The Honest Hounds Podcast

Jess & Jessie - Frustration: Are We Avoiding It Instead of Understanding It?
Frustration is something we talk about a lot in dog training, but are we actually helping our dogs learn to navigate it, or are we becoming so focused on avoiding it that we're limiting their progress?

In this episode of the Honest Hounds Podcast, Jessie and Jess sit down for an informal chat about frustration, exploring how it develops, what it looks like in different dogs and why it's not always something we should be trying to eliminate.

From lead frustration and everyday challenges to the frustration we experience as humans, we explore how easily we can get caught in cycles of avoidance, constantly trying to keep ourselves and our dogs below a certain threshold.

But what happens when we're so focused on avoiding frustration that we stop working with the very drives and motivations that influence our dogs' behaviour?

Through real-life examples, different scenarios and a few tangents along the way, we challenge some of the conversations happening in the dog world and explore why understanding frustration, rather than simply avoiding it, might be an important part of moving forward.

There's no rigid agenda for this one, just an open and honest conversation between Jessie and Jess about the messy, complicated and fascinating reality of living and working with dogs.

Grab a cuppa, come along for a listen and let us know your thoughts!

Whining, Wanting and Why the “Why” Matters Less Than You Think
Fresh from last night’s coaching webinar on play, Jess and Jessie are back on the mic, and this one’s a bit of a deep dive.
It starts with Ivy, a lure-loving dog who whines, barks and looks away when she wants the toy but isn’t keen to work with her human to get it. From there, Jess unpacks what she’s been calling “dopamine leakage”. It isn’t a literal leak. It’s that high motivational energy that has to go somewhere when a dog wants something and can’t have it.
We compare three very different whiners. Percival’s whining is happy anticipation that nobody minds. Ivy’s tells us something useful about how she sees her humans. Shadow’s whining had become so constant it was affecting his owner’s life. The lesson is that the behaviour itself isn’t the diagnosis.
We then follow how this links to reactivity. A sociable young dog is held back on a lead time and time again, gets told off by an unfamiliar adult dog, and adolescent hormones start creeping in. Before long the lunging and barking has been practised thousands of times. Jess explains how the act of reacting can become rewarding in itself, why tightening the lead can act as a cue, and why correcting a habit after the fact rarely touches what’s going on underneath.

Honest Interviews - Kirsten, Bonnie & Goober
This week Sean sits down with Kirsten to talk about her first rescue dog Bonnie, her new dog Goober, how reactivity changed her training style and wanting more for herself and her dogs.

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Honest Interviews - Kaela, Maya & Nala

This week Sean is joined by recent Honest Hounds Dog Trainer Mentorship Graduate, Kaela.
Kaela set up her dog walking business at 17 and has spent the last 3 years learning and growing her business while working with her own dogs Nala and Maya. Kaela shares how she uses her knowledge as a dog trainer while walking with clients, what she works on with her own dogs and how she balances allowing them freedom with trust and partnership.

Follow Kaela on:
Instagram @Kaela.and.K9s
Facebook @KaelaandK9's

Does your dog actually need you to “speak dog,” or have we taken that idea a bit too literally?

In today’s episode of Jess and Jessie, we’re digging into a brilliant question one of our members asked recently: Does my dog need me to be a dog?

We talk a lot about learning to speak dog, understanding body language, and communicating in a way that your dog understands. But does that mean your dog expects you to be a dog?

We hear it a lot within dominance theory, the idea that you need to act like a dog. And we know it’s important for our dogs to understand our intentions. But what is actually important here? And what do our dogs really want from us?

Come have a listen as we unpick this big topic.