With his plaid shirts, bushy beard, deep baritone and many tattoos, including a wolf on one hand, Will Atherton strikes one as a bull mastiff – if a bull mastiff was magically transformed into a Viking warrior.Illustration by Photo Illustration by The Glibe
Off Duty is a series of lively conversations with influential people, from CEOs to celebrities, on life, work and the art of taking time off.
Will Atherton has become one of the world’s most popular canine behaviourists in the five years since he began posting videos on social media.
His videos on everything from how to stop puppy biting in seconds to how to get your dog to stop pulling on the leash have been viewed millions of times. Growing up in Derbyshire, England, Atherton was fascinated to see how his parents weren’t great with the family dog but his grandfather seemed to be a natural. “That was kind of the first inkling of understanding this relationship aspect,” Atherton says. Then, as a teenager, he was “obsessed” with the celebrity dog trainer Cesar Millan.
In his early 20s, having earned a degree in education, Atherton worked in special-needs schools. But he was always helping friends with their dog issues. He was so good at it, and had such a passion for it, he decided to pursue the calling full-time.
With his plaid shirts, bushy beard, deep baritone and many tattoos, including a wolf on one hand, Atherton strikes one as a bull mastiff – if a bull mastiff was magically transformed into a Viking warrior. In conversation, however, he’s as kindhearted as a golden retriever (one of his favourite breeds for first-time dog owners, by the way).
The 32-year-old spoke with The Globe and Mail from his home in Derbyshire, where he lives with his wife and two children.
What do you like about working with dogs?
I’ve just always resonated with them. It was the same working with young people with special needs, because they’d had a lot of trauma in their lives, and I was being an advocate for people that didn’t necessarily have people advocating for them. And with animals it’s the same kind of thing, where they don’t necessarily fit in with our expectation. Being that kind of mediator and the middle ground, that’s where I find my satisfaction and fulfilment. With dogs in particular, though, I still can’t quite articulate it. I think it’s just something quite in my core that just resonates. We’re just on a similar frequency.
How would you describe your philosophy?
It has become a bit of a catchphrase – leadership is love. For dogs to be safe, well-balanced, enjoyable companions, we need to lead them. We brought them into our lives, we brought them into our world, and we have, therefore, a duty of care to lead them. What’s beautiful, though, is the vast majority of dogs also crave leadership, they thrive on the leadership and wanting that kind of clear direction and guidance.
Did you have any idea five years ago that you would become Will Atherton, social-media influencer?
Absolutely not. I still don’t understand it. The YouTube stuff started as fun to do. I’ve always wanted to play with making videos. I thought, I’m doing this, so I might as well do some videos around it, and maybe that’ll get me out there more and people will be more interested in my services. I just thought what I did was what everybody did.
What do you do in your free time?
I love being out in the country. We live out in the middle of nowhere, so it’s quiet. I’m very introverted. It’s something that people are surprised about when they meet me in person. I like taking my dogs out to quiet places. That’s one of my favourite things to do. We’ve got two kids, who are 7 and 4, so I like hanging out with the boys when we take them out to kind of countryside places. My dream has always been to be able to live on a small farm, to work toward us being able to live a bit of a homestead lifestyle, so we actually applied to one of those last week. I’ve started last year or so competing in strongman and powerlifting. So whenever I get free time, I’m usually either in the gym first thing before work, then I work long hours, and then in the evenings I hang out with the family and go for walks.
What do you find are the most common mistakes you see dog owners make?
A massive one is people thinking that they’re reassuring their dog, but what they’re actually doing is reinforcing bad behaviours, especially fearful, anxious behaviours. The dog displays some kind of behavioural response to an environmental stimuli. We spot that, and then rather than leading them through it, we kind of go down and want to reassure them. And it comes from a nice place with the owners. But what’s actually happened in that moment, if we’ve rewarded that behavioural response then next time the dog is in that situation, it happens again, and again, and worse and worse.
Do you find a lot of people want to be friends with their dogs without understanding they need more discipline than perhaps they’re getting?
Absolutely. And again, it comes from a good place, people feel they love that dog, so they want to give them everything and give them complete freedom and let them do what they want and have access to all the toys and the comfy places. But that is the root cause of that lack of leadership, which creates anxiety and fear, because the dogs want to have those boundaries put in place and be steered. It’s very natural to them. So when people aren’t instilling that in their dog, it does become a problem.
Now I have to ask you the most important question there is: Does your dog sleep in the bed with you?
Me personally, no. But I have very big dogs so there’d be no room left in the bed. Although it’s very natural for dogs as pack animals. So because your dog sleeps on the bed it isn’t going to mean that your dogs are badly behaved. For me, it’s like well, are you happy with your dog in every other aspect and area? And if so, then for me it’s not a problem.
This interview was edited and condensed.