There’s a new episode of The Pawsitive Post in Conversation about our special relationship with dogs with guest Si Wooler.
By Zazie Todd, PhD
Watch episode 28 of The Pawsitive Post in Conversation below or on Youtube, listen below or wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify), or scroll down to read a transcript of the highlights.
About this episode with Si Wooler
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We talk about the big changes that people are willing to make for
their fearful dogs, and why the dog’s relationship with their person is
important for all dogs, but especially the fearful ones. We talk about
what a great job Si does of helping people see things from the dog’s
perspective, and we ask how he talks with clients about the dog’s
umwelt, or how the dog perceives their world.
We ask about how Si
decided where to fit Sophie’s story in the book. And Kristi puts Si on
the spot and asks how he deals with the outdated idea of dominance when
it comes up in conversation and what he thinks of toxic masculinity in
dog training.
More Than Just a Dog: Understanding, Loving, and Living with Dogs, The Indispensable Guide for All Dog Lovers
by Simon Wooler is out now in the UK and available wherever books are
sold, including UK Bookshop.
More Than Just a Dog will be published in North American on May 13th and is available for pre-order now.
The books we recommend in this episode are:
Also mentioned in this episode:
The talk by Dr. Lindsay Parker is the A&S Colloquium Kicking the Dog.
The episode of The Social Dog Pod with Zazie Todd as guest.
Zazie’s favourite bookstore, Black Bond Books.
The other books that Si mentions are Sophie from Romania: A Year of Love and Hope with a Rescue Dog by Rory Cellan-Jones, and Bark! The Science of Helping Your Anxious, Fearful, or Reactive Dog by Zazie Todd.
Si Wooler has been training dogs for more than ten years. He
studied with the Academy for Dog Trainers, one of the most rigorous dog
behaviour and training programmes in the world and specialises in
training fearful and reactive dogs. In 2023, he worked with author and
broadcaster Rory Cellan-Jones and his wife Professor Diane Coyle to help
their Romanian rescue dog, Sophie, overcome her profound fears, bond
with her people and gradually discover the world, a journey that was
followed daily by hundreds of thousands of fans.
Si came to dog
training after 20 years as a sound engineer so loud barking hardly
registers on his personal decibel scale. His own fearful, ‘unhomeable’
rescue dog, Thomson, was the motivator for seeking out effective,
evidence-based training methods and leaving his career in sound and
stage to focus on working with troubled dogs and the people who love
them. This is his first book.
Si’s website, Sociable Dog.
Highlights of the conversation with Simon Wooler
Z: So, Si, tell us about the book.
S: Tell you about the book. Well, the book was very much inspired initially by the experience of Sophie from Romania and Rory and Diane’s determination to help her. And we were approached by our publishers, Harper Collins. I had to look on the back to remember. I can never remember their name. I don’t know what it is.
But Harper Collins approached me, having seen the story of Sophie on social media, and asked if I’d like to write a book. And it’s something that actually had never really occurred to me, but I thought it was very exciting. And Nina was poking me in the ribs and saying, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it.
So in the end, More Than Just a Dog is really a culmination of not just 10 years, well, probably almost closer to 15 years of experience in the field, but reflections on my education about dogs, how important it is to understand their learning experiences and how they learn so that we can help them in a genuine way.
And that’s busting some myths, it’s telling stories. It’s helping people to connect with their dogs, particularly if they’re facing behavior problems. But in general, I kind of hope it’s an important read, but an enjoyable and entertaining and at times humorous read because I think we all need that in our worlds.
And people who are dealing with dogs with significant emotional problems definitely need to be able to look at their relationship in a lighter way sometimes and get some respite from it too.
Z: I think it definitely is. I mean, it’s very enjoyable and it is funny in parts too, which I think is very, very nice.
S: Hopefully in the intended parts, which is always helpful.
K: So in the book, you use a lot of storytelling about your own life and your clients, dogs in their lives. And one of the things that stood out to me in the beginning was just how much you changed your life for Thomson.
