Dog Behaviourist Ricardo Ministro

18/11/2025

Mia the romanian rescue. Who still remember when I met Mia first time? Massive thanks to Stef for all the training she implemented.

The impossible dog that wouldn't leave the flat for month. Me who just lost her life long companion and just wanted to rescue another soul. We did manage. We persevered. We loved and we became an item. Here is to my insecure foreign rescue who overcame a lot and is braw travel companion, hiking buddy and model. Love you Mia ❤️

06/11/2025

Don't Look at your phone if you are walking with your Dog. Disconnect to Connect.

30/10/2025

To all "wanna be Dog Trainers/Behaviourists" out there.... stop "training" Start Studying.

29/10/2025

If the "Trainer" tells you to use an E'collar, Prong, Choke Chain, or Slip Lead to "improve" the behaviour, my advice...Walk Away!

23/10/2025

Dog group classes - The fastest way for problematic behaviour in dogs.

21/10/2025

It's time to stop representing "good" behaviour with dogs who can sit, lay down, or stay on cue. That's all irrelevant for the real understanding of positive and social behaviour around other animals (canines, humans and others) in our society.

10/10/2025

Reposting this as Resource Guarding continues to be a very common issue in family dogs... The Solution is Trust.

10/03/2024

12/07/2023

TIREDNESS, COMPASSION FATIGUE AND TOTAL BREAKDOWN

- Sh*t, it happened to me…

As many of you may have noticed, there as not been any update in this page for a while…

Well, that’s because I’ve been totally off for a while.

At the end of the last year, I found myself in a tricky mental situation where I experienced what it’s called in the dog training industry “Compassion Fatigue”.

Compassion fatigue comes up when we as professionals come to a point of depletion on our compassion/caring reservoirs due to the type of work we do and the situations we experience.
This can happen to anyone, but certainly faster and more intensely to those who care a great deal for their clients, both dogs and humans, and find it hard to disconnect from the situations they are presented with or the problems they are trying to solve day after day.

I faced the start of compassion fatigue well before the end of the last year, but I wasn’t aware at the time. I thought I was just tired, just in need of some holidays. And to be honest I thought I would never experience it. Cause I though I was strong, strong enough to keep facing day after day the world of fearful, reactive, and aggressive behaviour in dogs. I thought I could keep going with the demand, the requests, the problems, the solutions, and everything in between…

But no. I didn’t.

And at the end, I faced total breakdown, like a sudden wave that hits the shore.

No notice or strenght to think anymore about it.

I simply had to stop, simply had to move out, simply forget temporarily about all this work I’ve been doing for years...

Now that I feel better, I can write this, I can process all of it with a stable mind and share it with all of you who have been following my work and those who may think to request my help.

I would also like to take this opportunity to apologise to all of those people that tried to get in touch with me meanwhile and never got an answer, and also to those people that I never got back to… I’m sorry about that. It wasn't about any of you, with was all on me...

I still love dogs, I still love people, I still find it a great mission to improve the life of them.

But at this point I need to find my way back, a way that will be more healthy for myself.

With this in mind, there are many questions I need to find an answer for, before I re-start any work in this field.

So for now and until further notice, I will continue to be off from my services and my business and I truly hope there will be someone out there who can help those in need with the same love and caring I did for all my clients, both humans and dogs.

Thank you for reading,

Ricardo Ministro

27/09/2022

DO YOU REMEMBER MIA THE ROMANIAN RESCUE?

A few years ago I got a message from Stef about her recently adopted dog, Mia.

Mia, like many other dogs I work with, came from Romania to Scotland to be loved and cared for by her new family.
But things were not easy, especially at the start.

Mia was very fearful of new people, cars and other noises.

Stef could not walk Mia in public for a very long time, and I still remember the first time I met Mia - she barked and lunged at me the moment I entered the house.

Today things are very different.

Nowadays Mia is a very happy and social dog. Every time we meet she's super happy and this is also happening with other guests.

She enjoyes her walks in nature and can also be in public parks without much problem.

The dog that she is today is not the dog I met a few years ago. She went from a scared and unstable dog to a very happy and beautiful dog to share a life with.

Yes, not everything is perfect, Mia still has a few issues with certain noises and will avoid crowdy places and loud bangs, but the improvements made since day 1 are many. Too many to tell on this post.

This is, obviously, a very successful case, which of course could not have happened without an amazing family like Mia's family.

She is truly cared for and loved by mom and dad and now she is even a professional dog model!

Check out the images in this post!

Stef @ Stef Brennan Photography is a skilled photographer with a special eye for dog portraits, and knows how to capture those special moments that many of us miss when thinking about all the challenges that we may face with our dogs on daily basis.

Thank you Stef for all you have done and continue to do for Mia.