About me

It all started with…

Frodo, my pug. When he got to a year old I made a flippant comment to the vet about how he scuffed his knuckles when he got tired sometimes causing them to bleed. The vet was sufficiently concerned about this to send us to a specialist neurological vet who looked at Frodo’s walking. He called us back for a CT scan which confirmed that Frodo has a hereditary cyst in his spinal sheath. It means the messages sent from his brain to his legs get a bit confused causing an unusual gait. His front legs don’t bend as he steps forward, and his back legs wiggle, causing a very wobbly walk, earning him the nickname wobbly dog.

I have owned dogs all my life and six years ago formally started learning how to train them. Since then I have been on a wonderful journey with highs and lows. I started by helping in my local dog training classes in Hampshire run by an IMDT qualified trainer using positive and operant training. These were the classes I took my own dogs too when they were puppies and when my dogs graduated I continued going as an assistant and very quickly I was getting to do demonstrations in both the puppy and intermediate classes.

I moved from Hampshire to Scotland where I was given the opportunity to run kennel club puppy classes. The club that ran them very quickly handed the classes over to me and let me have free rein as long as the kennel club requirements were covered. I was able to add in extra training exercises which I found immensely fun and rewarding, especially as these classes could be as diverse as having 10 week old puppies all the way up to 1 year olds attending.

The class bookings were run through the club and I wouldn’t know what dogs to expect until they arrived for the first class of the course. I found this pushed and challenged me which I loved.

The club also ran agility classes and I assisted in the beginner’s agility class, which was more about how to help and manage reactive dogs then it was about agility.

I moved back to England and was very fortunate to find Emma and Paw by Paw Training. Emma was just starting her classes but was incredibly generous and let me watch and later assist her. I now teach regular classes and workshops for Paw by Paw Training.