Let's Talk Dog Business

Running a dog business isn’t just about being good at what you do with dogs. It’s about getting noticed, building relationships, creating a customer experience people want to return to, dealing with the unexpected and having the confidence to keep putting yourself out there. All of which Danny Nelis-Rouse from Tug-E-Nuff has experienced and successfully navigated.

In this episode, he shares hiw journey from a small agility-focused business to a bigger brand, and the lessons he’s learned about networking, resilience, customer service and putting yourself out there.

Danny shares how Tug-E-Nuff started with his mum making a food toy for her collie who couldn´t be persuaded to play, why working with dog trainers opened up a new market, and how he became more confident as the face of the business.

We get into handling controversy, owning your mistakes, managing difficult customers, knowing when to wait before responding, and why sometimes the best thing you can do at a disastrous event is look for the opportunities underneath the s**tshow.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Own Your Mistakes: If something goes wrong, don’t become defensive. Listen, acknowledge it, and work out how to put it right.

Networking Is A Long Game: Building genuine relationships and finding your club creates opportunities long after an initial conversation.

Don’t Wait For People To Come To You: Events and social media provide opportunities to start conversations, build awareness, and create relationships. Don’t be a wallflower; engage with people whenever you can.

Sell Solutions Not Products: Understand the problem your customer is trying to solve and demonstrate that you have a solution. Explaining how your product or service solves a problem is what matters.

Push Yourself Outside Your Comfort Zone: You probably won’t be as bad at it as you think. Try new things, learn from them, and use that experience to grow.

BEST MOMENTS

“I’ve worked on myself a lot… I would have hidden behind the business and been like nobody wants to hear about me. But they do.”

“You've got to just be resilient and pick yourself back up again if anything gets in the way and find the opportunities.”

“Ask, what is it that you offer people, and how can you identify the pain that those people are in or the problem that they have?”

“I wouldn’t feel comfortable just selling somebody something and saying bye, you’re on your own now.”

ABOUT THE GUEST

https://tug-e-nuff.com

Tug e Nuff partner programme - https://partner.tug-e-nuff.com/

SOCIALS AND IMPORTANT LINKS

https://www.tiktok.com/@letstalkdogbusiness

https://www.youtube.com/@LetsTalkDogBusiness

Website www.caninebusinessacademy.com

Community Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/caninebusinessacademycommunity

Let´s Talk Dog Business Strategy Book - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lets-Talk-Dog-Business-Strategy/dp/1068791705

Email: hello@caninebusinessacademy.com

ABOUT THE HOSTS

Jo Moorcroft and Vicky Davies are dog behaviourists, business strategists, and co-founders of Canine Business Academy—the UK’s go-to hub for dog professionals who want more than just a logo and a dream.With a combined passion for dogs and business done properly, Jo and Vicky have helped hundreds of canine professionals build sustainable, profitable businesses rooted in real impact.🏆 Their award-winning work has earned recognition including:– UK StartUp Awards: Business to Business (Midlands)– Small Business Awards UK: Most Innovative Small Business 2025– Business Awards UK: Most Innovative Pet Product 2024– Plus shortlists at the Women in Business and Great British Businesswoman AwardsThey’re also No.1 bestselling authors of Let’s Talk Dog Business Strategy, featured on BBC Radio, FOX, NBC, and more—with 63,000+ downloads of this very podcast.Their philosophy is simple:Give a shit. Get shit done. Get results.

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

In this episode we get honest about using AI in your business. We talk about why so many dog trainers who are stretched, short on time, unsure what to say or how to show up online, lean on it so much. Unfortunately, that can lead to you creating bland, generic “AI slop” that erodes trust. We have used AI a fair bit, so know how easy it is to end up doing that. In this episode, we share some of the mistakes we made and how to use AI to support you instead of replacing you.

If you’ve ever felt both grateful for AI and slightly uncomfortable about how much you’re using it, this episode will help you work out what role it should really play in your business.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

AI Slop Turns People Off: Generic, copy‑and‑paste posts and visuals don’t make you look professional - they make you invisible. When your content is generic, people switch off and trust erodes.

Develop A Strong Strategy First : AI can’t give you a business direction. To use it well, you need to already know who you are, who you’re for, and what you’re trying to achieve. Without that, it just amplifies the confusion.

