Living With Captive Dogs: Practical Care and Moral Responsibility- with Victoria Stilwell and Jessica Pierce

Victoria Stilwell is an internationally recognised dog‑behaviour specialist and advocate for positive, welfare‑driven training.

In episode 151 (part 5 of the Captivity Conversation series) Victoria Stilwell brings the idea of captivity into the home, showing how a dog’s behaviour often reflects the limits we place on their movement, choices, and environment. Many issues people label as “training problems” are simply responses to living under human control.

Her work reframes training as a way to expand a dog’s agency rather than restrict it. It's not about giving the dog run of the home it is small shifts — letting dogs choose the direction of a walk, reducing sensory overload, creating predictable routines — can ease frustration and support emotional regulation.

Stilwell’s contribution is practical: if dogs are captive, then the structure of their daily lives matters, and guardians have more influence over their wellbeing than they realise.

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Guest Bio: Victoria Stilwell is a globally recognised dog behaviour expert whose work in humane, evidence‑based training reaches audiences in over 200 countries through It’s Me or the Dog and her ongoing role as training consultant for Channel 4’s The Dog Academy. She is the founder of Positively.com, CEO of the VSPDT trainer network, and President of the Victoria Stilwell Academy, a leading institution for positive‑reinforcement dog‑training education. Stilwell is also the author of five bestselling books and a frequent contributor to major TV, radio, and media outlets worldwide.

Book Recommendation: Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know by Alexandra Horowitz

Jessica Pierce is a bioethicist and writer whose work examines the moral dimensions of human–animal relationships, especially the everyday captivity built into modern pet keeping.

In episode 152 (part 6 of the Captivity Conversation series) Jessica Pierce

 expands the discussion from practical care to moral responsibility. She argues that dogs live under profound human control, and that this control shapes not only their behaviour but their emotional and sensory lives. Captivity, in her framing, isn’t a question of cages — it’s the reality of living inside human‑designed environments.

Pierce encourages guardians to observe their dogs like ethologists: without judgment, without assumptions, and with attention to the sensory pressures we often overlook. Sound, smell, movement, access, choice — these are the conditions that determine how well a dog can regulate, rest, and express natural behaviour. Her work pushes us to see agency as a welfare need, not an optional extra.

Her contribution is ethical. If we keep dogs captive, then we owe them environments that respect their capacities, preferences, and interior lives. Pierce’s lens makes the stakes clear: captivity is unavoidable, but the quality of that captivity is entirely in human hands.

Listen to Episode 152

Guest Bio: Jessica Pierce is a bioethicist and writer whose work explores how humans might live more attentively and responsibly alongside other animals. She is the author of fourteen books on animal ethics, environmental philosophy, and human–animal relationships, including Who’s a Good Dog? And How to Be a Better Human and Dogpedia: A Brief Compendium of Canine Curiosities. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, TIME, and Scientific American. Pierce is a faculty affiliate at the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical School, and she lives in the Colorado Rockies, where her thinking is shaped by daily encounters with dogs, wildlife, and the more‑than‑human world.

Book Recommendations: The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey

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