So I wanted to know, just sort of like reflections on what are some of the favorite stories that you have from your clients about what they’ve done for their dogs? You know, these big things that we do for our dogs.
S: Yes, I think stories are hugely important. And the stories around Thomson were intended to show or illustrate that this is doable, that it’s not insurmountable, the challenge and the significant challenge that fear, reactivity, aggressive behavior can present for people.
My clients stories. It’s always extraordinary to me just how many stories they have and how much they think about their lives with their dogs in terms of stories, in terms of their experiences together and just how resilient they are to it and how they can still see the funny side of things that they deal with.
I mean, I just recently finished a two and a half week residential with a dog called Troy and he’s been six months in the UK and was so terrified that he hasn’t yet actually set foot out of, out of the house. And yet the stories that come out of people who have dogs like that are remarkable. So for example, Troy and I discovered this to my own amusement.
Troy must be, he’s a German shepherd dog, Rottweiler cross, with I suspect a bit of Jack Russell in there somewhere as well. But he would, at 2 o’clock in the morning, this shy, retiring, nervous dog would run down the corridor and throw himself spleen bustingly onto you on your bed and then do a little spin and then run off again.
And many of the stories that come out of a lot of people’s lives with these dogs are those little moments of joy that their dog shows. So that little playful cheekiness or that the first walk is often something that people will tell their story about.
What stories can I. Because the book has stories of ill health and managing that, it has stories about finding the determination to solve the problem, even if that means going through six different trainers. And they can still be witty about those moments where things just go sideways.
So yeah, I mean, I think that life tends to be about stories and certainly people’s experiences with their dogs because they’re family members, there are bound to be stories and I think there’s often stories of trying to include their dogs in things with the family and so on and so forth that I think is just so endearing and just shows how important they are to us and how important they become in a really short period of time.
Did that answer? I’m not even sure if that answered the question, to be honest, but you know me, tangent man.
Z: It leads very nicely into our next question actually, which is because your book is really about the relationship between people and their dogs and we can tell that just from the title, More than just a Dog, they’re not just dogs.
So why is that relationship especially important for fearful dogs?
S: Oh, that’s a very good question, I think, because certainly what I’ve realized over time, working a lot with both fearful dogs that are fearful and hideaway, and dogs that are fearful and choose aggressive behavior as a means to fix that, to help them cope with that.
One of the things I’ve discovered and come to understand even more greatly is just how important connection is for them, how important it is for them to feel not just safe in the environment that they’re in, but safe with the people that they’re with.
And those people become what in human psychology they call secure bases. So that your dog can feel more confident about exploring new environments because they know that secure base is there to come back to and it kind of stabilizes their world.
But I think equally, I’m sure a lot of us know what it’s like to have family members or friends who are suffering from mental health issues and just how achingly painful that is because you just can’t help but feel a sense of empathy for them.
And you know, when you see dogs, dogs in obvious pain or fear, it’s impossible not to see them as someone in need of help, someone desperately in need of support and sympathy and acknowledgement. And I think that just kind of connects with people. But the whole business of making a relationship is the first step to making it possible. And that’s what More Than Just a Dog is actually about, is making that relationship so that.
Or giving, almost saying it. You’re not doing nothing if you’re just concentrating on being with them, spending time with them, finding out what they think is fun and taking advantage of that and just giving them space and openness and choice to grow into what is a complete, utter change in their lives.
Particularly if it’s rescue dogs, if they’re a rescue dog, this is a complete topsy turvy, turn the world up on its head moment for them. And they’re usually dogs that weren’t in great emotional shape to begin with. So, you know, my feeling about it is that we’ve got into a place in modern society where our expectation is that if dogs are upset or worried about something, they’re going to get over it pretty quickly. They should get over it pretty quickly. And my question is, why?
Why should they get over it pretty quickly? I mean, should, should. There’s almost a chapter on why should, shouldn’t, ought, or thrown out of the English dictionary because it’s not about what should be happening or shouldn’t be happening.