Use AI as a Drafting Buddy, Not the Expert: AI is brilliant for bouncing ideas around, sketching out draft posts, or rough visuals. It works best as a thinking partner you edit, not as the final voice of your business.

Garbage In, Garbage Out: If you’re vague, rushed or unsure, AI will default to producing generic rubbish. The more specific you are the better the results will be. Use plain, clear language and keep everything aligned with your brand. If you are force-free say so to avoid AI producing an article that recommends a form of discipline that goes against your principles.

Stay In Charge Don’t Let AI Become the Boss: AI is great for testing out ideas, but don´t rely on it too much. It tends to tell you what you want to hear and can drag half‑relevant information from previous chats into new ones. It’s fine for exploring ideas, but your judgement, experience and instinct have to stay in charge.

BEST MOMENTS

“The world is crying out for the personal part, the human bit, the connection bit, and without realising we're taking all that away.”

“It all comes down to no matter who you're using or what you're using, you stay true to yourself.”

“Where we want it (AI) to create clarity. It can actually create more confusion.”

“I'm still really pro AI. If you use it as a strategic thinking partner.”

SOCIALS AND IMPORTANT LINKS

https://www.tiktok.com/@letstalkdogbusiness

https://www.youtube.com/@LetsTalkDogBusiness

Website www.caninebusinessacademy.com

Community Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/caninebusinessacademycommunity

Let´s Talk Dog Business Strategy Book - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lets-Talk-Dog-Business-Strategy/dp/1068791705

Email: hello@caninebusinessacademy.com

ABOUT THE HOSTS

Jo Moorcroft and Vicky Davies are dog behaviourists, business strategists, and co-founders of Canine Business Academy—the UK’s go-to hub for dog professionals who want more than just a logo and a dream.With a combined passion for dogs and business done properly, Jo and Vicky have helped hundreds of canine professionals build sustainable, profitable businesses rooted in real impact.🏆 Their award-winning work has earned recognition including:– UK StartUp Awards: Business to Business (Midlands)– Small Business Awards UK: Most Innovative Small Business 2025– Business Awards UK: Most Innovative Pet Product 2024– Plus shortlists at the Women in Business and Great British Businesswoman AwardsThey’re also No.1 bestselling authors of Let’s Talk Dog Business Strategy, featured on BBC Radio, FOX, NBC, and more—with 63,000+ downloads of this very podcast.Their philosophy is simple:Give a shit. Get shit done. Get results.

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

Many dog trainers start out trying to be everything to everyone, instead of focusing on the one thing we love and becoming brilliant at that. In this episode we sit down with Olivia Jones, the Biker Girl Dog Trainer, to talk about what happens when you stop trying to be a “GP” trainer and build your whole business around the big, spicy, bitey cases most people run a mile from.

Olivia shares how she became a reactivity and aggression specialist, why her bright red hair, tattoos and motorbike are core business assets, and how she has built an £80k business without a behaviour degree or a big team. Built almost exclusively via word of mouth.

We discuss how she trains large, intense dogs while still holding firm to force free principles. She gets honest about imposter syndrome, compassion fatigue, charging more than local trainers, and overcoming the fear that niching down will cost you clients. You will hear how networking, referrals and genuinely backing other professionals has actually made her business busier and more stable, not less.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Niche Down To Stand Out: Focusing on one type of case, instead of offering every service under the sun, makes it easier for the right clients to find and trust you.

Your Personality Is Part Of Your Brand: Red hair, tattoos, a motorbike, humour, and strong opinions are all a part of Olivia´s brand. The more you lean into who you are, the more memorable and referable your business becomes.

You Don’t Need Every Qualification: Results, experience, and the willingness to continually learn and improve what you offer matters more to most clients than formal behaviourist qualifications and titles.

Force Free Techniques Are Practical: Working with big, spicy, bitey dogs does not mean that you have to abandon your ethics. The stakes are high and safety matters so reading body language, addressing pain, accommodating genetics, and skilfully using the right tools are all very important.

Networking Beats Lone‑Wolfing: Referrals, networking and sharing cases with other pros leads to better outcomes for dogs and a more stable, sustainable business for you.

BEST MOMENTS

“I’m now turning over £80k… Which I’m buzzing about. A lot of people don’t realise you can actually do this as a full‑time job – and you really can.”

“I’m force‑free, but for me it’s LIMA. If I’ve got a dog that outweighs the owner, I’m going to use a head collar for a bit until we can move away from it.”

