Essays
Long pieces on how puppies actually work, for the person who would rather understand the thing than be handed a list. Free, and none of it behind an email.
6 pieces
Choosing, preparing, and the week they come home.
The first week with a puppy
Nearly everything people do in week one is meant to make the puppy feel welcome, and a surprising amount of it makes the next six months harder.
Before the puppyWhen to start, and the myth of too early
The two most common answers are wait until six months and wait until they have had all their shots. Both cost more than they save.
Before the puppyThe gear question, answered once
Almost every equipment argument is really an argument about something else. Here is what the equipment does and does not do.
Before the puppyEveryone told you something different
Four trainers, four confident answers. Most contradictory advice is correct advice with the conditions stripped off.
Before the puppyWhy the puppy class did not really work
It was probably a good class. It was almost certainly the wrong room for the puppy you brought into it, and nobody there was going to say so.
Before the puppyHow to check a trainer before you book
Seven questions worth asking. None of them are about method, and the answers tell you more than any amount of video.
8 pieces
Everything inside the window where things are still cheap to build.
Socialization is not meeting dogs
The word has come to mean introductions, and the introductions are the part most likely to go wrong. It was never supposed to mean that.
The first five monthsThe biting is not a behaviour problem
Eight to sixteen weeks, hands in shreds, and everyone says it is a phase. It is, and there are still three specific things making it worse.
The first five monthsSleep is a training tool
It is the cheapest intervention available, it works within days, and it is the one nobody sells because there is no product attached to it.
The first five monthsHouse training is a schedule problem
It is not about the puppy learning a rule. It is about never once giving them the opportunity, for long enough that the habit sets.
The first five monthsThe second fear period nobody warns you about
Your dog will become afraid of something ordinary between six and fourteen months. There was no bad thing. Here is what not to do.
The first five monthsWeek three is when you will want to quit
Somewhere between day sixteen and day twenty five it comes apart. It happens to almost everybody and it is predictable enough that we can tell you before you get there.
The first five monthsThe room is doing half the training
People change what they ask and how they ask it. Almost nobody changes the room, and the room has usually already decided the answer.
The first five monthsYour dog’s day decides your evening
People try to fix the six o’clock behaviour at six o’clock. It was set somewhere around ten in the morning.
6 pieces
What your dog is actually responding to, as opposed to what it looks like.
Your dog is not being stubborn
Stubborn is the word people reach for when they cannot see what the dog is actually responding to. It is almost always wrong and it decides what you do next.
How dogs workYour dog told you three times before it happened
Almost nothing comes out of nowhere. The signals were there and they were quiet, and quiet signals are the ones people are worst at seeing.
How dogs workExcited and stressed look the same from the outside
Bouncing, whining, mouthing, spinning. People read one as happy and one as a problem, and the dog is often in the same state for both.
How dogs workWhen a puppy growls over a chew
They have not turned on you. They have told you something true, and the worst thing you can do is punish them for saying it.
How dogs workBeing firmer is almost never the answer
When something is not working, people reach for effort. The thing that usually needs changing is sitting in the room and nobody touches it.
How dogs workEveryone in the house is training the dog
Whether they mean to or not, and whether they agree or not. The dog is learning from all of it and sorting it out person by person.
6 pieces
What training costs, what skipping it costs, and how to check a trainer.
Board and train is not magic
What a stay with us can do, what it cannot, and why the handover matters more than the days.
Programs and moneyWhat a difficult dog actually costs
Not the training bill. The things that quietly stop happening, added up over a decade.
Programs and moneyWhat cheap training costs later
The six week class is a hundred and fifty dollars. The thing that happens eighteen months afterwards is not, and almost nobody connects the two.
Programs and moneyFree advice is the most expensive kind
Not because it is wrong. Because it arrives without the conditions it was true under, and you cannot tell which part was load bearing.
Programs and moneyWhat you are actually buying
Not a trained dog. A trained dog is the deliverable. What you are paying for is the years afterwards, and that is the thing worth valuing.
Programs and moneyWhy nobody should guarantee your dog
Guarantees sell well and they are the clearest signal in the industry that somebody is not describing the work accurately.
Start here
A week by week walk through the first sixteen weeks and the nine months after. No cost, no call, nothing to buy at the end of it.