Upcoming writer, Nicholas Sutherland has kindly written a piece for us. Check it out below and I hope you enjoy! #dogtraining #dogbehaviour #dogobedience #puppytraining #gooddogmanners 5 Rules Of Dog Training Every Owner Must Know When it comes to training your dog, there’s a ton of different ways that will work for some dogs, and definitely won’t work for others. But despite those differences, these are 5 rules that every owner needs to know when it comes to dog training! In

Understanding the difference between dog training (obedience) and dog behaviour issues will help you to understand what is best for you. We're often contacted by people wanting to have obedience training yet their dog is jumping up, digging holes, aggressing, or one of many other issues which cannot be effectively addressed in a group training situation. Dog training or obedience training is about teaching your dog skills - these are things like recall (getting your dog to '

You know, the longer we at Mutts with Manners have worked in dog training, the more we've come to understand that dogs rarely have 'behavioural problems'; dogs generally are just doing what dogs do - normal dog behaviour just doesn't tend to fit into human society. Take toilet training, for example - in a dog world, if you need to toilet you just move away a little bit and do your thing. This, however, doesn't work for us as although our dog may not be toileting where we ar

Much as getting a rescue dog is a wonderful thing, an adult dog or older puppy doesn't automatically come fully toilet trained. Would you believe that most dogs that we think are toilet trained actually aren't? You see, there are 2 aspects to toilet training; the appropriate play to go (which is, understandably, everyone's priority) and bladder control (the ability of a dog to hold on until they're ABLE to go to the toilet) - most dogs don't have that. On top of that there

I really feel for new puppy owners. There's so much conflicting information out there resulting in: pups going out into the world too early, pups going out into the world later than they ideally should, no puppy training being put in place when they're young, pups not understanding what their people want or consider is right and new dog owners experiencing a form of mild and, thankfully, temporary insanity whilst they try to deal with their pup's behaviours (which can last f

I worked yesterday doing in-home obedience training with Boston (see photo), a 22 week old American Staffy. Now I know that 22 weeks is almost 6 months old and I know that he's done the bulk of his growing but this dog is HUGE! His father apparently has the dubious honour of being the largest AmStaff in the Southern Hemisphere weighing in at 85 kg - for a Staffy!! Now what's most important to me is temperament and I was absolutely rapt to find that Boston has the sweetest n

Teaching our pups basic obedience gives us a way to communicate our wants and needs to them. Charlie is 8 weeks old and perfectly able, with our gentle, motivational training, to learn to come and sit on command and to walk at heel. Teaching these skills, along with how to handle toilet training, play biting, separation, chewing, etc is best done just a few days after pup comes home. This way there are fewer mistakes made and bad habits formed :-) #puppytraining #playbitin

What you want from your dog when he or she's grown up is what they need to learn when they're pups - how else will they know? This is 16 week old Daisy and 14 week old Sophie learning that even when the door is wide open, coming inside isn't what their people want (no matter how cute young Sophie tries to look!). Be fair on your teach them the rules right from the start! #puppytraining #dogtraining #dogtrainer

Even dogs need someone to look up to...it'd be better if they looked up to you! #leadyourdog #dogtraining #puppytraining

Puppy training, adult dog training, rescue dog training - why do we wait before we train our dogs? I hear people saying "he'll grow out of it" or "maybe it'll get better once she settles in" but usually this is just time where our dogs' inappropriate behaviours are becoming reinforced. The sooner we start guiding our dogs the less confusion we create for them. Now get out there and work with that beautiful furry beast and help them to be the best they can be! :-) #puppytrai