“I don’t think you should be a dog trainer who is a GP. You wouldn’t expect your GP to be a surgeon, physio, and everything else.”

ABOUT THE GUEST

https://www.bikergirldogtrainer.com

https://www.facebook.com/bikergirldogtrainer

https://www.instagram.com/bikergirldogtrainer

SOCIALS AND IMPORTANT LINKS

https://www.tiktok.com/@letstalkdogbusiness

https://www.youtube.com/@LetsTalkDogBusiness

www.caninebusinessacademy.com

https://www.facebook.com/groups/caninebusinessacademycommunity

Let´s Talk Dog Business Strategy Book - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lets-Talk-Dog-Business-Strategy/dp/1068791705

Email: hello@caninebusinessacademy.com

ABOUT THE HOSTS

Jo Moorcroft and Vicky Davies are dog behaviourists, business strategists, and co-founders of Canine Business Academy—the UK’s go-to hub for dog professionals who want more than just a logo and a dream.With a combined passion for dogs and business done properly, Jo and Vicky have helped hundreds of canine professionals build sustainable, profitable businesses rooted in real impact. Their award-winning work has earned recognition including:– UK StartUp Awards: Business to Business (Midlands)– Small Business Awards UK: Most Innovative Small Business 2025– Business Awards UK: Most Innovative Pet Product 2024– Plus shortlists at the Women in Business and Great British Businesswoman Awards.

They’re also No.1 bestselling authors of Let’s Talk Dog Business Strategy, featured on BBC Radio, FOX, NBC, and more—with 63,000+ downloads of this very podcast. Their philosophy is simple: Give a shit. Get shit done. Get results.

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

When you look under the hood of most of your “I’m stuck” moments in your dog training business, you’ll usually find the same thing behind it - fear. Fear of getting it wrong, fear of what other trainers will say, fear of wasting money, fear you’re not actually good enough to pull off the business you secretly want. In this episode, we dig into how those fears show up as paralysis e.g. not posting, not changing your offers, not raising your prices, and endlessly asking for validation from partners, peers and even AI before you move.

You’ll hear honest stories about sick‑to‑your‑stomach investments, overcoming feeling like a “lowly dog trainer,” and hiding behind other people’s posts instead of owning your own opinions. Plus, how treating business decisions as experiments, not irreversible changes, helps you use fear as data and actually gives your ideas a chance to work.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

- Don´t Let Fear Drive: Whether your fear is about money, judgement or getting it wrong, if you let fear drive, you will stay stuck.

- Treat Business Changes As Experiments: Most changes you make aren’t permanent; they are not like tattoos. You can undo them or tweak them and try again. That’s not failure, it’s you experimenting and refining things until you find what works.

- Hiding From Judgement Is Costing You Growth: Ducking visibility, softening your opinions, and only sharing other people’s posts without commenting feels like it keeps you safe from judgement. The problem is it also keeps you invisible. If you are not seen, you will never gain traction and grow.

- Back Yourself: “I can’t afford it” often really means “I don’t trust myself to make it work.” When you genuinely appreciate the skills you have, back yourself and invest to grow those skills you become unstoppable.

- There’s a Limit To What You Can White-Knuckle Alone: Having the right person in your corner shrinks your fear, speeds up your growth, and stops you talking yourself out of what you actually want. Every human needs a mentor or trainer, at some stage.

BEST MOMENTS

- “There's so much interwoven fear, interlinked in different ways, and it manifests itself in paralysis.”

- “I was that person …I did have my own opinion, but I was scared to say this is my opinion.”

- “You have to step into that fear.”

- “Now we're not only interacting with other human beings, we're interacting with robots to tell us if we're making right or wrong decisions because of that super high need for validation.”