It’s about what is happening. And that’s what we have to deal with and take care of. And there shouldn’t be an assumption. There you go. I did it. I did it. I didn’t. Shouldn’t. We mustn’t assume that dogs will recover quickly. And that’s Ripley digging up the sofa that you can probably hear.
Z: Hello, Ripley.
S: Yes. So, you know, that’s my big motivation. That’s my big drive. Not just in this book, but in everything I do now, which is not just for people to recognize the relationship and understand that the dogs are part of the family, but also to give themselves permission to kind of slow down and feel everything that they do feel.
Because living with dogs that are upset 247 is hard. It’s really, really hard. And too often there’s criticism of people and there’s an assumption in our society that if a dog is fearful or exhibit other behavior that may indicate that they’re anxious, that something bad must have happened to them and it must be the people who did it.
And very often that means that people don’t go for help. They don’t look for help. And what I want to say is, we’re not judging you. We’re not judging you. In fact, if anything, we’re giving you kudos for looking for help for you and your dog.
And we need to dispel that myth that all dogs that behave in that way, that behave fearfully, have been mistreated. They can have been, but very often not by the people that are coming to ask you for help.
So that’s hugely important. Having empathy not just for dogs, but for people, too.
K: Our next question is jumping a little bit into kind of, I think we’re going right from like, the beauty to kind of the hard stuff. But one thing that did come up to me when I was, I can’t remember which part of your book I was looking at, but there was sort of at least mention of behavioral euthanasia.
And I was thinking, okay, behavioral euthanasia can still be a little bit of a taboo topic, even amongst dog trainers who should be comfortable with these conversations, you know, so I want your thoughts on how does this not really serve dogs or their guardians, the fact that we keep this as a taboo subject, and how do we sort of have these conversations in while recognizing that the aversive crowd tends to sort of sling at us this accusation that we go right to behavioral euthanasia whenever there’s a dog that we can’t handle, despite the fact that that is just wrong, you know, and the fact that evidence actually shows that it’s a very different story.
S: Wow, that’s a good question.
K: Maybe briefly we can just touch on that before we go.
S: Yeah, it’s a really, really good question. And it’s an important one, I think, because it’s important to be able to say to people, I don’t consider that it’s my place to advise or recommend euthanasia. I’ve never had a situation where I’ve been required to do that. I imagine there are. I imagine some situations are either just so dangerous or the dog is in so much distress that that’s going to be put up front and center as a real option and may well have already been proposed by somebody in the mix, like Yvette, for example.
My duty is to say it is an option. It’s an option that’s on the table and if you decide to take it, then you will get my support, unquestioning non judgmental support in that decision.
The fact that the suggestion that as non aversive trainers we go straight to behavior euthanasia as a solution for a dog that we can’t manage is baloney. And I’ll put it out there, it’s baloney, people.
I think in that roughly dozen years of practice, I’ve had one client who’s decided that that was the way that it had to go because they just felt the dog, their dog was too dangerous. Like she wasn’t predictable enough in the house and she wasn’t predictable enough in public.
And they were just, it was, it was getting to the point where they were incredibly stressed and they were worried that it was impacting on their place in the community, in the way that the community viewed them and their lives were deteriorating as a result. And they made that decision and I supported them in it, both informally and formally. It has to be there as an option for extreme cases.
But I’m going to push back again on that accusation that you mentioned, Kristi, because if I’m faced with a dog whose behavior I’m not sure I understand or I feel like I’m not making progress with it, my suggestion isn’t going to be put your dog down.
My solution is going to be, firstly, let’s have a conversation about meds. So let’s talk about whether or not there’s a pharmaceutical solution that might help us at least. And the three of us know that medication for dogs, anxiety medication for dogs, is designed to make behaviour modification easier to do more effective and likely to progress better.
And that’s the conversation I will have with people around meds. I will very pointedly say that I think meds is a frontline option, not a last resort, and we should see what that does in order to help us.
I also think that if I don’t understand, it’s important to be honest with yourself and say, well, I don’t understand that behavior. And then you go and you try and work out why that’s happening. So you look at, you do the two things that actually I don’t go into a great deal in the book, but it’s become increasingly apparent.
