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Dave Taylor - Dog Behaviour & Training

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Dog behaviour specialist helping you understand the dog you have. Ethical, evidence-based training built on trust and connection.

25/08/2026

Here’s a dead simple one. A few times a day, just chuck your dog a bit of food out of nowhere. No cue, no reason, no “earn it” attached. Just a surprise good thing landing in their world.

Sounds too easy to matter, but it works. Dogs who get random positive stuff happening to them, with zero expectation on what they need to do to get it, start seeing the world as a bit more on their side. It’s especially good for the nervous ones, the shutdown ones, the ones who feel like everything’s a test.

Costs you nothing. Takes ten seconds. Try it for a week and see what shifts.

25/08/2026

Stressed? Your Dog Already Knows

Turns out your dog can smell how you’re feeling. Not just picking up on your tone or your body language, actually smelling your stress.

There’s research showing dogs who catch a whiff of a stressed out stranger start seeing things a bit more negatively. Ambiguous stuff that could go either way starts looking like bad news to them, just from the scent alone.

Nobody knows for sure if that’s baked in from birth or something dogs pick up over time (stressed person nearby usually does mean something’s up, so it makes sense they’d tune into it). Either way, it’s worth thinking about next time you’re having a rough day. Your dog might already be feeling it before you’ve said a word.

26/07/2026

Wrong!

This one has been around forever. It's also not true.

Dogs can and do learn new things throughout their entire lives. The brain doesn't just switch off at a certain age - it keeps adapting based on new experiences. Anyone who's taken on a rescue dog with years of ingrained habits and watched them settle into a completely different way of living has seen this first hand.

Where it can get slightly trickier with older dogs is changing something they've been doing the same way for years. That takes a bit more time and patience - which is fair enough really, it would for any of us.

But slow progress isn't no progress. And older dogs often have something younger dogs don't - a bit more calm, a bit more focus, and a lot less of that chaotic puppy energy that makes everything ten times harder.

If you've got an older dog and you're wondering whether it's too late to change something, it almost certainly isn't.

26/07/2026

Is socialising your puppy actually doing what you think it's doing?

Most people are told to get their puppy out and about as much as possible. Meet other dogs. Meet new people. Tick off the checklist before the window closes.

The problem is that exposure on its own isn't socialisation. A puppy that comes home from a walk more wired than when they left, or one that's increasingly unsettled around other dogs, isn't getting used to the world. Their brain is actually becoming more reactive to it.

What we're looking for isn't a puppy that survives new experiences. It's a puppy that's calmer and more settled after them. That's the question worth asking every time - is this getting better or is it getting worse?

26/07/2026

This is me and Albert.

Albert is a rescue vizsla. A pandemic puppy who found his way to me after life got complicated for everyone involved. Rehoming a dog is never an easy decision, and the people who made it did the right thing by him in the end.

Living with a reactive dog is hard. There are days that test your patience, your confidence, and your belief that things can get better. Albert has given me all of those days in abundance. He has been a massive learning curve, full of bumps in the road, moments of doubt, and small wins that felt enormous at the time.

If you have ever felt out of your depth with your dog, I have been there. If you have ever wondered whether you are doing enough, I have been there too. Albert has made sure of that.

I'm Dave, a dog behaviour specialist in training based in Colchester. Behaviour and training services are coming soon. In the meantime, I offer small group dog walks built around calm, well-matched groups and dogs who actually enjoy the experience. Search Dave's Dogs Colchester to find out more and get in touch.

Fair warning: this account might look a little sparse for a while. I am deep in my studies and content is not always the first thing on my mind. Bear with me. It will be worth it.

Follow along. There is plenty more to come.

26/07/2026

Neuroscience research shows that the part of the brain that drives play and the part that drives fear are mutually exclusive. When one is active, the other can’t be. If your dog is genuinely playing, they are not experiencing fear at the same time - it’s just how the brain is wired.

Kind of makes sense when you think about it though, doesn’t it?

There’s a bonus to it as well. Getting a dog into play shortly after a frightening experience appears to dull the emotional memory of what just happened - because of the neurochemicals released during play. So you’re giving them a good time but you’re actively doing something that helps soften the impact of what they just went through.

Obviously getting a really scared dog into play isn’t always easy, and it depends on the dog. But if you can get there - even a short burst of something they love - it’s one of the most useful things you can do for them in that moment.

Useful hack, hey?!

For study needs: (Panksepp, J. - Affective Neuroscience, 1998)

26/07/2026

You’re on the sofa. Your dog is next to you.
You catch each other’s eyes - one of those quiet moments where nothing much is happening but it feels like something.

Research has shown that mutual gaze between dogs and their owners triggers oxytocin release in both species. The same bonding hormone found between mothers and infants. What’s remarkable is that this didn’t happen with wolves raised by humans - it seems to be something dogs developed through thousands of years of living alongside us. Crafty!

Biologically speaking, that quiet moment on the sofa is something genuinely good for both of you, so gaze away!

For study nerds: (Nagasawa et al., 2015)

26/07/2026

Why does your dog seem scared of completely random things?

Your dog loses it when you tie your shoelaces. Or gets anxious the moment you put your coat on. Or starts pacing when you pick up your keys - even on days you’re not going anywhere.

It sounds random. It really isn’t.

Dogs are expert pattern learners. Long before any emotion is involved, they’re quietly filing away which events tend to follow which. So by the time something stressful does happen - like being left alone - everything that came before it is already loaded with meaning.

Shoelaces aren’t frightening. They just reliably predict something that is. Once you see it that way, it changes completely where you’d start if you wanted to help them feel differently about it.

26/07/2026

You try ignoring your dog when they jump up. They jump higher. Then they start barking. Then they start pawing at you. Sound familiar?

This is one of the most common bits of advice given to dog owners - and there’s a reason it tends to backfire.

When a dog expects something and doesn’t get it, the brain doesn’t calmly conclude that jumping doesn’t work. It escalates first. Try harder, try louder, try something else. It’s the same impulse as shaking a vending machine that took your money and gave you nothing (we’ve all done it).

The frustration is real, it’s measurable, and it often makes things more intense before anything settles.

Giving the dog something else to do - something that gets them what they’re actually after, just in a way that works for everyone - tends to move things forward a lot faster than waiting for it to stop.

26/07/2026

Why does your dog listen at home but fall apart everywhere else?

They’ve got it at home. Solid. You’re quietly proud.

Then you take them somewhere new and it all goes up s**t creek. It’s like they’ve never heard the word in their life and you feel like the worst owner in the world with the worst behaved devil dog known to man.

You’re not!

They haven’t forgotten. The cue they learned at home was never just the word. It was the word, plus you watching them, plus that room, plus that floor, plus a whole picture of familiar context built up over weeks of repetition.

Change the location and you’ve changed the cue - as far as their brain is concerned, anyway.

If you want something to hold up anywhere (and I know we all do), the only real answer is to practise it in as many different places as possible - ideally well before you actually need it.

Get practising and see the change!

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