Canine and Feline Behaviour Association

When asked at social functions and the like what line of work I am in, I explain that I am a ‘Canine Behaviour Practitioner’. This is often met with curiosity and stories of people’s extended family member’s troublesome pets, some people just look at me blankly and ask what that involves and some just say, “Oh, you mean you’re a dog trainer?”

Well, yes I am a dog trainer, but equally that description does not nearly cover the gamut of the job role. I work as a consultant dealing with most often severe canine behavioural problems and work as the catalyst for the owners to train and rehabilitate those dogs into our increasingly intolerant society.

With this work, it carries risk; making assessments and judgments about dogs and people and whether my advice will be followed so that people and/or dogs are not injured in the process of behaviour reformation is not a task to be taken on lightly with the laws concerning dogs as they stand. Professional advice has to satisfy the law, the client and be suitable to obtain the result that we require with the dog.

Problems presented can be extreme as can the people that present them to me. Peoples views are very diverse and what some may find absolutely intolerable, others take in their stride and see little problem with. Family circumstances can be peculiar – either very busy with offspring and their partners living at home or the reverse whereby there is one person living alone with a dog and never any visitors. These differing lifestyles all have to be taken into account due to the fact that this very obviously affects the relationship that people are likely to be having with their dogs and their ability to follow some of my advice – giving information that people can’t or won’t follow is useless and a waste of everyone’s time. In other words, telling a client to take it or leave it rarely works.

It takes immense skill, patience, empathy and diplomacy to work with people in such intense meetings. My consultations last for about two hours – it often wanders in to three. I only have a short time to get people to trust and believe in me, my knowledge and my advice. I have to extract the information that is pertinent and keep people from digressing in to tales of previous dogs and suchlike. I also need to get to the root of the problem as speedily as I can and be sure that I am being told the truth. Often behaviour patterns that I observe / discuss in consultation simply do not match the information that I am being given by the owner and I have to prolong questioning to get the truth/accuracy before continuing in order to proffer the correct advice.

Some people in consultation are deliberately difficult and curt and one has to break through this barrier before going on with the consultation. Some people are shy and take time to open up and inform you of the problems and there are some people who simply chat about everything – even their most personal details. All people need to be handled differently, with some, humour works wonders, and with others a black and white approach is best. It is complex people interactions that make this job so complex at times. On occasion, husband and wife or family disputes take place and handling those is a skill in itself. Often we are exposed to people’s personal traumas that they have experienced which in many cases has affected the dogs behaviour, some extreme examples include murder, rape and divorce although most are general life difficulties. Handling these situations can be complex to say the least.

In addition to this consultancy in the centre or the veterinary clinic, there are those visits in the clients home – the way that people live is varied, shall we say. I get to see huge mansions, country manors, penthouse apartments bigger than a small town, humble bedsits and bungalows. I see fashion designers, singers, Chef’s, accountants, builders, librarians, architects, the unemployed, the elderly, teenagers, people with disabilities – a huge array of people with the common factor being the love for their dogs. Dogs cross all lifestyles and as a practitioner, I have to deal with all types of people from celebrities to the homeless – they are all people with the same emotions and social responsibilities where dogs are concerned and both require the same empathy and the best possible service one can offer.

Attending a persons home is rather different to seeing a person in a centre or vet practice. The client is rather more in control initially and I certainly never know what to expect when I get to the house. Often it is the case that I get called out form a problem such as house toilet training or phobia’s only to find that the dog is also extremely aggressive to people. This triggers an initial conversation on all of the dogs problems and owner priorities.

Wherever possible, I like to get my clients to attend a formal obedience training and behaviour course with me also. This enables me to see them longer term, but as an estimate I would suggest that only 20% of clients attend due to distance/time and other commitments.

Practical hands on obedience training is vital in most of the cases that I see. Often as a part of the consultation, I will go in to the street with clients to demonstrate handling and training techniques – particularly with aggression problems. Handling dogs and demonstrating those techniques to the owner is one of the quickest ways to get clients to trust you and follow your advice.