And it struck me the other day, I was watching something on YouTube. There was a guy talking about kind of communication methods and things like that. And actually one of the things that came up very strongly was that it’s not about talking, it’s about listening.
So you’ve got some resources with these guys who are faced with these really, really super difficult dogs. One is to listen and the other is to observe.
So listen to the human, the human side of the relationship and watch the dog side of the relationship. And usually you start to see, if you can’t account necessarily for the behavior, you start to see somewhere where you can find an in.
And that observational stuff is really, really important for me. My last client, you know, that I mentioned earlier, it was quite obvious that he came alive at night. And so we shifted most of the work from daytime to nighttime. So it was 3, 4am in the morning that we were doing stuff to try and help him become more confident. And that migrated into daylight hours.
But that’s, for me, those are the two most important things to try. And there are lots of things you can do before anyone starts to talk about euthanasia. And it’s not going to be me, is my rule. That’s going to come from the human client. They’re going to say, I’m not sure we can cope with this, we can do this.
And then the options will be we can try for a re home. We can look for somebody who’s experienced in living with dogs like this and are prepared to take the risk with all of the necessary caveats and conditions.
And if they say we’re thinking that the best thing might be to euthanize him or her, then my answer is, well, I can’t advise you to do that, but it is an option that you have. It’s, you know, and it’s an understandable one. It’s not one that you’re going to get judgment for from me, and you’ll get full support from me. And if you need me to speak to your vet, then I’ll do that, too.
That was a long answer to a short question.
Z: Well, one of the things you touched on in there is your interactions with the clients and your conversations with the clients. So to bring it to a less heavy topic, let’s talk about the idea of a dog’s umwelt. And how do you explain to people how our understanding of the dog’s umwelt can actually help to improve their relationship with their dog?
So let’s use it without the terminology. How do you like to talk to people about how understanding what things feel like and are like for the dog, the dog’s experiences, how does that understanding help to improve their relationship with the dog?
K: I feel like one of the strengths of your book was that, that you really brought it down to the dog’s POV. You know, we were doing a lot of looking at life through the dog’s eyes.
And I think that that’s, that’s one way that we can really, like, work with the humans of the component, so. Yeah, yeah, but it’s not necessarily easy to talk to our clients about that, so.
S: No, it’s not. And they’ve got a lot of preconceived ideas, and those preconceived ideas have come from some good, you know, they found good reading for. They found good people on the Internet. They’ve also found some really atrocious ones and they don’t really know how to siphon them off, so they don’t know what the filters are for good and bad advice and good and bad opinion, if you like.
And I think it’s about, it’s a conversation. I think that you have, once you’ve established a rapport with them and actually, very often that is as a result of your rapport with their dog. Even if it’s a dog that is kept 15ft away because it wants to shred bits of you.
So the fact that you are focused on their dog and you’re doing something to try and settle the situation down and make the dog connect with you, you know, easier with just fearful dogs rather than dogs that have aggressive responses, because it’s a challenge to find a place where you are in, where it’s all calming down, where you’ve got enough distance between you to manage the thresholds, if you like.
But nonetheless, people recognize your attention to their dog and then you and then I. What I tend to do is I’m talking to them about what their needs are and their challenges are and what their worries about it are. And I’m fitting the solution that they’re looking for into their life.
Hello, Doglet. It’s a doglet.
K: It’s Archer.
S: Who’s that?
K: Archer.
S: Archer. Hi, Arch.
So I’m trying to understand what their fears and concerns are too, because we’re looking at helping two species here. And if we’re only concerned about helping the dog, then I would say you’re in the wrong business. Because. And here’s a contentious thing that will doubtless get some comments. I don’t think we’re in the dog business. We’re in the people business.
We’re about helping people help their dogs and live better together, live more harmoniously together, live happier together, and understand what it is that’s going on with the dog in order to allow for change in that. So rather than trying to drive change, they’re giving dogs opportunities and choices and agency and chance to deal with the environment that they find themselves in.
