The Dogs Blog......Two Ends Of The Leash

The Dogs Blog began in 2025. There’s a short story behind how it started, and if you haven’t already read it, you’ll find a link here along with all of last year’s posts. Those early pieces were born in the quiet gaps between puppy feeds, long days, and even longer nights, when odd questions, frustrations, observations, and moments of humour had a habit of appearing uninvited and refusing to be ignored.

What started as a few scribbled notes quickly turned into something more structured. The 2025 posts covered a wide range of subjects, some practical, some behavioural, some scientific, and some simply calling out the strange things we accept as normal in the modern dog world. They weren’t written to preach or to claim ownership of “the right way” to live with dogs, but to encourage people to stop, think, question, and maybe look at their dog from different perspectives. If even one owner came away with a better understanding of their dog, or a stronger relationship because of it, then the time spent writing them was worth it.

This page marks the start of the 2026 The Dogs Blog. The aim moving forward is simple: regular, bite-sized posts, ideally one a week, where I’ll continue to share thoughts, ideas, experiences, and knowledge gathered from years of living and working with dogs. The subjects you’ll find here are just honest reflections with the hope that somewhere along the line they help deepen understanding, improve communication and take the relationship between people and their dogs to another level.

01/02/2026 Whistle For a Recall

I’m often asked what I think about using a whistle for recall, and my answer is that I use a verbal cue, a visual cue, and a whistle. Each has its moment, each has strengths, and each can fail if it’s used badly. But yes, there are certain situations where a whistle simply performs better, and there are very good reasons for that.

The most practical and slightly British reason of all. If your dog is a hundred yards away and heading enthusiastically towards something it really shouldn’t be heading towards, it is far more civilised to use a whistle than to shout your dog’s name at the top of your lungs. Your neighbours, other walkers, and anyone quietly trying to enjoy nature will thank you and we all remember “...F E N T O N…”, not a good look that one.

This reason isn’t new. Search and rescue services talk constantly about the importance of carrying a whistle because it cuts through distance, wind, and background noise. Even the police of old, the peelers, carried those large silver whistles to call for backup. They didn’t shout each other’s names down the street; they used a clear, unmistakable signal that meant one thing and one thing only. Dogs, it turns out, aren’t that different.

When you raise the volume of your voice, it distorts. Words stretch, clip, wobble, and pick up emotional baggage. Your calm “come” at ten feet sounds very different from your panicked “COME!” at a hundred yards when a deer has just appeared. To us it’s the same word. To a dog, it can be an entirely different sound. Add in stress, frustration, or urgency and now the recall cue carries emotion as well as instruction, which can cause hesitation rather than speed.

A whistle doesn’t do that. It produces a perfectly consistent sound every single time. Same tone, same pitch, same pattern. From a learning perspective, that consistency makes it much easier for the dog to lock that sound to one behaviour: turn around and get back to me now. There’s solid learning theory showing that consistent signals are learned faster and responded to more reliably. A whistle is a textbook example of consistency. Human speech, on the other hand, is wonderfully expressive but an absolute mess from a training point of view.

The next advantage is meaning. When you train a whistle recall properly, a toot-toot means one thing and one thing only. The dog never hears it in casual conversation. It’s not used when you’re chatting to a friend, muttering to yourself, or asking what’s for dinner. The whistle stays clean. It stays important. Your voice however does not. Your dog hears it all day, every day. Sometimes it matters, sometimes it doesn’t. They hear words like “come” or “here” dropped into conversations that have nothing to do with them at all. Over time, those words can fade into background noise.

This leads neatly into one of the biggest recall problems I see. People using the dog’s name as the recall cue. For many dogs, their name means several different things. It can mean “come here”, “stop that”, “are you okay?”, “pay attention”, or just “hello you”. By the time you actually need a recall, the dog’s name is so muddied that it’s no longer a clear instruction. It’s more of a conversational filler.

None of this means a whistle is magic. It won’t fix poor training, lack of practice, or a recall that’s only ever tested in the garden. Whether you use a whistle, a word, or both, clarity is everything. One cue, one meaning, practised regularly, and rewarded properly. That’s it. No shortcuts, no gimmicks.