Overall, one could describe the work we do with animals and clients as a plethora of complex relationships between people and their dogs that never ceases to amaze me.

How do you become a Behaviour Practitioner?

A Canine Behaviour Practitioner is normally someone who has developed his or her knowledge through observational field work with dogs. The very best must be competent dog trainers. Presently there are many debates about the subject as I am sure there are in many industries. The occupation is both subjective and objective and it is not an exact science. Competitive obedience and trials work which are KC governed prepare many people for professional work with dogs. As dog enthusiasts we continue to be responsible for that evolutionary journey of the domestic dog from the wild into the modern home and all of the conflict that this can cause.

A successful dog trainer needs to acquire extensive knowledge on the dog’s mind and how it works in order to operate efficiently. The main difference between a dog trainer and a Canine Behaviour Practitioner is that the latter have gone on to study dogs’ behaviour and corresponding relationships with people in more depth, the origins of the wolf and related species. This includes families, environments, human psychology, perceptions and expectations plus an ability to gather and decipher vast amounts of information from all involved in a case study.

My Entry in to Practice

My childhood was spent with dogs, maybe I was a bizarre child, but I was fanatical about all dogs. Each birthday and Christmas, the main present on my wish lists were dog books as well as whichever breed of dog I was begging my parents for at the time. At the age of eight I began walking dogs for people in the Town that I lived in. It grew in to a lucrative operation with me walking eight or nine dogs seven days a week. Handling this quantity of dogs together in public parks was no easy task, but being naive I had little understanding of the consequences should I loose control of this pack. I learnt many skills about introducing new dogs in to the pack and multi dog handling. I also learnt a great deal from watching the dogs interact with each other and the observing the ritualised aggression that the dogs used with each other and seeing other dogs reactions to this large group when in the park. From this I went to work in kennel establishments and Hearing Dogs for Deaf People to further my experience. I trained my own dogs at training clubs and instructed also in competitive obedience, agility and flyball.

I decided some years ago, to take the leap from my managerial sales job which I was not entirely happy with (hated with a passion actually) and to start back in education and endeavour to become a full time dog trainer or Canine Behaviour Practitioner.

Making the decision was easy and exciting, but I really did not know where to go to find out more about the relevant training, what qualifications I would need and where to gain some experience. On reading through a dog magazine I noticed numerous adverts for home study courses that on completion Aqualify@ you to become a practitioner, they provide you with case studies and business plans to help you on your way. After looking on the internet, newspapers and magazines I picked what I felt was the most comprehensive course. In the course prospectus sent from Northumberland it stated that to practice behaviour modification with no qualification was unethical and that after the completion of this course and six case studies I would be able to set up and practice full or part time as a behaviourist. That was just what I wanted and so promptly sent off my application for a home study course along with my cheque.

I was somewhat surprised when the course arrived through the post in a binder. I thought that this was the first module of the course and could not wait to get started and return the work to be marked. However, up on looking closer it became evident that this was not the first unit this was the entire course, there was no interaction between myself and the course organisers it was simply a very expensive, quite unhelpful book. I could however, for a further charge have six case studies sent to me to solve and have them verified externally. I was extremely disheartened and sat down to write a letter to a well known ‘Animal Behaviourist’ to ask their advice about the course, but I received no reply.

I read through the first few chapters of the course binder and realised that the highly jargonised text was very hard to understand and in reality, although it was probably a good basic knowledge to have, I felt it would probably not benefit me at all in the practicalities of helping people and their dogs.

Coincidentally, three other people that I know had also paid and applied for the same course as me and upon discussing this with them they also felt the same as I did on the course content and the fact that they felt it was nothing more than a book.

Looking back on this, I feel slightly foolish for thinking that such a course with no practical training or experience could possibly prepare me for the realities of behavioural training. In retrospect, if anything was unethical, it was the course prospectus which I received – An absolute con.

