Sally Muir is one of the UK’s most prolific painters of dogs. Her books A Dog a Day, Old Dogs, and Rescue Dogs are published by Pavilion. Her work has been selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, including Elderly Dog (2018) and Hound (2019), and she won the Holburne Portrait Prize in 2012.

She co-hosts The Dog Show in Brighton with Joanna Osborne, her business partner of over 40 years. They first met in 1979 through a shared interest in knitting machines, and went on to found Warm & Wonderful. Their black sheep jumper, worn by Princess Diana, was later sold by Sotheby’s in 2023 for $1.1 million, becoming the most valuable sweater on record.

Alongside her studio work, Sally has spent the past decade visiting Galgos del Sol, a galgo and podenco rescue in Murcia founded by Tina Solera. During that time, she has painted murals across the kennels, education building, and puppy block, alongside her commissioned portrait work.

If you love dogs and you love art, this is for you.

The Dog Show is an exhibition of dog art, part of the Brighton Artists Open Houses.

Open House Exhibition on 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 16, 17, 23, 24, and 25 May
from 11 am to 5 pm

Address: 33 Sillwood Road, Brighton, BN1 2LE

Over 200 pieces of dog art from 15 artists, including returning and new exhibitors, across a range of mediums.

Visit the official website for more information.

A dog screaming during a dog training session in a pet store aisle set something in motion that became a 20,000-member global movement.

Niki Tudge went in for supplies and came out in tears, and the Pet Professional Guild exists because of what she heard that day. That moment crystallised something she had already suspected: that the dog training industry was broken, unregulated, and unlikely to fix itself from within.

This conversation covers the culture clash between punishment-based and force-free training, why licensing won't protect dogs but consumer pressure will, and what a landmark $2 million shock collar lawsuit in California signals for an industry at a crossroads.

Niki also shares what the latest research on pet owner behaviour is revealing, and why she believes the industry is closer to a tipping point than people realise.

What makes her optimistic is not legislation or professional consensus but the shift happening at ground level, in the questions pet owners are starting to ask and the choices they are starting to make.

Niki holds a master's degree from Oxford and is the founder of the Pet Professional Guild, DogNostics Career Center, and The DogSmith.

There's a dog asleep on your sofa right now, or there was this morning. And there's a reasonable chance something in your wardrobe is made from dog leather.

Abigail Forsyth is Campaign Manager for PETA Asia, leading investigations and campaigns across the region to expose animal exploitation. In this conversation, she talks through the industries designed to stay invisible: the dog leather trade operating inside Chinese slaughterhouses, puppy mills producing litter after litter while 100,000 dogs sit in UK shelters, the dog meat trade and what South Korea's landmark ban actually means, and thousands of dogs still used in UK laboratories every year.

We also get into why we disconnect what we see from what we know, how quickly public perception can shift when people are given the truth, and why these industries only change when consumers stop funding them.

This episode wasn't made to shame anyone. It was made to close the gap between not knowing and knowing.

If you'd like to learn more about the dog leather trade, please visit https://www.peta.org.uk/news/were-calling-on-the-eu-to-ban-dog-leather/

Most of us try to do right by our dog(s). The problem is that almost everything we've been taught about how to do that was built around human needs, human comfort and human expectations.

My guest for today's episode is Dr. Jessica Pierce, a world-renowned bioethicist and author of 13 books on animal ethics and moral philosophy. She's spent nearly two decades writing about dogs and exploring what life is like for them when we de-center ourselves as humans.

In this episode we cover:

• Why 99% of dogs in a large-scale study showed signs of anxiety, stress or behavioural disturbance, and what that actually tells us
• The sensory world your dog lives in that you've probably never thought to look at, including sound, smell, and a daily experience nothing like your own
• Why barking, pulling, counter surfing and chasing aren't bad behaviours. They're dogs being dogs in a world built entirely for humans
• What burned Jessica out after years in this work, and the unexpected thing she did about it
• Bella, Jessica's 14-and-a-half-year-old dog, and the decision every dog guardian eventually faces, but few talk about openly

Dr. Jessica Pierce | Bioethicist and Author

In this episode, I speak with clinical animal behaviourist Tom Candy BSc Hons MSc CCAB CSBS CDBC CBATI KA, whose career began in rescue at 15 and has spanned 15 years of frontline shelter work, behaviour support and staff development.

Tom has worked across multiple rehoming centres within the UK’s largest dog welfare organisation. He now supports clinical animal behaviourists in their professional development and runs Simplifying Shelter Behaviour, an educational platform focused on improving behavioural health within rescue systems.

This conversation moves beyond individual adoption stories. It examines the structural pressure facing dog rescue today.

We explore:

→ Why rescue is reactive, not preventative→ Why building more kennels does not solve the problem→ How rising expectations placed on dogs are contributing to behavioural fallout→ The misunderstood role of behaviour modification and medication→ The economic and cultural systems that shape surrender, acquisition and demand

Tom explains why prevention must sit upstream of rescue. Ethical breeding, accessible behaviour support, veterinary affordability and honest public education all shape whether a dog ever reaches a kennel.

This is not a conversation about blame. It is a conversation about responsibility.

If you work in rescue, behaviour or welfare, you will recognise the tension described here. If you live with a dog, you will recognise yourself in it.

Rescue matters. But rescue cannot carry the weight of everything culture keeps producing.
Website | Instagram | Simplifying Shelter Behaviour Podcast

You've done the classes. Watched the videos. Tried the tools. And your dog is still struggling. What if the answer isn't another training method?