So if your recall isn’t working, the question isn’t “should I use a whistle or a word?” The question is “have I been clear, consistent, and fair with the cue I’ve chosen?” Get that right, and the tool becomes far less important. Get it wrong, and even the fanciest whistle in the world won’t save you from shouting your dog’s name into the wind.

18/01/2026 You Wouldn’t Buy the Car, So Why Buy the Puppy?

I recently needed to get a new car. I saw one online and rang the dealer. That was the first red flag. I arrived at the dealer’s location, second red flag. Then I was told the vehicle wasn’t actually there, but would be back in five minutes. Twenty minutes later, it still hadn’t arrived. That was the third red flag, and I left knowing full well something dodgy was going on.

On the drive home, it got me thinking about how often people buy dogs from less than reputable breeders after being shown exactly the same warning signs.

I speak to people about their dogs every day. And the phrase I hear again and again is this: “I didn’t think it was a good place.” “Something just didn’t feel right.” “The dogs were in bad condition.” And then comes the line that undoes all of that common sense, “So I just couldn’t leave the puppy there. I had to save it.”

Is this rescue? Or is it emotional self-protection? It’s avoiding the discomfort of walking away. Or, occasionally, a nice bit of virtue signalling. “Oh yes, we just had to bring the little guy home, we couldn’t leave him in that horrid place.”

By handing over your money, you’ve just sealed the fate of the next litter, and the one after that. Oh and the one after that. You may have helped one puppy, but your money has told that back-street breeder exactly what they needed to hear, this works. The operation continues, the conditions don’t improve, and dozens more puppies are born into the same or worse situation. All because the business model remains profitable.

I understand emotions are involved. Of course they are. Dogs press every emotional button we have. But it’s remarkable how all the logic we show at a dodgy car dealer evaporates the moment the product on offer has four legs and a wagging tail. People walk into places they’d never tolerate if they were buying anything else. Dirty pens. Poorly conditioned dogs. No paperwork. No health testing. No questions asked of the buyer. Puppies that look exhausted, withdrawn, wildly over-handled, or completely overstimulated. And instead of walking away, we leave with the puppy.

Bad breeding survives because buyers keep paying. And the problems that come with badly bred dogs don’t magically disappear once the puppy leaves. Poor health, unstable temperaments, anxiety, reactivity, shortened lifespans, these don’t vanish. They come home with you. Along with the vet bills, the stress, and the heartbreak. I’ve heard those stories time and again, usually from people who say, “It didn’t feel right”.

If no one bought those puppies, those breeders would stop. Not because of awareness campaigns, or because of angry comments online. They would stop because breeding dogs would no longer make money.

Every pound handed over is a vote for continuation. Rescuing feels good, but preventing suffering is far more effective.

Walking away doesn’t give you a warm glow or a heroic story. There’s no “before and after” photo. No grateful eyes looking up at you on the drive home. But it’s the only decision that actually reduces harm.

The consumer controls the market. Bad breeding exists because people keep paying for it. And it will continue until buyers are willing to tolerate the discomfort of saying no.

You wouldn’t buy the car.
So stop buying the puppy.

Not because you don’t care but because you care enough to think past the moment… and past your own feelings.

18/01/2026 Why Biology Trumps Your Recall

One of the hardest things to train reliably is recalling your dog away from something they want to chase. It might be leaves, squirrels or bikes. And despite what you’re often told, this isn’t about how many times you’ve practised your recall or whether you’ve upgraded from kibble to roast chicken.

This is about biology or more specifically, it’s about how your dog’s nervous system works and something hard-wired into their DNA called predatory motor patterns.

Let me set the scene. You’re in the park. A squirrel appears. Your dog spots it before you do and launches into action. You notice the movement a second or two later, shout your recall, and… nothing. Your dog has already gone... absolutely committed to the chase.

At this point, trainers will often tell you that you need to practise more, improve your recall, or use higher-value food. Unfortunately, none of that helps in this moment.

Predatory motor patterns are automatic responses baked into your dog’s nervous system. When a prey-like stimulus appears and moves, the brain doesn’t stop to weigh up options. It doesn’t think, “Shall I have chicken or shall I chase?” Instead, arousal spikes, stress and motivation chemicals flood the system, and the dog drops into what is essentially autopilot. The chase is on.

