In these difficult times many people who are struggling with problem pets think about rehoming their beloved pet instead of investing money to learn how to resolve their issues.
The Pet Experience has been helping pet owners to successfully work through their problems for many years, resolving such problems as dog aggression, phobias, insecurity, toileting issues and much more. My name is Sarah Linehan and I am a qualified and highly experienced dog trainer and behaviourist who has been working with dogs in some form or another since 1994. A Behaviour Counselling session takes place in your home and has no time limit, although sessions commonly last around 2-3 hours.
To give you an idea of what is involved and what can be achieved I would like to tell you about a recent case which is an example of how rewarding it can be to work with dogs and successfully rehabilitate them from difficult, unstable animals to balanced, contented pets.
Barney is an 8 year old Springer Spaniel whose owners were at their wit’s end when they called me. They had seen 3 other Trainers/Behaviourists and no-one had been able to resolve their problems in any way. In fact, the last person they saw had told them that Barney was “the worst dog they’d ever seen”. To be honest, they had practically given up all hope and eventually went to see the vet to discuss having him put to sleep. Luckily, the vet referred them to me and they decided to give Barney one last chance. You see, Barney’s problems were aggression related and he was, at this stage, quite a dangerous dog to live with.
He would jump up on the sofa and then refuse to get off. If the owners went near him or tried to sit on the sofa themselves he would snarl and snap at them to the point where they had received some nasty puncture wounds from their own beloved dog. It had got to the point where Barney had the sofa to himself in the evenings and they had to sit on the floor! The same thing happened if they tried to get him off their bed or out of the car. He was also aggressive towards other dogs when on a lead. Barney had been like this for about two years and was gradually getting worse.
When I arrived at their house I could see that Barney’s owners were not expecting me to be able to do much. Having seen other behaviourists who hadn’t helped they were understandably quite cynical about what I could achieve. However, by the end of the session everything had changed. It was obvious to me that all Barney’s issues were related to fear and insecurity and because he didn’t have a strong Pack Leader he was trying to do the job himself – and making a mess of it! As soon as Barney’s owners were shown how to take control of their dog in any situation they could see a way forward to resolving all of his issues. With simple techniques and a new understanding of dog psychology they could start to recondition Barney’s behaviour and his aggressive reactions would stop.
A few weeks later I received a wonderful e-mail thanking me for saving Barney’s life. You can read this in full on the Feedback page of The Pet Experience website. Barney no longer climbs up onto the bed or the sofa and he happily jumps out of the car on command. He walks past other dogs on the lead without paying them any attention and in general he is a much happier dog with very happy owners. I will always be grateful to the vet for giving Barney’s owners my phone number and I will always be proud of them for not giving up on their dog.
So many people do get to the stage where they think that their dog’s behaviour simply can’t be changed – they believe it is just the dog’s ‘personality’ and therefore nothing can be done. This is not true. If you don’t believe that your dog’s behaviour can be changed please read some of our testimonials.
Special Offer - The Pet Experience has decided to offer a 10% discount to all members of ‘Thebestof’ who book a Behaviour Counselling session before the end of February.
So, if you have a problem with any aspect of your dog’s behaviour help is just a phone call away. Contact Sarah on 07769 705807 or e-mail sarah@thepetexperience.co.uk
