About the training
West Cornwall Dog Training is owned and run by me, Carolyn Boyd. I am an Institute of Modern Dog Trainers qualified dog trainer and behaviourist and also a full member of the Pet Professional Guild and the Dog Training College.
After competing with my own dog in agility for many years I moved to Cornwall and started running agility classes in St Just. They went well, but I was increasingly being asked for other sorts of training and to run non-agility classes. Seeing the demand for locally run reward-based dog training classes, I gradually built-up knowledge, gained further experience and qualifications to where I am now.
How am I different?
The majority of my clients come from recommendations ... from other clients, other trainers, or other pet professionals.
Why? Because I am able to give clients practical and effective solutions that are easy to implement, and because I don't go too 'dog-trainery' on them. In fact, I rarely call myself a dog trainer these days, I am more of a human coach.
What does that mean? Well, I think we get too wrapped up in trying to train a behaviour out of a dog before we get underneath the problem and see how we can help the owner first. Often by changing a few things to decrease arousal, increase sleep, build the relationship, etc those mountainous problems already seem less challenging.
Here’s a client’s view
Here is a typical message I got from a client after one session –
Thanks for yesterday, thanks for some insight into my gorgeous boy and for not making me feel like a complete failure.... He came home and slept like a baby 😮 have been counting treats to distract him from running off with things and its been great.. No fuss, no chasing.. Took them both down to our local field this morning and just let them run and sniff while i sat on a bench. Called them back with the aid of the treats from time to time and moved around the field sitting on different benches... Need to take a coffee next time 😊 not a ball in sight and both dogs perfectly happy and he's been really chilled this afternoon. Had a little play with his cockapoo buddy and crashed out again.
How did we not see that we were just continually winding him up... I'm baffled.
Says it all! This owner had been made to feel a failure. She had almost given up. Her dog was bouncing off the walls. With a little help, she is building a great relationship with her dog.
Keeping it fun
Training should be enjoyable for you and your dog, so it is very important to me to know how YOU are feeling as a client, and ensuring I meet your needs. Very often by changing our behaviour, our dog's behaviour changes. I won’t judge you, and I will look to gear everything we do to your individual needs.
Dog training has moved on from the old-fashioned techniques that used punishment based training. They might look like they sort a problem quickly, but often would suppress bad behaviours rather than resolve them and cause a great deal of mental and physical stress for our dogs. I adhere to the
IMDT code of ethics and promote modern science-based techniques that aim at achieving our goals using the least invasive training method for the dog.
How long will it take?
Training takes time and effort and there are no quick fixes apart from management and engineering the environment for success ... which is sometimes enough. My job is to help you understand your dog better. By understanding how learning takes place and how behaviour is changed you can build a great bond. By training with reward-based techniques you will get a well-trained and very importantly a well-balanced dog.
Find out more about me here.
Want to have a chat?
CLICK HERE TO SCHEDULE IN A DISCOVERY CALL to get the process going
