Whilst I have always loved animals, I never appreciated how incredible dogs were until I met Dexter. Dex is a border collie and he showed me what empathetic, intelligent and wonderful creatures dogs really are.
Dex belongs to a close childhood friend of mine and one summer, she asked if I could look after Dexter for a few months. I was working as a teacher at the time so had a long summer break. I had known Dexter for about 7 years by this point so happily jumped at the chance to have him to stay.
We had a brilliant summer together and had the most fun going on long, exploratory walks, training together and hanging out at home. It was very difficult to part with him when summer came to an end. Learning with him truly ignited a passion in me for the canine world.
I started researching training in my spare time as a teacher, beginning by consuming any training content I could find on YouTube. This branched out into books, online courses and speaking with trainers already in the field.
I found that people were interested in my insights into their dogs; friends and family asked my advice and started requesting I walk and train their dogs with them. This branched out into friends of friends, until it felt like all my free time was taken up with dogs.
At the beginning of 2021, I decided to take the jump and leave teaching to pursue my passion full time. I left the classroom in July and haven’t looked back.
Since then, my business, knowledge and enthusiasm have continued to grow and each morning I wake up and pinch myself because I can’t believe I am lucky enough to make a living doing what I love: helping people and their dogs to live harmoniously and have their best days together.
To this day, Dexter remains one of the most amazing dogs I have encountered (and I’m lucky enough to know a lot of dogs these days!) and he will always hold a very special place in my heart.
