Christina
Member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers - APDT member number 00998
Christina first wanted a dog at the age of 3, but it was another 20 years before she was to have one. She kept hoping to find a stray needing a home but to her parent’s relief this never happened! Instead, she busied herself with training her first guinea pig, Brownie to come when he was called in the garden (indeed he had a better recall than many dogs!) as well as many other tricks that she showed off one assembly at school. She spent hours with him and learnt that all good training must start with a good relationship. (Guinea pigs don’t come to you if they are frightened of you.) She carried this thought through to helping friends to train their horses, as well as dealing with her second rabbit (a re-homed rabbit that bit, kicked and scratched quite determinedly.) With patience and prayer (that produced instant and impressive results!) he settled.
She obtained an honours music degree and started work in 1999 as a violin (her main instrument) and piano teacher both privately and in schools. This gave her very valuable experience in teaching both children and adults which she has found extremely useful in her work with dog owners.
She then attended the I.D.T.S. (International Dog Trainer’s School, accredited by the Open College Network) 2 year training and behaviour course covering fascinating work on how dogs learn, understanding behavioural problems, training, instructing, calming signals, rescue and re-homing, and how to avoid stress, amongst other things. Teachers included Sheila Harper and her team (UK,) problem solving and understanding barking with international trainer/behaviourist and speaker Turid Rugaas (from Norway,) nose-work with Anne Lill Kvam (also from Norway,) and clicker training with Elizabeth Kershaw (UK.) She has also been accepted to become a member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers and has passed their assessment. More recently she regularly trains with competitive obedience trainer Joanna Hill as well as having enjoyed courses with Richard Curtis, Attila Szkukalek and Mary Ray to mention a few.
She lives with her (supportive and very patient!) husband, her guinea pigs and their Great Dane Caleb and rescue German Shepherd Asaph. She enjoys canine freestyle, heel-work to music and competitive obedience with Caleb and agility, competitive obedience, heelwork-to-music, canine freestyle and the occasional run of flyball with Asaph whenever possible. Both she and her husband are involved with their local church, and other interests include horse riding (particularly dressage) and dancing, although so far she has not managed to find the time for either of these since opening the centre!
Asaph is my lovely rescue German Shepherd. We got her from Hull Animal Welfare Trust when she was approx. two-and-a-half years old. She was found as a stray and had just had puppies. According to our vet she also had what looked like cigarette burns in her ears (there are times when I wonder...) If she hadn't have been rescued by Hull Animal Welfare Trust she would have been put to sleep.
She is 'bomb proof' with people and sometimes visits schools with me. She seems to go into 'nanny' mode with very young children and enjoys playing with slightly older ones. She is also very sensitive to how people are feeling. The most memorable occasion was when I was working with a group of people and expected her to come in being fairly excited and say hello to everyone. She didn't. She ignored the rest of the group and went over to one lady quietly putting her head in the person's lap. I said 'she obviously thinks you need a cuddle' to which which the lady replied 'I do'. It turns out that the lady was suffering from severe depression. I hadn't realised, but Asaph had. I also know that she can be relied upon for a comforting head on my knee if ever I need it.
Sadly we discovered that her hips were not very good when she was 3 years old. We have worked hard to keep the balance of her enjoying her life to the full without overdoing things and making her hips worse and at age 8 she is still doing very well although we do have to keep an eye on how much she does (she would never know when to stop!) She LOVES agility and it is a pity that I cannot do more of it with her as she would be an excellent competition dog. Her enthusiasm and keenness to work with you is a delight to work with. Her other great love in life are toys - you can see her whole face light up. She is also currently competing at Novice level at both Heelwork-to-Music and Canine Freestyle.
Although she is not aggressive with other dogs she is stroppy and feels that they should know good manners! Although this is sometimes not very helpful with other bitches of the same personality she is excellent at teaching young dogs good manners without going over the top and has accompanied a large number of our puppy walks. She is a joy to live with, being relaxed and peaceful around the house and a wonderfully fun filled, loving friend when she's doing things. She is and always will be my loving, fun-filled, beautiful, sensitive-to-how-you're-feeling, very special girl...
Caleb is my wonderful Great Dane. We got him as an 8 week old puppy and had the interesting time of bringing him up (as did Asaph.) No-one had quite prepared us for quite how busy young male Danes (particularly from the Harlequin colouring breed lines) can be! Nothing he did was bad, just unfortunate due to his rather large size (eg. galloping around the living room.) He also learnt the art of not exactly running off but also not coming back either - he was well known for seeing a person or dog in the distance and disappearing off at 30mph. After a LOT of training and going on walks without distractions so he didn't get into bad habits he greatly improved. He also managed to go through phases of being frightened of young children and men with beards.
Once he reached the age of two-and-a-half he grew up and has turned into the most wonderful gentleman you could imagine. He adores most people and copes with the rest (children and bearded men included!) and has fantastic manners with other dogs. He has done a reasonable amount of work with dogs with behavioural problems and is very good at calming down dogs that may be frightened or a little over the top. His body language with them is wonderful to watch.
He is also a joy to live with being very relaxed and peaceful around the house and a delight to work with. He is so full of character and so cuddly and often goes into 'puppy mode' with a wonderful curiosity and desire to be involved with whatever you're doing. He loves our training times together and I count it a privilege to work with him - we have come to understand each other and most of the time work beautifully as a team. He is currently competing at Novice level at both Heelwork-to-Music and Canine Freestyle. He is and will always be my lovely, soppy, FULL of character, funny, delightful to work with big baby boy...
Click at the side for photos of Asaph and Caleb when they were invited to a photo shoot by professional photographer Paul Saxby. Also for photos of Caleb taken at his first Canine Freestyle competition.