SOCIALS AND IMPORTANT LINKS

https://www.tiktok.com/@letstalkdogbusiness

https://www.youtube.com/@LetsTalkDogBusiness

Website:

www.caninebusinessacademy.com

Community Facebook Group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/caninebusinessacademycommunity

Let´s Talk Dog Business Strategy Book -

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lets-Talk-Dog-Business-Strategy/dp/1068791705

Email: hello@caninebusinessacademy.com

ABOUT THE HOSTS

Jo Moorcroft and Vicky Davies are dog behaviourists, business strategists, and co-founders of Canine Business Academy—the UK’s go-to hub for dog professionals who want more than just a logo and a dream.With a combined passion for dogs and business done properly, Jo and Vicky have helped hundreds of canine professionals build sustainable, profitable businesses rooted in real impact.🏆 Their award-winning work has earned recognition including:– UK StartUp Awards: Business to Business (Midlands)– Small Business Awards UK: Most Innovative Small Business 2025– Business Awards UK: Most Innovative Pet Product 2024– Plus shortlists at the Women in Business and Great British Businesswoman AwardsThey’re also No.1 bestselling authors of Let’s Talk Dog Business Strategy, featured on BBC Radio, FOX, NBC, and more—with 63,000+ downloads of this very podcast.Their philosophy is simple:Give a shit. Get shit done. Get results.

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

When they strip away the “build a 7-figure empire” noise, most dog trainers realise that they just want a business that feels good to run. One that lets them actually help dogs and people. Today, we sit down with Josh Beckler from K9 Optima to discuss what a genuinely “small but mighty” dog business looks like when you design it around joy, not ego.

Josh shares why he walked away from a high-pressure corporate career and dreams of a big dog training centre to build a lean, behaviour-focused business that he loves working in. You’ll hear how rescue stories and humour, not polished obedience tutorials, built his audience and how training live for hours online keeps him sharp.

We also talk about compassion fatigue, feeling guilty when you’re not studying or marketing, and the pressure to launch courses and memberships before you’re ready. Together we explore how to set boundaries, create seasons of focused work without burning your life down, not typical dog training industry advice.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Specialising Beats Doing Everything: Dropping services that drain you and doubling down on the training you love is often the quickest way to achieve better results.

You’re In The People Business: Those "marriage counsellor" moments are all part of the job, they help you to understand and connect. The dog only changes if the human does, so you need that connection.

The Formats You Use Online Should Fit Your Nervous System: If live streams and pressure switch you on, use them; if they fry you, choose slower formats like pre‑recorded video, email or written posts instead.

Boundaries Are a Powerful Anti‑Burnout Tool: Deliberately ring‑fence time for family, rest and life. If you don´t your business will quietly swallow every moment.

Passive Income Needs Real Depth: Courses, communities and books only work long‑term when they’re built on lots of real experience.

Personal Brand Beats Being a Polished Guru: Your opinions, humour and quirks are asset. Sounding like yourself in a sea of AI‑slop enables the right people to find and trust you.

BEST MOMENTS

“The small is me. The mighty is my wife that keeps me on track to do things.”

“People are so sceptical, seeing all the AI s**t everywhere, not knowing what to believe.”

“Don't worry about sounding smart and throwing all the terminology around.”

“Being as mindful about planning the family activities as you probably are at planning your business is the answer.”

ABOUT THE GUEST

Book Link

The Infinite Approach: Modern Dog Training & Polyvagal Insights

https://a.co/d/07bJwDw8

The K9 Optima Community

https://www.k9optima.com/offers/DjZK7Bn2/checkout

You can also find everything in one place at

www.k9optima.com

SOCIALS AND IMPORTANT LINKS

https://www.tiktok.com/@letstalkdogbusiness

https://www.youtube.com/@LetsTalkDogBusiness

www.caninebusinessacademy.com

https://www.facebook.com/groups/caninebusinessacademycommunity

Let´s Talk Dog Business Strategy Book - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lets-Talk-Dog-Business-Strategy/dp/1068791705

Email: hello@caninebusinessacademy.com

ABOUT THE HOSTS

Jo Moorcroft and Vicky Davies are dog behaviourists, business strategists, and co-founders of Canine Business Academy—the UK’s go-to hub for dog professionals who want more than just a logo and a dream.With a combined passion for dogs and business done properly, Jo and Vicky have helped hundreds of canine professionals build sustainable, profitable businesses rooted in real impact.🏆 Their award-winning work has earned recognition including:– UK StartUp Awards: Business to Business (Midlands)– Small Business Awards UK: Most Innovative Small Business 2025– Business Awards UK: Most Innovative Pet Product 2024– Plus shortlists at the Women in Business and Great British Businesswoman AwardsThey’re also No.1 bestselling authors of Let’s Talk Dog Business Strategy, featured on BBC Radio, FOX, NBC, and more—with 63,000+ downloads of this very podcast.Their philosophy is simple:Give a shit. Get shit done. Get results.

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/