And for me, the human end of that lead is so important. You have to recognize the stress and the tension and the worry and the fear that is happening for those people 24 7. You know, in the initial conversation, I think it’s a big. It is about listening and it’s about identifying where the stress points are, saying and saying to begin with. Right. How can we. How can we make that easier for you? And coming up with things that are not about what I think they should need, but are about what they actually do need and gearing the plan, the ongoing plan to that.
It matters to me. You know, it really matters to me because these people love their dogs. They’re deeply distressed about what’s happening. Sometimes they take it incredibly personally. And I think the first thing that one of the first things to say is, this isn’t personal.
You are actually important to them and you’re going to become more important to them. They’re just scared.
K: Yeah. I think fear is something that. And I know Zazie has actually written about the science on this, but people tend to miss fear in their. In dogs and in their own dogs, even. So it’s, I think, one of the most important messages that we can handle home for sure.
S: Yep, yep. I think so, too. I think it’s about. I think it’s about not blaming people, not judging them. It’s about giving them space and time, and it’s about effectively telling them they’re allowed to take time with their dog to help resolve it.
Poor little guys. Hey, bless their hearts. Every last one of them just tugs at my heartstrings every time I, you know, I go in and you can feel and you can hear the pain in the human voices about it and the commitment, the absolute commitment to resolve it because, you know, at the end of the day, people don’t pay us to go in and help them if they don’t want to resolve that issue, if the dogs are not so important to them that they want to keep them.
You know, the Sophie story is particularly poignant in that sense because Rory’s expectation was for a dog that he’d be able to go out to walk with because he’s got Parkinson’s disease. So it was quite important to exercise. And Sophie, as they thought, was going to be a real catalyst to that.
And despite everything, despite hiding behind the sofa for months and toileting on. On puppy pads and refusing to eat and later on barking at just about everybody that set foot in the place, they were determined that Sophie had become a member of the family. And you don’t throw out members of your family as a rule unless you know something really hideous has happened.
So I think, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, my focus is about family, is about relationships. And everything that I do in practical terms, be it training or be it emotional shift, it’s about changing that relationship. It’s about making that relationship stronger.
Z: And I’m going to jump in with a question here because you mentioned Sophie, one of the questions we wanted to ask you, it’s a writing question. So Sophie’s a really famous dog that you worked with, and you waited until about halfway through the book before you really started telling some of her story in here.
So what was your thought process? How did you decide where to introduce Sophie into the book and where she would fit in?
S: What a good question. We had a very deliberate structure for it. Nina, my partner, is a copywriter. She writes, and we talked a lot about together about what the structure of the book was going to be.
It was important for me that it wasn’t a retelling of Sophie’s story, that it didn’t Start with Sophie. It wasn’t. It didn’t always come back to Sophie. Not that I don’t love her. I do. She’s absolutely adorable. I fall in love with all of them.
But it was important to be able to say that Sophie isn’t. What’s the word? That none of the dogs involved in the book. So none of the stories and no dogs that people come to us about, none of them are dysfunctional. This is not about abnormality. This is about normal.
The normal approach to fearful stimuli, if you like, that these dogs are behaving as they would if they’re afraid. Now, the fact that they don’t need to be afraid is kind of irrelevant. Because they are afraid. They think what they’re looking at is dangerous. And therefore we have to respect that as being their state of mind.
And I think Sophie was introduced where she was just because that was the right place to put that story. And she was going to be the fearful dog story, if you like. Although, you know, many of them are. But I couldn’t ignore it because Sophie. Not only is Sophie’s story a great one, but Diane and Rory have become really close friends. And without Sophie, nobody would have asked me to write a book.
So it was important for it not to be about Sophie. Cause Rory, apart from anything else, Rory’s already written one [Sophie from Romania]. And it was hugely honest and insightful and generous of spirit. And so that wouldn’t have been the point. And it wasn’t the point. The point was not to write a how to book, but to write a book that was to some degree, it has some. Here’s how it works. It has quite a lot of. Here’s how behavior works. Here’s what’s going on in this situation.
