So it all started in September 2018 when I'd moved out of home and finally got my own dog. He was a beautiful, all-black German X Belgian Shepherd that we called Atlas. His Dad was so big, we were sure he was going to grow to be the size of a Titan.

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Unfortunately, I was young and naive and didn't realise I had landed myself in an abusive relationship with someone that had no regard for animal welfare. After a short time, we had a collection of reptiles, our adolescent large breed puppy, Atlas, and 3 beautiful kittens, Lucifer, his sister Maia, and Persephone. The relationship was really taking a toll on my mental, physical, emotional, and financial health, but having these fantastic animals in my life made carrying on worthwhile. Everything deteriorated even further after a particularly traumatic pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage.

 

The reptiles had developed poor husbandry-related diseases while living with us. While I had experience with reptiles through my studies, I had never owned one personally and, again, naively assumed my partner was caring for them well. When I realised we couldn't care for all the animals we had, I started to push to get them rehomed to friends, family, or people who had better facilities and experience to care for them.

 

Thankfully, the reptiles were rehomed to various specialist homes and centres that helped them overcome their health issues. Maia and Persephone had a close relationship and were rehomed together to a friend, so I still get updates on their very happy lives. During the final days of my relationship, as I was getting support from friends and family to leave, I found a new home for Atlas at a training centre as I couldn't take him home to my parents. I am forever grateful that I got to keep my boy, Lucifer, and he still lives a very happy life with me now.

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Unfortunately, the home I thought was better for Atlas sold him without my consent to a member of staff. I kept in touch with them and got to see him as often as I could. Initially, it sounded like he had all the facilities and stimulation he needed for the fantastic life he deserves, but I know now that his quality of life is just as compromised, but for different reasons.

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After leaving the relationship and looking back on everything that had happened, both personally and to the animals, I realised all the mistakes I made. I returned to study, developed my experience, and worked on myself through therapy so these mistakes wouldn't happen again.

 

Since I was young, I wanted to work in the Veterinary field. This moved me towards wanting to be a Veterinary Nurse, and then my time with Atlas developed my understanding of my love for animals. My passion is for training and behaviour, and I developed this throughout my undergraduate study at Nottingham Trent University.

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I tailored all of my assignments in modules such as Handling, Training, Nutrition, Reproduction & Breeding, and Research Project. I focussed on things such as proper husbandry of a range of species, comparative anatomy between snakes and dogs, nutritional management of chronic pancreatitis to help support my Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, training my other dog to not bark defensively in the front room window, and if there is a "preference" of rewards in dogs between primary reinforcers (e.g. food), and secondary reinforcers (e.g toys, or praise). 

 

I was also very privileged to study under an ACPO/NPCC police dog handler and instructor for an entire summer, learning about private security and scent work training, such as human remains detection and tracking & trailing. I also developed a fundamental and practical understanding of learning theory in dogs, and how to apply it in real-world settings. I also observed official police department K9 unit training.

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I am hoping to continue to develop this while studying a BSc (Hons) Top-up in Animal Biology (NTU), MSc Clinical Animal Behaviour (University of Lincoln), and PhD Animal Behaviour and Welfare (University of Lincoln). All of this experience and my studies have highlighted such a passion for raising the standards of training, care, welfare, and services within the industry. 

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With support from my university, I have decided to start this business offering dog training, dog walking, and pet sitting services to focus on an area of behaviour I find most fulfilling - rehabilitation and the improvement of the human-to-animal bond. I hope, in time, I will be able to campaign to put better, stronger, more comprehensive legislation and parameters in place so that animals don't have to suffer the way mine did.