Latency is the time between the stimulus appearing and the behaviour starting. In chase behaviour, that delay is measured in milliseconds. By the time you see the squirrel, process what’s happening, and open your mouth to call your dog, the decision has already been made. Not consciously, but neurologically.

Food can’t compete once the chase has started because the comparison never happens. By the time food becomes relevant, the chase is already self-reinforcing. The movement, the speed, the dopamine hit all of it is far more valuable than whatever you’re waving around in your hand like a desperate street magician.

Counterconditioning and differential reinforcement don’t solve this either. They can help change how a dog feels about a stimulus at a distance, under controlled conditions, but the automatic motor pattern is still there, ready to fire at a moment’s notice.

Now, there is an important exception here, dogs with very low arousal and reduced prey drive, often through selective breeding or individual temperament can have longer latency. Their chase motor patterns are weaker or never fully engage. In those dogs, food can still matter because the system never truly switches on. This is why some people can stop chasing with positive reinforcement alone.... they are working with a very low drive dog.

So how do you actually get on top of this issue with a dog with normal drive?

Option one is to spot the stimulus before your dog does and recall early. In the real world, this is extremely difficult and often unrealistic.

Option two is keep your dog on a lead or long line, but a life spent permanently tethered isn’t great for a dog’s physical or mental health.

Option three is the use of an aversive. An aversive doesn’t have to mean pain, force, or “lighting a dog up”. Aversives exist on a spectrum and what matters far more than intensity is timing. Poorly timed aversives cause confusion and stress. Well-timed aversives interrupt behaviour at the exact moment it matters.

And then there’s option four: say screw it and chase the squirrel with your dog. Which, while emotionally satisfying, does at least have the potential to become a long-term fitness plan.

But seriously, if you want to genuinely get on top of recall issues by working with your dog’s biology rather than pretending it doesn’t exist, spend time finding a properly competent trainer. One who understands what’s actually happening inside your dog, isn’t tied to slogans, and is realistic about what can and can’t be achieved with your dog and your specific abilities.

This isn’t something that gets fixed with a quick tip, a higher-value treat, or a catchy Instagram reel. It requires a structured training plan, good timing, honest assessment of risk, and an approach that is matched to the dog and owner.

When recall fails in the real world, the consequences can be seroius and they’re paid for by your dog.

11/01/2026 Howl at the Moon...Or Anything Else in Fact

05:15 this morning, as with every morning, the house dogs and I headed out for their early walk. The world was quiet and then from somewhere across the fields came a sound, that for me is instantly recognisable.

A fox calling for a mate. It’s not exactly subtle. I can only really describe it as a cross between someone being brutally murdered and someone being emotionally devastated about it. If you haven’t heard it, the internet is full of helpful descriptions and my personal favourite is “a horror film sound effect designer showing off.” But that vixen got me thinking.

If this call is essentially a fox saying “anyone fancy a date?”, how does that link into domestic dogs and wolves and their tendency to howl? Wolves live and mate within a defined family group, so their howling must serve some other purpose entirely. And dogs? Well, they’re domesticated, and from my experience as a breeder I’ve never observed an increase in howling from females when they come into season.

So why do dogs howl at all?

One of the most popular, well-meaning explanations is that dogs howl because they’re lonely or unhappy. But again, that’s not something I recognise from real life. Dogs howl when they’re content, when they’re with other dog. In fact, one dog howling can quite happily set off a full blown chorus from the others around them, something so familiar that even cartoons show it.

Which tells us straight away that howling isn’t a simple sign of distress, isolation, or hormones. It’s something far more social, far more communicative, and far less tragic than we’re often led to believe, and is far more layered than most people realise. In wolves, howling is primarily a long-distance communication tool. It helps coordinate pack members, reinforce social bonds, and announce their presence to others in the area. It’s not howling at the moon.

Domestic dogs inherited this vocal behaviour, but like many inherited traits, it’s been reshaped by selective breeding and environment. Some breeds are far more inclined to howl than others. Dogs of working breeds often keep a stronger connection to this kind of vocal communication. Other breeds have had it mostly bred out of them.

