I was born an animal lover. All animals, not just dogs. As a child my favourite show was Barbra Woodhouse. I used to walk the neighbours dogs and practise everything I learned. Thankfully dog training has evolved a LOT since those days.

When I was in my early 20’s, I purchased my first puppy. Cherokee was a kelpie x heeler, who was the love of my life. We started our first serious training with Australian Dog Training and trained up to Advanced Level. I then purchased a border collie puppy, Benson, who I also trained to Advanced Level with ADT.

Since then I have had multiple dogs, all rescues. I thought I had a pretty good handle on dog training until I bought Astro into my life. I found him on Facebook. He was in a kill shelter in NSW. When I saw his photo, I knew we needed each other.

When Astro came into my life, he totally destroyed my harmonious little pack. He was an adolescent who was reactive to anything that moved, especially dogs. It was pretty clear I didn’t have the skills I needed for him. So I contacted a friend who was a dog trainer. We started training at her school which was an embarrassing and lonely experience for a while. He would trigger all the other dogs and our critical distance was half a cricket oval away from the class, which meant I couldn’t even hear what the trainer was saying.

I then started my formal dog training career and completed my Cert III in Behaviour and Training with the National Dog Trainers Federation. This sparked my thirst for learning. Since then I have been to numerous seminars. I have also been to America twice and shadowed some of the worlds most brilliant canine behaviourists who specialise in socialisation and aggression, Tyler Muto – K9 Connection, Chad Mackin, Heather Beck – K9 Lifeline and Jason Vasconi – Transform my Dog, who specialises in large field socialisation.

I am a big believer in staying up to date with the different methods of dog training. The industry is always evolving. One method for all dogs simply doesn’t work. They are all different, just like us. Therefore being open to learning is very important.