But it was more about helping people to understand that in order that they might be able to make some progress with their own dogs or just. Or just make an even closer connection with their dogs. And some people, I hope that read it, will have a fabulous connection with their dogs and will just get some understanding of what the science and the principle is behind behavior.
Like you, you’ve done so well in Bark!, Zazie. And I think more of us need to be doing that. You know, we need to be shouting it from the rooftops. We need to be saying, this is what’s going on. This is how behavior works. It’s not something that you pluck out of the ether, but also that we recognize people who are having a hard time as well. And to say it’s doable, this is doable.
K: So Zazie, do we have time for one more question, do you think, or should we move into the books?
Z: If you have time, you ask one more question and then we’ll move on to the books and maybe we’ll make it. Try and make this one a fairly quick question.
K: Okay, I’ll make it a brief.
S: It’s not the question that’s the problem, is it? It’s the answer.
K: Okay, so I’ll give you a chance, a choice. We have a nice lovely one about writing styles and then we have kind of a hard hitter and you can pick. What do you, what are you in the mood for right now at the end of our conversation?
S: Oh, you’re going to keep going to keep the hard hitter serious as a secret. Hard. Go for the hard hit.
K: Okay, so pack leadership and dominance thinking is tied up with toxic and hegemonic masculinity. So in this field of ours, which is largely woman dominated, I was just curious how you structure your practice to address these topics directly with your clients. And how do you sort of keep in mind the fact that you’re working in a woman dominated field as you sort of myth bust, if at all.
S: Wow, that’s interesting. Well, how did you, how did you describe that? The, the, the masculinity bit? That was brilliant. That was great.
K: Toxic and hegemonic masculinity, which are not my words.
S: Yeah, hegemonic, that’s a great word.
K: There’s a really good. Do you remember the name of the doctor who did that really, really great webinar who sort of pulled this, the threads of this argument?
Z: No, I’ve forgotten. I will find it and put it in the show notes.
S: Yeah, that sounds absolutely fascinating. So answer the question as brief as I can.
No, no, I don’t, I don’t think about it actually. Interestingly, I sometimes think about it outside of the consultation. But it’s not something that. Because here’s the thing, the way that I tackle it is I don’t, unless it comes up, right? So I don’t tackle pack leadership, the pack leadership myth, or the dominance myth unless it raises its head. And it’s usually in a very innocent way that that happens.
So they’re not, they’re not pushing it hard at me, but they’re victims of, you know, that indiscriminate level amount of different information that’s available out there.
So what I do is usually by then they’ve had some big aha moments about how learning really works. I’ve already done an introduction to how animals learn through association and how they learn through consequences and done some little, little examples and even demoed it on their dog if, if their dog is willing to come and spend some time with me. Doing it with food. Right.
So they’ve already had some. Oh, wow, look at that. Look how quickly, how quick that is. And I’ve had an opportunity to say this is how that’s working, this is what’s going on here.
And then I can say there’s no evidence in behavior science for the dominance construct to be true with domestic dogs. And they buy in. They buy in completely. There’s not even a. I’ve never once had a battle over that one. They’ve folded.
How I usually put it is take that idea, put it in a kitchen drawer somewhere, shut the drawer, lock it, take the cabinet out of the kitchen, put it in the car, drive to somewhere where you can throw it off the cliff. And throw it off the cliff because we don’t need it. It’s not important.
K: Talking about stories, that’s a very powerful imagery.
Z: It is good. Thank you, Si.
S: As for the majority of women in the field that. I don’t know it. I don’t. I’m such a liberal, you see, I don’t. It doesn’t, it doesn’t sweat me in a way.
And I think, well, I mean, look at, look at the two of you. I mean, two mighty brains in the field and. Yeah. And to be honest, I don’t know what to say in that regard. I’m kind of relaxed about. I don’t feel threatened by either of you.
Z: Darn it. We didn’t come up with hard enough questions.
K: I can get better. Give me a chance.
Z: Well, thank you, Si.
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