It was around this time that a friend of mine recommended me for a position with Colin Tennant at his Canine and Feline Behaviour Centre. After two interviews I was offered the position and told that I would be able to watch and partake in behavioural consultations and study alongside Colin, with a view to becoming a full time, knowledgeable, experienced practitioner in canine behaviour and I took the job as the Kennel Unit Manager and Office Admin assistant – a large reduction in salary, but I understood that all of this would prove invaluable in my training.

I recall having clear expectations of what the job would involve (having seen TV programmes I suppose) and thought that it couldn’t be terribly difficult to sort out a few little dog problems – especially with all of my experience(!). I was sure that there would be some techniques to learn that would apply to most cases with regard to most problems. Well, that's what I thought and I could not have been more wrong.

In reality of course it is not easy at all as described above and there are no set answers to any problem presented and I estimate that at least 70% of my work is with people not dogs. This is why a very broad understanding of canine behaviour (and Human Behaviour) is needed, to apply knowledge of behaviour to look at and understand the problem and come up with a realistic workable solutions based not only on the dog and the problem, but the owner and their circumstances.

I suppose my expectations of canine behavioural training were meeting with clients in their home and training their dogs over a short time, maybe three or four visits and imparting advice on how they can progress with their dogs to quickly solve the problem. Working as a dog training instructor in clubs, I solved people’s doggie problems fairly often and I thought that there was no problem that was unsolvable and that obedience training was the key. Although, I felt I had a good knowledge of dog training and their behaviour, when I sat in on my first consultation with Colin, to say I felt slightly out of my depth was an understatement. On the following consultations I felt even further out of my depth and found the complexities of the situations that the clients were presenting just amazing and baffling. This was a far cry from my original impression of perhaps helping somebody get their dog to stop chewing their carpet. This was real people, real emotions and real problems and we were the last port of call for people who had tried everything that they could with their dog. Often emotions were such that people would cry in the consultation when explaining a problem; I certainly was not expecting that.

Maybe I was naive, maybe I just had no idea about the job, but I undoubtedly did not anticipate the need for such a social conscience and understanding of people’s sometimes unusual lifestyles to deal with dogs exhibiting unwanted behaviour.

I could give you countless examples of dogs behaving badly and people behaving bizarrely that would shock you – there’s one most every week. The fact that I originally thought that lots of cases would be the same is just not true. Some people have more than one dog, some live in large properties in the country, some in small town houses, some people have children, some people are not physically capable of handling their dog and of course the different dog breeds play a part as well, making every case different even if the same problem is presented, the solution and training methods can never be the same due to the very varied lifestyles they have and environments that they live in.

In my first year of working alongside Colin Tennant I handled and assessed approximately 200 dogs and was involved in over fifty behaviour consultations with Colin. The seriousness of some cases particularly with regard to aggression and the legal implications involved in such is a huge responsibility and came as quite a shock. Over the following three years, I handled many more dogs and became accustomed to the stories and situations that I am likely to encounter, but just when you think you have heard and seen it all, someone else comes along to surprise you.

Through the stages of my training, the more I learnt the more I felt I did not know. The more I learnt about dog aggression, the more confusing it became. So many questions in my mind kept occurring whether I had made the correct diagnosis and whether people would be successful.

Rather like learning to drive a car, you only truly learn when you pass your test and are out alone. Being in a room and having to convey an aggressive dog through the door or entering people’s homes with aggressive dogs quickly teaches you some methods of handling. The same is true of people – it is the difficult ones that teach you the most.

The love that people feel for their pets is well known and when people end up with problems through no real fault of their own the recommendations to some people are not easy and this in its self requires plenty of training in diplomacy, tact and empathising with the client.

The rewards that I have had in seeing people improving their relationship with their dogs and indeed seeing the dogs much happier and better understood have been countless. The nicest thing is to talk to people a few days, weeks or months after their consultation and discuss their successes and improvements. The lovely e-mails, phone calls, cards and letters from clients makes everything worthwhile.