Reviews & Testimonials For Graham Milgrew

Rocky is a typical, adolescent Boxer - big, bouncy and full of life. It was clear from the outset that the family had fallen in love with him from the outset and just needed guidance on how to communicate with him and channel his energy. The whole family participated enthusiastically in the first training session and Rocky responded beautifully. I'm really looking forward to watching Rocky grow and develop over the coming year.

This owner took on a dog who exhibits the most difficult of dog behaviours.  He is randomly aggressive to strangers, other dogs, family and friends and worse of all, he is aggressive to his owner on occasion.  This type of behaviour is fortunately rare.  Owners can be blamed for their dogs’ behaviour as the assumption is that they must be “causing it” or someone else has “caused it” in the past, simply because there are many aggressive behaviours are caused by human lack of understanding and/or mishandling, however, some dogs are aggressive and there is nothing obvious about why.  This is very difficult to manage and even harder to solve and requires very committed owner(s) who are prepared to work with their dog on an ongoing basis.  We have a lot of respect for this owner as she is prepared to go the extra mile and will continue to work with her.    

This owner has a Westie and Shih Tzu who were rescued in Australia and came to the UK when their owner moved to London. They were barking at other dogs, pulling on the lead and occasionally causing problems in the home. The main source of these problems was that the dogs were trying to protect their owner and themselves rather than listening to their owner. Once we established a few boundaries and some communication rules, both dogs behaviour improved rapidly and they are doing really well. 

Poor little Maggie was abandoned and found tied to a fence in rural Ireland. She spent some time with the Dog's Trust, who brought her to the UK where she was adopted by her owners. She is a highly intelligent little terrier cross-breed but very distrustful and scared of other dogs. Her owners are working really hard with Maggie and she has now attended 2 group client walks with us. Maggie has progressed from a dog who could not bear the sight of another dog to being able to now go into the park and enjoy herself as long as other dogs keep their distance. It's still early days but with patience and understanding together with guidance and training, she will get over her fears.

Many puppies are relatively easy once an owner knows how to handle them and what to do with them, but some puppies can be like Hollie.  On the go constantly and into everything.  This is totally exhausting for owners and they often feel “it must be my fault” that their puppy is so difficult.  However, some pups are simply very high energy and have very short attention spans.  They can be difficult to train initially because they can’t focus and no amount of “no” will stop them getting into mischief.  Having the knowledge of what to do, and when, is the key to dealing with these puppies. As they mature the owners reap the benefits of all the groundwork the owner has put in. Hollie is brilliant with other dogs, very friendly with people, obedient to her owners and her owner has had many admiring comments about what a well-behaved dog she is. As she says, “there is light at the end of the tunnel” and Hollie is a dog that they can be truly proud of.

Sonne is a delightful little girl pup who has been struggling with meeting people in the home and public places such as cafes.  She gets fearful and can alarm bark for long periods of time.  Her owners had been doing everything right with her, but it is not a simple problem to fix and she was getting to the point where she would run at some people and try to nip at their legs or feet.  This was complicated by the fact that when excited and happy she would also run after feet and nip at legs so it was very difficult to tell when she was getting over excited and when she was scared. Most upsetting for her owners was her wariness around even the calmest and most friendly children.  Puppies like Sonne need careful handling and training. They need clear instruction as to how to behave and have to be trained to look to their owners for guidance. Sonne’s owners have been working on building her confidence and teaching how to make the right decisions when she is fearful.  She has made significant progress and I am confident that she will continue to do so.

Pickles is a lovely little Border Terrier who had picked up some bad habits from her older friend, Lucky. Pickles was very excitable and jumpy when I first met her and would bark at other dogs while out on walks. Her owners have worked really hard and Pickles no longer jumps up on guests, is listening well to the owners and recently went for a nice walk with a strange dog. She still has a way to go but is definitely on the right track now. 

Teddy is a wonderfully bright little Shih Tzu who had been taken to puppy training and had done very well, but his very brightness meant that he recognised if someone did something slightly different and as far as he was concerned it was "I don't do that". Dogs literally learn what we teach them and are not very good at generalising so if you teach them to sit with a hand action and/or with a treat they will often not do the command without the hand action/ treat.  This leads a lot of owners to say "my dog won't do it without a treat" which is not entirely correct.  It is just because that was the way they were taught originally..  Once owners know this is how a dog thinks they can then help their dog get it right and lots of training problems can be solved quickly.   

Kelly is a very bright little Chihuahua girl puppy.  She is confident, but like many small dogs, she can potentially get hurt trying to negotiate peoples feet, steps/stairs, holes in the ground and all the other obstacles that small dogs have to deal with in life. Owners can worry about "babying" their small dogs, but Kelly's owners have just the right attitude.  They understand the difference between keeping Kelly safe while she meets people, dogs etc while not preventing her from experiencing the world and are doing an excellent job of training and socialising their puppy.

Cassie is a beautiful Border Collie who suffered from many of the common problems that Border Collies are prone to when living in an urban environment. She was excitable, noise sensitive and reactive on the lead. She pulled badly and I worried that she might seriously injure her owner on a walk. We got her walking nicely on an anti-pull training collar which took care of that immediate problem. Since then her owner has been working successfully on dealing with her other issues and I see improvements every tome that I meet them.

Pearl is a delightful young Labradoodle who is just about to enter adolescence. She had developed a habit of jumping up to say hello and this was an issue with the young grandchildren in the family. We were able to establish some rules quickly and show Pearl that she could have much more fun if she plays nicely!

Tin Tin came to the UK from India and was having a few problems adjusting to London life. He's a big strong boy with lots of energy. The owners are now focusing his energy onto listening to their commands and we managed to curb his enthusiasm on walks with some lead training.