Ruby and Ozzie

We initially had one dog a Border Collie cross named Ozzy from the local dog rescue, he was a little timid at first but once he settled in he was soon part of the family. We did give him lots of fuss, so much that we let him climb on the leather sofa, sleep on my daughters bed which he soon became good at because he then went on to scratch on our bedroom door at 5.30am every morning to sleep on our bed.

Ruby.
After a few years we "inherited" another dog, a Jack Russell bitch named Ruby. My daughters loved her because she was small and cuddly, sweet and had such a cute face. It soon became apparant that she knew what she wanted out of life at our house and began at first to chew the stair carpet. We put this down to Ruby just settling in, but it soon became apparant that she wanted more than just the stair carpet. Every night when my younger daughter went to bed, Ruby would trot off behind her and soon she was sleeping inside my daughters bed, not healthy I know, but Ruby would bed down there every night. Ruby then noticed Ozzy creeping into our bedroom so she thought she would join him, low and behold before we knew it there were the four of us in a bed, Ozzy on top and Ruby under the covers.

Ruby also liked our landing carpet and thought it would be a good place to go to the toilet, she had it all, a nice cozy bed and a toilet which she didn't have far to walk too, we couldn't smack her as we never actually caught her doing the "business" and anyway I don't believe in smacking a dog. 

Ruby also liked to look out of the window so would jump on the computer table and sit on the window ledge with her wet nose pressed onto the window, Ozzy then picked up on this and he then started jumping onto the table and looking out of the window too, it was embarrassing to when people would walk past the house and see the dogs at the window. I had come to the end of my tether with both of the dogs, not only were they sleeping with me, I would then come home from work every evening and have to clean the windows and wipe dog hairs off the table, our settee was also covered in dog hairs and scratches too, I felt the dogs were taking over, I had to take drastic action, that's where Ade stepped in, he was my knight in shining armour so to speak!!!

I looked on numerous web sites, I wanted reassurance that my dogs could be "cured" from their bad habits. I liked Ade's web site, I thought it was very informative and down to earth, I also liked the idea of him bringing his dog along to some training sessions. I rang Ade, explained about my dog's behaviour, he assured me he could fix the problem and came to visit my family and the dogs a few days later.

As soon as Ade walked in and we chatted on the landing upstairs, I could tell that Ruby knew her life was going to change, big time!! His presence just standing there on the landing made Ruby feel inferior, she didn't like it, she felt she was not the boss anymore much to her disgust!! 

Ade just observed us as a family with the dogs asking us lots of questions, I knew deep down that we were partly to blame for the dogs behaviour, we had given them the freedom to access all areas of our house. Ade explained this to us and  gave us plenty of advice on how to change our behaviour with the dogs, they had picked up bad habits and it was our job to get them out of the habits. Ade explained that we would all have to change the way we treated the dogs, much to my younger daughters lack of enthusiasm, she thought that we were cruel to the dogs but Ade soon put her mind at rest and told her it was unfair to the dogs if she didn't participate along with the rest of us.

We started the changes as soon as Ade left and during the week Ade rang us to see how we were all going on which I thought was excellent, we had arranged to meet the following weekend for "a dog walking session" with the two dogs.

Ade turned up at the house the following week with his dog Pip who I can say put our dogs behaviour to shame.

I have never seen such a well behaved and lovely dog, I wanted to swap dogs!!!

Ade gave us tips on how to walk the dogs without them pulling on their leads and also how to make sure the dogs would come back once they were let off their leads. It's surprising what an hour and a half of dog obedience can do, by the end of it our dogs were actually walking on the leads without strangling themselves!! Ade said he would send us a report and ring me again in the week to see how we were getting on which he did.

I can honestly say the transformation of the two dogs is amazing, I feel like I have had a massive weight lifted off my shoulders, we are the ones that call the shots in our house now, not the dogs and it's all down to Ade!!!

Stephanie W

Thanks Steph for that glowing report, Pip and I are blushing with embarrassment! You have followed through with all the advice and achieved excellent results. Just remember my maxim, be consistent, be persistent, and don't hesitate to ring me if you need help. I forgive you for cutting my head off in the photo!!!

I asked them if they wanted me to stop the behaviour and within 5 minutes all four dogs were lying down or sitting in a calm manner. I didn't speak during this time, just using gentle touches and other techniques. I showed them how to stop the bad behaviour, demonstrated how to modify and control the behaviour when the doorbell rang, then introduced Pip and a pair of workmen as distractions and did some obedience work as well. All in 2 hours.
Towards the end of the session I was told that the reason the dogs were so well-behaved was because they knew I was a dog trainer and so they were on their best behaviour!
I asked the dogs if they spoke English and they declined to reply. I asked the owner if he had secretly told the dogs that I was a dog trainer. He didn't get the joke or the point but was adamant the dogs KNEW I was a trainer. Actually, he was partly right. The dogs had very quickly accepted me as their Pack Leader and obeyed my directions. There had been a lack of leadership in the house and the dogs had behaved like a class of children with no teacher - absolute chaos! I am not sure whether I had offended him or whether he had just realised he had wasted 6 months of training fees, but I have never heard from him since, not even a thank you. Funny that.