About Stuart Barnes
How did Stuart Barnes get to understand dogs so well and develop his incredible pressure on, pressure off system based on their natural instincts? In his own words…
How I learnt their language
I was a bit of a loner growing up. It didn’t help that I was bullied a lot in my school years, but even before that, I understood nature. I grew up as the baby of my family with my dad, sister and two brothers. We lived in remote locations, so I was always surrounded by nature, and I was at home in it. I felt alive in it. It made sense to me. It was my church.
At an early stage of my life, my path was very clear to me, as working with animals was my passion. So my childhood was filled with me saving unwanted or sick farm animals or pets that no one wanted and my house was full of animals. My dad was very supportive as he loved wildlife too and taught me a lot about understanding how to train them.
My Early Days
As I started to spread my wings, I got my first job after school on a farm at an early age of 11 years old. I was not one for school, as I was more of a practical kid than academic. I did struggle to fit into the social structure of the educational system especially being dyslexic. I knew then that the animals were saving me as much as I was saving them, and I think my dad did too. I had lost my confidence from the experience of school, so the day I turned 15, I left. My dad was unwell and he knew he had to get me independent fast, as his time was short (cancer). So, I left home to go and work fulltime on a farm 3 hours away at the age of 15.
I was so home sick the first few days away I couldn’t even work as I just wanted to go home to my dad, but I also wanted to make him proud, so I pushed through the pain and stuck at it. By pushing through, it unconsciously set me up for life, by showing me that you must win small battles before you can win big ones with your mind. As I got stronger, I took on different jobs that would challenge me more.
Learning from animals
My favourite job was as a high-country musterer at Clarence Reserves, a 132,000 acre station. It was nicknamed “tiger country” as it was in the heart of the Southern Alps, an extreme landscape.
At this stage I had 15 dogs and 4 horses and lived in the mountains for a few years. This is where I really started to understand how animals communicated, as I had so much time on my hands to watch how they interacted with each other. When all the Shepherds got together, we had over one hundred working dogs running around. This was always very lively and a lot of issues with different packs coming together. I saw how other shepherds used fear and dominance to control them, and even though I thought that this was the only way to stop the dog fights, it didn’t sit well with me.
But by watching my own dog pack, I learnt how my dog’s used energy and body language to keep order in the pack and this is where I started to learn their language and stopped trying to make them learn mine. That just didn’t make sense to me, making a dog learn our language. And this was the moment everything changed.
“If we are the most intelligent creatures on this plant, why do we make dogs learn our language instead of us learning theirs? “
Becoming a Man
After my dad passed away, I looked to the horizon and with the support of my family I started a lifestyle of my own. I was 18 and the first country that I travelled to was Alberta, Canada, where I worked for 6 months on a ranch then off backpacking for 6 months (looking for wildlife experiences). When I ran out of money, I would find another country to work in.
The UK was my next stop and after 6 months of work there, I could travel anywhere, as the pound was such a great currency. So, I started working in the UK for 6 months, then have wildlife adventures for 6 months.
Sometimes I needed a longer time away, like when I travelled from Egypt to South Africa, travelling through 11 different countries, mostly hitchhiking. This was a life changing experience at 23 years of age. I continued to do this lifestyle for 30 years. I met my Canadian wife in Vietnam around 20 years ago and we then travelled together, the last 10 years with our kids. Over these 30 years I have travelled to over 100 countries and worked with countless animals.
While in the UK, I spent time helping people to understand animal behaviour, from horse whispering shows to dog demonstration. I set up my own business as a dog behaviourist, and used dogs that other trainers had given up on.
In my experience, anyone can look like an amazing dog trainer with a low energy dog and the right breed plus a bit of food. The true dog trainers are the ones that can train any dog, no matter their breed and energy level, and without using fear or bribes to control them. I learnt by using a dog’s own language, and over the years I’ve developed it into a ‘pressure on and pressure off’ system that’s easy for me to teach to others. It takes any dog owner to an understanding of how a dog thinks as I want everyone to have the best form of communication with their dog so they’re able to form an incredible lifelong bond. Isn’t that the goal?
“Learn their language instead of making them learn ours.”
Stuart Barnes, Dog Behaviourist
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