09/10/2026
👏 CLIENT SHOUT OUT 👏
Introducing fabulous Fox Terrier Purdey who is working through her boot camp sessions with me.
This little lady has been giving her owners the run around with her determination to do her own thing, at her own pace and with her own agenda.
Being a terrier means she has a high prey drive and has become obsessed with hunting for squirrels and chasing a ball, any ball, regardless of who’s ball it is.
She is also worried about traffic and will try and chase vehicles making her walks difficult and scary.
Purdey didn’t arrive at home with her lovely owners until she was 5 months having being kept by her breeder.
As such Purdey missed out on her crucial socialisation and finds new environments difficult, she gets over stimulated, frustrated and finds it hard to cope.
At home she reacts to noises, squirrels and pigeons in the garden. Everything is over stimulating and causes her to become agitated and reactive
Life with Purdey was becoming challenging
The first thing I wanted to do was slow her down, I honestly nearly passed out trying to keep up with the speed she was walking 🙈
Speed isn’t good, it’s a dog pumped with adrenaline and a dog that’s on the edge of losing control.
She was on high alert, her prey drive had been triggered and she was ready to run…..
But this isn’t what we want from our family dog, we want a dog that we can take anywhere and that can remain calm, steady and engaged.
Not one that we can only walk in quiet places and not one where we have to avoid any kind of distraction.
So I wanted to change her idea of fun, I wanted to stop her from playing her own games and I wanted her to engage with her owners.
So we’ve been hanging around, we’ve been standing still, allowing her to sniff, watch and learn to remain calm.
I’ve wanted her to focus on her owners, play tuggy, chase a ball……
Sounds simple doesn’t it?
But when you have a dog with obsessive behaviours it’s far from simple.
We have seen lots of frustration, we’ve had lots of barking and we’ve had moments of utter despair
But we’ve also had tuggy games, ball retrieves, recall games, watch exercises and loose lead walking
So that’s a win, and a massive step in the right direction.
Of course we have a huge amount of work to do, my aim is for her to be able to walk past kids playing football, to see squirrels running up a tree and not give two hoots.
I want her to be able to go to a busy park with all the stimulus that brings and I want her to be able to be the girl her owners want her to be.
But right now I want to give a huge shout out to her dedicated owners who have put their heart and soul into her training programme.
They haven’t given up when it’s been tough and they haven’t thrown in the towel when things haven’t been as straight forward as we wanted it to be.
It’s easy for me to give a training programme, I can just walk away but they have to work on her training every minute of every day and that takes an enormous amount of strength and determination.
We have worked together for months and we still have months of work to do, but I am looking forward to the day I can watch Purdey sit calmly whilst there’s a ball game happening in the park and I look forward to sharing her success with you
