Calmer Canine Training

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When we first met Jo, Nellie’s separation anxiety was keeping me up at night. We couldn’t leave her even for a moment. If one of us was out, the other couldn’t even go and out to buy milk without calling in a favour from a neighbour.    Jo was great from the start: she was very calm and although she acknowledged that Nellie was showing signs of distress the moment the front door clicked she was confident that the situation  could be improved with perseverance. We started out with 5 seconds at a time, working our way slowly upwards. 30 seconds felt like a huge victory and once we even got to a whole minute in the flat!   Jo stuck with us when we moved house and Nellie’s progress started to speed up. Having Jo on hand to talk us through the process and help us navigate Nellie’s different reactions / non-linear progress was so important! It was very reassuring to run through it with Jo on screen every so often so she could tell us what was working and what needed to be tweaked. Soon we could do 5 minutes sitting on the doorstep slowly building up to 15/20 minutes at a time. Shortly after we moved we got complacent and left Nellie (very slyly / with minimal fuss) to go out for dinner with some friends. It went well for the first hour: she was alert but lying down on the sofa and looking out of the window. However, at 1 hour 15, the doorbell rang for a delivery and Nellie lost it. She was hysterical, scratching the door down, whining and crying. We dropped everything to go back but, since we were on the other side of town, it took us 30 mins to get to her.   This was a huge set back. Nellie wouldn’t let us leave the room for a moment after that. She was refusing to sleep on her own in the kitchen and would wake us up in the night scratching at the door. Jo was on hand all the way through this period, both at the time on whatsapp and then on zoom every week for the next few weeks. It would have been very easy to despair at this point nap it was really great to have that constant reassuring voice of calm! We are still doing a lot of separation training with Jo, supplementing it with other training techniques from Jo to help with her anxious nature. We are still making progress and I now finally believe that we will be able to go out and leave her in the not too distant future. Jo has given us that hope - thank you!!

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I came to Jo and Graham as I was incredibly upset that I was not doing well with my new puppy and thought I would have to give him up, which would have been devastating as I fell in love with Bob at first sight. But, I picked a border collie so an active dog - which I knew, but did not know it would be so hard. I was immediately reassured that I am not a bad Mum to Bob. I just needed to learn how to manage him and his needs. I hadn't appreciated the attention he needed 24/7 but that this could be on my terms. He also was a nipper so I thought he didn't like me as my arms could testify but I was again reassured that this was not good behaviour but could be changed. Yes! My puppy doesn't hate me! I learnt a lot from Graham's visits for training but have to say that Jo has been totally straight with me, honest and transparent when looking at dog behaviour. My relationship with Bob has become stronger as he has more direction from me and more structured time. My partner is happier when he comes home as Bob enjoys quality time but understands when to calm it down. Still very much work in progress as it's up and down but there are more positives and I am so pleased that I did not throw in the towel early doors as Bob has enhanced my life and I know he loves me as much as I love him. Should have got a lap-dog? No chance. He's the love of my life and I am going to do everything I can to make his life with me a good one. Thank you to Jo and Graham - highly recommended and always available for emergency chats x