No. 47 · Thursday 30 July 2026 Horsham, West Sussex Free to read, always

Puppy Training Tips

Est. 2019 A paper for people who have just got a dog and are not sure what they have done 512,400 readers

The cover story · Reactivity

The eight seconds before the lunge

Owners describe reactivity as sudden. Slow the footage down and it never is.

Hattie Sowerby · Fourteen minutes

Every owner who writes to us about a reactive dog uses the same word. Suddenly. He was fine, and then suddenly. We asked four behaviourists to watch the same eleven seconds of phone footage, filmed on a towpath in Stalybridge, and mark the moment the dog decided.

All four marked it within a second of each other. None of them marked the lunge. The earliest was at 00:03 — a head turn so small the owner, three feet away and holding the lead, did not see it happen and has never seen it since.

What follows is a translation. Not a technique, not a protocol, and emphatically not a fix. Just a list of the things your dog is almost certainly already telling you, in the order they usually arrive.

In this issue

03The Calendar: week by week, to six monthsNineteen weeks, one thing to practise 09The Register of trainers2,180 accredited, listed by county 21Priya Anand on going at the speed of the dogTrainer of the month 26Anyone can call themselves a dog trainerReported · Frances Doyle 34The Library: 486 guidesAll free, all checked by a trainer 48Notice to trainersOn being listed

The Calendar

From the week you bring them home to the week they turn six months. Choose an age.

Week twelve · Socialisation window

The lead is a place to be, not a thing to pull

What is normal right now

Practise this — two minutes, twice a day

Trainer of the month

Chosen by the owners who booked them.

“Separation anxiety is not a thing you can drill your way out of. The first week is almost always about the human.”Priya Anand · Manchester

She takes about one in five of the dogs referred to her, which sounds unhelpful until you hear the reason. Anand turns down any owner who cannot give her the mornings. Not because the dog needs the mornings, she says, but because the owner does, and a plan built around an hour on a Sunday is a plan that fails in week three and takes the owner's confidence with it.

Level Ground has run out of a converted stable outside Stockport since 2021. There is no reception, no branded gilets, and a whiteboard by the door with the same sentence on it in four languages: go at the speed of the dog.

Of the 341 owners who have reviewed her, 338 gave five stars. The three who did not all say the same thing — that she told them something about their own household they did not want to hear.

Words by Joanne Pike341 reviews · 5.0

Features

Longer pieces about living with dogs, from people who do it for a living.

Reported

Anyone can call themselves a dog trainer

Britain has no legal standard and no protected title. We read what the four main registers actually check before they let someone in, and what happens when a complaint is made.

Frances Doyle · Eleven minutes

Adolescence

Your recall did not break. It got outbid.

Somewhere around eight months the thing you were proudest of stops working entirely. An argument for treating it as an economics problem rather than a betrayal.

Iain Struthers · Seven minutes

Survey · 4,112 owners

Sixty-one per cent would do the same thing differently

We asked readers with a dog over two what they would change about the first year. The answer was not training, socialising, or the breeder. It was sleep.

The editors · Nine minutes

The Library

486 guides, free, each one written or checked by an accredited trainer. These are the most opened.

Toilet training without the tears (yours)1.2m The first night: what actually helps980k Biting is not aggression — a translation guide844k Crate training is not a moral position701k Teaching a settle while life carries on655k Recall: paying properly, every single time612k Meeting other dogs — and when not to574k Left alone: building up from ten seconds530k Muzzle training for dogs who do not need one yet498k Vet visits your dog does not dread441k Adolescence: a survival timetable417k Sniffing is the walk. The walk is not the walk.390k

Notice

To trainers, on being listed

You would be in front of half a million owners who are already looking for you. There is no fee, no commission, and no way to buy a better position on the page.

CostNothing, and that is not an introductory rate
RequiredCurrent accreditation with the ABTC, IMDT, APDT or equivalent
BookingsTaken through Poppy for Trainers, our scheduling tool, also free
ReviewsOnly from owners with a completed booking. You cannot remove one.
TypicalNine enquiries per listed trainer per month

Claim your listing