Two years ago I moved to the West country from London; for a quieter life, or so I thought! One thing that struck me in particular was the enormous difference between NHS care in the two regions. There appears to be a huge disparity between different NHS Trusts and, indeed, different doctors. I have visited a few doctors in the past and, thinking back, I have met those with the highest qualifications, yet no ‘bedside manner’, to those showing empathy and a great deal of care. I mention this as there is a certain correlation between home visits from doctors and those from dog trainers / behaviourists.

If we, trainers, have no rapport or empathy with our clients (and their dogs), then we are on a hiding to nothing. We may as well give up as we will fail miserably and certainly get no referrals. We may have, for example, an MSc in Canine Behaviour but this does not necessarily impress potential clients; it’s all about our attitude, getting referrals and our feedback score on Yell dot com, amongst others!

Similarly I have read, or attempted to read, many dog training books. Some I cannot put down and others I give up after the first few pages. I wonder who the authors are trying to impress; their audience or themselves with convoluted vocabulary and oftentimes poor, clumsy and nonsensical sentence construction!

The moral of the story is be yourself and do not try too hard to impress!