Just a Dog Podcast

Pain wears disguises | Your reactive dog is probably in pain | Kerry Sheldrick

If you've ever stood in your kitchen at half eight on a Tuesday with a dog who's barking at nothing, lunging at the postman, scared of the front door, scared of you, scared of their own shadow, and wondered what on earth you're doing wrong, this episode is for you. It rearranges how you see your dog. Most of what we label as bad behaviour isn't behaviour at all. It's pain, fear, or stress that nobody has spotted yet, and you can't punish away pain, and you can't punish away fear. The barking, the lunging, the guarding, the dog who can't settle, almost always it's a dog telling you they don't feel safe, or they hurt somewhere nobody has found. So the work was never about control. It's about understanding what a behaviour is for, asking why instead of how do I make it stop, and meeting a frightened dog with distance, patience, and kindness rather than more pressure. Your dog isn't giving you a hard time. They're having one, and the kindest, most useful thing you can do is work out why. Kerry Sheldrick runs Howl School for Dogs, a qualified and APDT-accredited dog trainer and behaviour consultant offering remote support for clients all around the world, and mentoring for other dog professionals including dog trainers, dog walkers and daycares. She also hosts regular online workshops and her own informative and entertaining podcast, Are You There, Dog? It's Me, Kerry, available on all the usual platforms.

Grief is love | Why losing a dog can hurt the most | Lisa Waggoner

If you've ever been through it, you'll know how painful it can be.  You'll know what it's like the next morning after they've gone.  The little signs of them missing, like the pitter-patter of their paws across the floor, the sound of their tongue lapping at the water bowl, the warmth of their body as they scoot closer during a Netflix binge. A recent study from Maynooth University found that losing a pet can sometimes be as intense and as long-lasting as losing a person. Part of why it affects us so deeply is that our dogs get to see a side of us that no one else ever sees.  That playful, that gentle, that childlike part of us that only ever comes out around them. They give us purpose. They need us completely.  So when they go, there's a part of us that goes with them, a part of us that existed only in their presence. And because dogs don't live that long, loving them means grieving them more than once, sometimes many times across a single lifetime.  Lisa Waggoner, my guest on the podcast today, has lived exactly that. She's a force-free dog trainer for more than 20 years, the founder of Cold Nose College, faculty at the Victoria Stilwell Academy, author of Rocket Recall, and an ordained animal chaplain. She's lost 4 young dogs, one of them hit by a car at a year old, and each one changed the course of her life and her work.  We talk about why losing a dog can hurt as much as it does, why the world is still so quick to say it's only a dog, and what that kind of grief reveals about the way they were loved. This is Just a Dog Podcast, and I'm your host, Nadine. Let's begin.

The invisible extreme | Why the border collie is an extreme breed too | Ellen Greenwood-Sole | The Urban Herder

A border collie can track a sheep across a field from the smallest flick of movement. Drop that same dog on a busy street, and the skill that makes them brilliant is the one that comes undone. Ellen Greenwood-Sole, founder of The Urban Herder, has spent more than 10 years working with collies and the people who love them. She makes a case most of us miss. A collie's intensity is not a personality; it is an extreme we bred on purpose, the behavioural version of a flat face. We just call it clever and leave it at that. We get into why so much reactivity is really pain, why teaching a dog to switch off matters more than another walk, and why the kindest move is sometimes grieving the dog you pictured so you can meet the one you have.

Aggression is communication | What your dog's growl is saying | Michael Shikashio | AggressiveDog.com

A growl is one of the clearest things a dog can tell us, and it's often the most misread. Dog aggression specialist Michael Shikashio has spent 25 years working with dogs that other trainers couldn't help. His view is that aggression isn't a fault to correct. It's communication. It's a dog showing us that something is wrong. This conversation looks at where our beliefs about dog behaviour come from, and how often they come from people who were confident rather than informed. Michael explains why he believes you can't train aggression out of a dog, why pain is one of the most missed reasons behind it, and how the dominance and alpha ideas spread despite the evidence. Michael is the founder of AggressiveDog.com and a five-term president of the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants.

Why dogs react | Stress, trauma, and the canine brain | Daniel Shaw | Forensic Dog Behaviourist

When a dog reacts on the lead or struggles to settle at home, what we see is often the end of a biological process that started much earlier in the day. Daniel Shaw is a dog behaviourist with a master's in neuroscience. In this conversation, he explains what is happening in a dog's brain and body during a reaction, including how cortisol rises with each stressor, how the amygdala grows more sensitive under chronic stress, and the physical changes that trauma causes in the brain. Daniel also works as an expert witness in UK courts in serious dog-aggression cases, where his assessment can determine whether a dog goes home or is put to sleep. The conversation moves through the stress bucket, why secure fields can sometimes be better than a half-hour walk, why reading body language is a skill that takes time to develop, and the holes in the Dangerous Dogs Act that affect everyday guardians. Daniel runs a behaviour consultancy in Kent, founded the Brain and Behaviour Academy for dog professionals, hosts an annual UK conference, and gives evidence in courts deciding the fate of dogs across the country. Connect with Daniel Shaw ⁠Website⁠ [https://dogbehaviourspecialist.co.uk/] | ⁠LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-shaw-41308b161/]⁠ | ⁠Instagram⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/brainandbehaviouracademy/] | Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/6CbScDkz0sBfUGUOa3F6rF?si=14b7f4c348b14eb4]