Andrew Hale is a certified canine behaviourist with a background in human psychology. He specialises in dogs labelled aggressive, reactive, difficult or broken. And he'll tell you straight: they're none of those things. They're trying to communicate something. We're just not listening.

In this conversation, Andrew shares his own story - childhood trauma, a breakdown in his thirties, and two dogs who forced him to rethink everything he thought he knew about behaviour.

We get into why behaviour is a communication of need, not a problem to solve. Why guilt can actually be your friend. Why your dog might be struggling with emotional and social pain you can't see. And why the journey to understanding your dog starts with understanding yourself.

This one's personal. It's raw. Its honest. Enjoy x

Guest: Andrew Hale BSc, ISCP.Dip.Canine.Prac - Certified Canine Behaviourist, founder of Dog Centred Care, behaviour consultant for Pet Remedy, and creator of Your Safe Space for animal care professionals.

What does it really mean to understand a dog?

In this conversation, Dr Marc Bekoff explores how dogs experience the world and what helps them thrive emotionally, socially, and psychologically.

Marc Bekoff is Professor Emeritus at the University of Colorado Boulder and one of the world’s leading voices on animal emotions. He is a long time collaborator and close friend of the late Dr Jane Goodall through the Jane Goodall Institute. His research has helped expand scientific understanding of animal sentience, emotion, and social intelligence.

In this episode, Marc explains why every dog is an individual shaped by personality, history, and context. He shares why choice, safety, and trust sit at the centre of healthy relationships and how dogs communicate continuously through movement, scent, posture, and behaviour.

We discuss what it means to become fluent in dog. How learning their language deepens connection. How agency supports emotional wellbeing. And why observing dogs in natural social settings reveals behaviours that cannot be seen in isolation.

Marc also reflects on his decades of fieldwork with dogs, wolves, coyotes, and other social mammals, and on the influence of Jane Goodall’s approach to observation, patience, and respect.

This episode explores:

→ How dogs express emotion and social intelligence→ Why individual personality matters more than labels→ What agency looks like in everyday life→ How dogs communicate through scent, movement, and choice→ The role of trust in learning and connection→ What long term observation reveals about behaviour→ The legacy of Jane Goodall’s work and its relevance today

This is a conversation about attention, curiosity, and relationship. About learning to see the dog in front of you.

And about how understanding another being can quietly change the way we live alongside them.

In this episode of Just A Dog Podcast, I speak with Ádám Miklósi, Professor of Ethology and one of the most influential researchers in dog behaviour and cognition.

Professor Miklósi is the founder of the Family Dog Project in Hungary and has spent decades studying how dogs think, learn, and form relationships with humans.

His work has shaped much of what we now understand about dog human attachment, social behaviour, and the role of environment in behavioural development.

In our conversation, we explore how dogs are shaped by biology, environment, and the human relationships they live within. We discuss why dog behaviour must be understood in context, why dogs do not exist in isolation, and how human expectations and living conditions influence behaviour.

We also talk about individuality, attachment, and what scientific research can realistically tell us about the inner lives of dogs.

G Dogs research project

Professor Miklósi’s team runs the G Dogs project, a long term scientific study of dogs who can recognise the names of objects and reliably retrieve specific items when asked.

Dogs of any age may be eligible if they already know between 5 and 8 object names. Participation is remote, with full guidance provided.

For more information or to enquire about taking part, contact:
[email protected]

What does it actually take to change a law that harms dogs?

In this episode of Just A Dog Podcast, I speak with Dr Marc Abraham OBE, the veterinary surgeon and campaigner behind Lucy’s Law, which banned the third party sale of puppies and kittens in England.

Marc shares the moment that shifted him from treating individual dogs to challenging the system itself, how grassroots campaigning really works, and why patience, strategy, and kindness matter more than outrage alone.

We talk about puppy farming, ethical breeding, rescue, political lobbying, celebrity influence, and what ordinary people can do when they feel powerless in the face of injustice.

Marc is the author of several books, including Be More Mosquito, a practical guide to grassroots campaigning and creating change with limited resources.

He is also the presenter and co creator of the documentary Dogspiracy, which examines irresponsible breeding, puppy mills, and the systems that allow them to continue, while also highlighting how change can happen.

You can follow Marc and his work online
Facebook | Instagram | X | Website

Marisa Heath has spent over 15 years working inside UK Parliament to improve the lives of dogs. She runs the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare (APGAW), leads the Canine and Feline Sector Group, and co-founded the Innate Health Assessment, a tool that helps people recognise extreme conformation before buying a puppy or choosing which dogs to breed from.

Extreme conformation refers to physical features that have been bred so far from a dog's natural form that they cause pain, discomfort or difficulty doing basic things like breathing, walking or playing.

In 2009, Marisa published A Healthier Future for Pedigree Dogs. Sixteen years later, she is still asking the same questions.

This is not a conversation about bad breeders or irresponsible owners. It is a conversation about all of us. Somewhere along the way, we stopped noticing. Noses got shorter. Skin folds got deeper. Legs bowed. Spines curved. Breathing became laboured. And we called it normal. We called it cute.

We shared videos of dogs snoring and struggling and we laughed. This happened to the animals we say we love most, and it happened right in front of us. If you have ever looked at a dog and thought nothing of how they were built, this conversation might change what you see.

🔗 Try the Innate Health Assessment: https://www.innatehealthassessment.org/