Blog category
Obedience & Training
Lead walking, recall, the adolescent stage, and how to choose between in-home training and a group class.
Where to start
Which guide do you need?
Almost everything in this category comes back to one idea: your dog is not being disobedient, it is being consistent with the training it has actually received. That training is usually accidental — a mix of rewarded behaviours, rules that change depending on who is home, and a few commands taught in the one room where nothing interesting ever happens.
If you are here because your dog pulls, start with the lead-walking guide. It is the single change that improves daily life the most, and the method in it is unglamorous but reliable. If the problem is that your dog ignores you outdoors, the recall guide explains the four specific reasons recall breaks down and why the beach is the exam rather than the classroom.
If your dog was doing well and then fell apart somewhere between eight and eighteen months, read the adolescence piece first. That stage catches almost every owner by surprise, and what you do during it decides the adult dog you end up with.
And if you are trying to work out whether to book in-home training or join a club, there is an honest comparison here that does not simply conclude in my favour — group classes do things I cannot, and it is worth knowing which problem you actually have before you spend money on either.
4 articles
All Obedience & Training guides
Obedience & Training
How to Stop Your Dog Pulling on the Lead
Your dog is not pulling because it is dominant, stubborn, or untrained. It is pulling because pulling works — and it has worked every single walk since the day you got it.
Obedience & Training
Why Your Dog Won't Come When Called (And How to Fix It)
Every time you call your dog and it does not come, you are teaching it that "come" is optional. Here is how that happens, and how to undo it.
Obedience & Training
Your Dog Has Not Forgotten Its Training. It Is a Teenager.
At around ten months, a lot of owners conclude their training failed. It did not. Their dog hit adolescence — and almost nobody warns you about it.
Obedience & Training
In-Home Training or a Group Class? An Honest Comparison
I do in-home training, so you would expect me to say classes are useless. They are not. Here is the honest version of when each one is the right call.
Other topics
Browse the rest
Need a hand?
How I help with obedience & training
Reading gets you a long way. This is the part where someone looks at your actual dog.
Local help
Where I do this work
This all applies wherever you are, but the local detail changes — the councils, the parks, the beaches and their seasonal hours. These pages have it.
- Aldinga BeachCity of Onkaparinga
- BrightonCity of Holdfast Bay
- Hallett CoveCity of Marion
- McLaren ValeCity of Onkaparinga
Or the wider area:The Southern ValesThe Southern Beaches
Ready when you are
Let's sort your dog out.
Tell me what's going on and I'll tell you straight whether I can help — and roughly what it will take. No obligation, no pressure. Southern suburbs of Adelaide — CBD to Victor Harbor.
Send a quick enquiry
Four things and I’ll come back to you. If it is urgent, ring instead — that is always faster.