Steve Mann

Steve has been a dog trainer since 1987. He founded the Institute of Modern Dog Trainers, the largest registered learning centre in the UK providing education, accreditation and membership for professional dog trainers and behaviourists. He has presented seminars across the UK, Europe, South America, Africa, Australia, the Middle East and China, including at the International Animal Welfare Conference.

He has written ten books. Easy Peasy Puppy Squeezy has been the UK's number one best-selling dog training book since 2019 and is published in more than 25 countries. He presents the BBC Maestro course Dog Training with Steve Mann, and appears regularly as a dog expert on BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky and CBBC, in the national press and as a studio guest on BBC radio.

His approach starts from how a dog feels rather than what a dog does. Socialisation, as he puts it, is about building optimism in a safe and trusting manner: it is about building emotions, not behaviour. Owners often arrive focused on sit, down and stay, and he will redirect them to safety and confidence first, on the grounds that everything else becomes far easier afterwards.

That principle runs through his practical advice. A crate is either the best place in the world for a dog or the worst, and which one is decided entirely by how it is introduced. An indoor accident is never met with a telling-off, because the lasting cost is a puppy who learns that a person being present is a bad thing. A puppy is not put into a den and then rewarded; the good things are already in there for them to discover.

He is equally clear about what he will not do, which is hand owners a rulebook. As soon as a dog trainer says you should always or you should never, he is suspicious, because dogs and households vary and there is always an alternative. Ask him how long something takes and he is more likely to tell you it is a process rather than an event.