About Us

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I am a canine behaviourist with 14+ years experience in the field. I know what you're thinking! But I am not as young as I look haha! Fortunately I inherited the 'vampire gene'. I have ADHD and ASD (Aspergers) & I currently own a multipurpose assistance dog, that I have trained to a high standard to help me with my day to day life, that I would otherwise struggle with. (i.e large gatherings, shops etc.) He is also trained to be a therapy dog for schools because he adores kids and loves looking after people! 

Also we will never forget Shadow the siberian husky, my first dog who was my ESA and the inspiration that started me off on my journey and the business name along with his shenanigans, so his legacy will always live on forever. I am so thankful for everything he taught me! 

Along with my assistance dog I also own two horses which take up a lot of my time too, both of which I have trained myself. 

I started out with positive reinforcement and followed the universities guidelines and ethos as I was taught, but I found after twelve long years that this does not work for every single dog. I was reported to the board of education who stripped my title as I broke their rules as I was no longer following their ethos and they did not want to be associated with myself or my business anymore. So four long years at university 15 years ago was just a very expensive piece of paper, essentially. We did have some practical, of course but these were on trained dogs from kennels and nothing like the real world experience you get when you leave and that real world experience is what led me to change the way I trained dogs when I moved from part time in my business to full time, five years ago, therefore allowing me to help more dogs than I ever did before. 

I have lost count of the dogs I have saved from being put down, after 3/4 other trainers/behaviourists have told clients that there is no hope for their dogs and euthanasia is the safest option for everyone involved, since I have moved over to balanced training, before I moved over, I unfortunately was under the assumption that if I couldn't help with positive reinforcement then the dog's couldn't be helped and I too, told people there was no help as we were taught death before discomfort. I however did not tell anyone to put their dogs down but I told them I couldn't help them (the one's I couldn't) and their owners went to balanced trainers with great success. 

Sometimes these methods are the difference between a healthy, happy dog that will live a long life, over a dog that is booked in to be put to sleep as there is no future for them in kennels.

I now I use balanced training methods for my training. What are balanced training methods, you ask? Well balanced training methods means I use all four quadrants of training! Yes this does include positive reinforcement as this is the base of balanced training, because we have to condition the dogs properly to the other methods and tools we use, through positive reinforcement so we are not abusing the tools we have at hand, as every tool can become abusive when not used correctly. And yes there are some VERY questionable trainers out there on the internet that do abuse the tools and they give all of us using them responsibly, a bad name. 

Even if a dog has seen a positive only trainer before me, I still start off with this method of training to see if they were missing anything in their training. If it works, we continue this way, but if there isn't even any small changes in the first session along with the week of homework the client is given, of the training then we will start to change the methods we use the next session. This is because I do not believe in making people pay me thousands of pounds for years of training that just isn't working, when they can pay me a few hundred and learn everything they need/solve the issues in 6/8 weeks for most cases (Anxiety does take longer but again, I teach clients to continue on their own) 

I personally wouldn't pay a trainer/behaviourist for a year to stop my dog being reactive or aggressive, so I don't believe anyone should be paying myself for that amount of time either. I personally wouldn't pay someone for six months to teach my dog recall or a loose leash walk, so I don't see the need for people to pay me for that time either. If it doesn't work, change the method, otherwise you're just hitting your head against a brick wall, essentially. As the saying goes "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results" - Unknown 

I have to do my research properly along with looking at the dog in front of me to choose how to train them, as you can't blanket train any species! (Yes, we know zoo animals are trained with positive reinforcement to make vet check ups less stressful, which is most people's argument against this, but I am yet to see a vet enter a tigers cage with a piece of meat and take bloods while telling the tiger to 'stay' for it's piece of meat.) So it is effective to a point and in certain situations and definitely has its place in the training world, don't get me wrong! 

But, when purely positive doesn't work and dogs are dying in kennels as they can't be placed in homes safely because the rescues refuse to let balanced trainers/behaviourists help them, this is a serious issue! Then there's the ones that are adopted out with lesser behavioural issues that have a rule that only positive reinforcement can be used or they take the dog back from the new owner, resulting in dogs being returned to rescues and further creating more issues with rescues being overrun and dogs being put down. (I've had clients who had to do this as the rescue refused to allow them to use aversives and they couldn't get a pet sitter in safely, even with months of introductions, it was still becoming a safety concern, hence getting me involved, for when they worked away and so on)

My main goal in life is for dogs to live happy long lives in suitable homes for them. If that means helping clients find a new home, doing a risk assessment for a private run kennels that is going to re-home the dog from the clients home, due to change of circumstances,  doing risk assessments for the suitability for a dog to become a therapy dog or assistance dog or helping an old client choose the right dog breed for them now they are adding an additional dog then I'm here to help. I'm not just about training. I'm about supporting the dogs best interests and all this helps the dogs and owners in the end.