When dogs howl in response to sirens, music, other dogs, singing or wildlife, they’re not usually distressed. They’re communicating. Sometimes they’re replying. Sometimes they’re practising. Sometimes they’re simply saying, yes, I heard that too, and sometimes as happens with a group of our dogs one starts and the rest join in, copying behaviour or just lending their support in the same way as if someone sings “just one Cornetto” we have to join in and sing along with “give it to me” (if this makes no sense to you in dog terms you are still a pup).

Studies using MRI scans, have shown that dogs process human vocalisations in similar brain regions to humans. Dogs are particularly sensitive to pitch, tone, and emotional inflection. When a person sings or plays a violin, the dog’s brain doesn’t interpret it as a song it interprets it as an emotionally loaded sound.

That explains why dogs are far more likely to howl at singing, violins, or sustained wind instruments than, say, a drum kit or a piano. Percussive or broken sounds don’t resemble a howl. Long, drawn out notes do.

Research into group behaviour in dogs shows that one dog vocalising increases the likelihood of others joining in. This isn’t distress contagion its social participation. In simple terms, one dog says “I hear this”, another says “me too”, and suddenly you’ve got a choir. This is why dogs often howl more readily in groups, and why a single howler can set off the whole neighbourhood.

Finally, we have behavioural observations rather than lab studies but they’re consistent in their results. Dogs howl when relaxed, when excited, when engaged, and when socially connected. They howl with owners they trust, if any of you have seen the Cocker Spaniel on the internet “Shoutout2myRex” you will know what I mean. They howl with other dogs they feel comfortable around. They rarely howl when shut down, frightened, or emotionally suppressed. That alone challenges the idea that howling is a distress behaviour.

It’s a behaviour shaped by genetics, learning, confidence, and context. So if your dog occasionally howls at strange noises, wildlife calls, or questionable singing, it’s not something to panic about. It’s one of those little reminders that there’s still a communication system ticking away that predates domestication.

04/01/2026 Emotion Drives Behaviour

I’m reading a book at the moment by Temple Grandin, and in it she talks about emotion driving behaviour. She describes an experiment involving burrowing animals in captivity. These animals were showing an unwanted, persistent behaviour: digging.

The animals were split into two groups. Group one was placed into an enclosure that already had ready made burrows. Group two was placed into an enclosure with no burrows at all, but soil they could dig. The first group barely dug. The second group dug persistently. The behaviour changed not because it was corrected, discouraged, redirected or trained out. It changed because the emotion driving it was no longer present. The digging wasn’t about digging. It was about feeling safe.

Remove the need for safety and the behaviour evaporates. Leave the emotion unresolved and the behaviour becomes relentless. This is where dog owners with “problem behaviours” should probably pause for a second, because when a dog barks excessively, chews the skirting boards, paces the house, digs holes, lunges on the lead or explodes at the window every time a leaf moves… our attention goes straight to the action.

How do I stop the barking? How do I stop the chewing? Etc. If you focus only on stopping the behaviour and ignore the emotion driving it, you’re not fixing anything. You’re just dealing with the symptom, not the cause.

Dogs may be performing these behaviours responding to internal states, fear, frustration, insecurity, over-arousal and conflict to name a few. A dog that chews when left alone may not have a chewing problem. It may have a safety problem. A dog that barks at every noise may not be territorial. It may be overwhelmed and unable to switch off. A dog that pulls on a walk may not be badly trained. It may be emotionally flooded before it even leaves the house.

When we focus only on the visible behaviour, we tend to reach for visible solutions. Tools. Techniques. Corrections. Distractions. Management. Sometimes these help, sometimes they don’t, but very often they miss the point entirely. The more useful question isn’t “how do I stop this?” It’s “what does my dog need right now that it isn’t getting?”

Just like the burrowing animals, dogs will keep repeating behaviours for as long as the emotion driving them remains unresolved. You can suppress the behaviour for a while, but the pressure causing it doesn’t disappear. It just leaks out somewhere else. So it’s worth remembering your dog isn’t being difficult for fun. No animal burns energy for no reason. If they’re doing something persistently, their nervous system believes it matters. So if you’re living with a dog that’s driving you up the wall, try this small mental shift. Instead of asking how to eliminate the behaviour, step back and ask what job that behaviour is doing for the dog. Because once you address the emotion, the behaviour often stops being a problem at all.