit your questions, and get access to our ebooks, guides, and more!

06/16/2026

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.]

06/16/2026

In a fast-moving, often confusing industry, the most ethical dog professionals have one single trait in common: they keep learning.

Not because they have to but because they want to.

They understand that dog training and behaviour support is part science, part art, and always evolving.

Take a closer look here: https://www.canineethics.org/post/why-ethical-pros-never-stop-learning-and-how-to-keep-up

06/16/2026

"I swear he wasn't like this yesterday."

The dog that's grabbing clothes, barking at everything, jumping and squealing or struggling to listen.

I know it feels like it happened overnight.
What if it didn’t?

What catches people out is that dogs don't reset to zero after a sleep.

Excitement can carry over, long after the ball has been put away.
Frustration can carry over, even when there's no obvious cause.

A busy weekend gets added to the counter too.
Sometimes even a busy week.

We don't want to stop the fun.
We see them happy.
Engaged and loving the intensity.
Wanting to interact over and over again.

So we keep saying yes.

We excuse it.
"He's just a teenager."
"She gets mouthy when she's happy."
But eventually we can end up with a problem that excitement won't solve.

Because we've added more onto a dog who was already carrying the days before.
And the days before that.

That's why over-arousal can be so difficult to spot.

It disguises itself as fun.

As excitement.

As "the best day ever."
And it does that day after day.
Week after week.

And then we add more to “tire them out”.

The trouble is that sometimes the last thing an over aroused dog needs,
is more.

06/16/2026

06/16/2026

There's an uncomfortable part to this.

We like certainty.

See the signal.
Name the signal.
Understand the dog.

A lip lick.
A yawn.
Looking away.

Most people want one meaning for each.

One signal.
One answer.
One reason.
Done and dusted.

Dogs rarely offer us that luxury.

The same behaviour can be a calming signal, an appeasement gesture or a displacement behaviour.

The signal may be identical.
The meaning may not be.

Certainty is so tempting.

But to read dogs well, we need to stay curious.
We need to look at the context.

We need to question our first conclusion and even our second and third.

And sometimes we need to admit that what we're seeing doesn't fit neatly into what we thought we knew at all.

That's the uncomfortable part.

06/16/2026

One of the most damaging myths in modern dog training and animal behaviour is the idea that every animal can be fully rehabilitated with enough love, enough training, enough consistency, or enough positive reinforcement. They cannot. And the same is true in humans.

Some individuals recover remarkably from trauma, instability, neglect, pain, or chronic stress. Others do not, despite excellent intervention, safe environments, medication, therapy, behaviour modification, and years of support. This is because behaviour is not created by one single thing.

Behaviour is the result of genetics, early development, nervous system sensitivity, prenatal stress, pain, learning history, environment, social experiences, health, neurochemistry, resilience, and ongoing stress load all interacting together. There is no scientifically credible model of behaviour that says environment alone determines outcome.

Research in both humans and animals consistently shows strong heritability for anxiety, fearfulness, impulsivity, emotional reactivity, aggression, stress sensitivity, and resilience. Studies in behavioural genetics repeatedly demonstrate inherited differences in stress responsiveness and emotional regulation. Selective breeding absolutely influences behaviour.

Chronic stress and trauma alter the brain. Animals exposed to chronic fear, instability, harsh punishment, pain, chaotic environments, or repeated stress during sensitive developmental periods may never process the world normally afterwards.

Some individuals experience severe adversity and recover relatively well. Others experience comparatively mild adversity and struggle profoundly. This is true in dogs, humans, horses, primates, laboratory animals, and virtually every species studied.

Resilience is influenced by:
- genetics
- maternal stress
- prenatal environment
- early socialisation
- neurodevelopment
- attachment security
- pain
- chronic stress exposure
- learning history
- health

Two dogs can live through the exact same experience and emerge completely differently. A deeply traumatised, genetically vulnerable, pain-affected nervous system may improve dramatically and still never become “normal”.

05/17/2026

Real impulse control is often much quieter than people expect.
That’s where you start.
It can look like:
• pausing
• disengaging
• sniffing
• thinking
• choosing to move away
• recovering faster

Sometimes “wait” creates more frustration, not less.

Calm choices are built through emotional regulation, not simply holding behaviour in.

That’s why some dogs struggle more and more the longer we rely on restraint, holding position and repeated stopping without addressing the emotional state underneath it.

Real impulse control is often much quieter than people expect.
That’s where you start.

It can look like:
• pausing
• disengaging
• sniffing
• thinking
• choosing to move away
• recovering faster

What helping impulse control shouldn't look like?
Insisting they sit still while completely overwhelmed.

Those tiny, easier moments matter because we can miss the good choices dogs make when they are calm enough to actually think clearly.

Small successful moments are the ones that matter.
So let’s find more of them.

05/17/2026

Did you know? The propensity for dogs to develop defensive behaviors as seen in aversive training methods activates a physiological state that may interfere with a dog's ability to cognitively function.

Basically, aversive dog training engages the dog's defensive systems, that is, the fight, flight, or freeze responses. These responses are mediated by activation of the sympathetic nervous system and the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis.

The immediate result is elevated arousal, increased heart rate, and the release of stress hormones such as cortisol and catecholamines.

In this physiological state, the dog’s brain prioritizes survival over learning.

Discover 13 negative effects of aversive dog training: https://dogdiscoveries.com/training/thirteen-negative-effects-of-aversive-dog-training/

05/17/2026

The issue? They’re myths.

We presume a wag and a sniff is consent for a pat.
Dogs just aren’t that simple.

They can wag their tail in every emotional state. It tells you something is happening.
So which emotion has caused that peaked interest and change?
That’s often trickier to see.

Sniffing you is also not consent to touch.
It’s a quick check of who you are and to gather that further information many dogs need.
To do that, they need to get very close or even touch you with that nose.
That is not permission.

And that moment gets misunderstood all the time.

People move closer.
Hands come down.
Decisions get made based on myths.

Those signals?
They’re just pieces.

With tails? It’s the speed of the wag.
The height and tension of the tail.
The looseness or rigidity in the body.
Is there a stillness, pause or hesitation?

It all matters.

With scent? Some dogs will approach, sniff, and leave.
Some will stay close but are still unsure.
Some will give you a clear “that’s enough” and move away.

None of that is a guaranteed “you can now touch” .

The problem really isn’t the tail or the sniff at all.
It’s what we assume they mean.

Because once you act on the wrong assumption, you’ve already stepped way past what they were comfortable with.

Slow it down.
Watch more and touch less.
Let them lead the interaction they want.

It’s well and truly time we busted these myths.