Bristol Dog School

25/06/2025

🌟 Meet the team 🌟
Amy- Head trainer and owner of Bristol Dog School

Amy is a certified dog trainer with a passion for dogs.She specialises in puppies and adolescence.

Her love for dogs began when her parents started rescuing dogs mainly boxer dogs and bulldogs. They all came with their own little challenges and personalities.

She now has 2 miniature Jack Russell’s called Toffee and Indie. She’s had them since they were puppies and Toffee has faced all sorts of challenges like having a back operation at 3 years old. Indie is a sweet little girl.

Amy is committed in helping owners with their needs by providing the right force free positive training and knowledge. She wants to help build positive relationships between you and your dogs.

12/02/2025

🌟Meet the team 🌟
Sarah – Certified Dog Trainer and Canine Enthusiast

Sarah’s love for dogs began at the age of 11 when she received a four-month-old Bearded Collie from a rescue center as a birthday gift. He was full of personality, confidence, and a mischievous streak that kept Sarah on her toes. Training him became her responsibility, and although she faced many challenges, those early experiences shaped her understanding of the complexities of dog ownership.

Fast forward to 2020, Sarah welcomed Berty, her current dog, during the first lockdown. Despite Berty’s confidence issues, Sarah dedicated herself to helping her grow, building trust and strengthening their bond through reward-based training. Inspired by her journey with Berty, Sarah made the life-changing decision to follow her dream of working with animals and becoming a certified dog trainer.

In addition to working with her own dogs, Sarah has spent many years volunteering at rescue centers, where she helps train some of the more challenging dogs. This work brings her immense joy, allowing her to give back and apply the knowledge and skills she has gained over the years.

Sarah is passionate about supporting dog owners who may be struggling with their pets. She empathises deeply, drawing from her own experiences and challenges. Her mission is to help owners build strong, positive relationships with their dogs using ethical, reward-based methods. By providing the tools and knowledge needed to create a happy and fulfilling partnership, Sarah is committed to helping others enjoy the incredible journey of life with their furry companions.

06/01/2025

Have you recently got a new puppy?
Why don’t you join our puppy classes to teach your puppy life skills.

We have two sets of puppy classes starting:
Monday 24th February
Monday 24th March

You can book on the website : https://www.bristoldogschool.co.uk/puppyschool.html

Any questions feel free to get in touch

29/10/2024

Are you looking for a local puppy class?

We teach basic puppy life skills from loose lead walking to settle with distractions and even recall games.

Our next course is being held Monday 18th November in Brislington at 7pm

https://www.bristoldogschool.co.uk/puppyschool.html

07/09/2024

Week 1 of Puppy Class.
We covered food preference test and a settle which they all did amazing with.
Puppies from 8 weeks to 20 weeks can book onto the class.
Classes are very important part of a puppies development as they socialise and learn puppy skills.

27/07/2024

Week 2 of puppy class ⭐️
We went through settle duration, leave its, loose lead walking, recall and how to correctly use a long line.

Are you getting a puppy and want to know all the puppy basics? We have a puppy course starting 6th September.

You can book through the link: https://www.bristoldogschool.co.uk/puppyschool.html

02/07/2024

We have a puppy course in Brislington starting Friday 26th July
For puppies between 8-20 weeks old.
You will learn training tips from settling with distractions to Loose lead walking.
If you would like to grab a spot click the link to book your space

Reward based puppy training class in Bristol

25/06/2024

Last night I taught my last puppy class… These 4 beautiful, playful intelligent puppies with their devoted and caring owners came to me to learn about social life skills and they were all amazing!
So whats going on I hear you ask?
After many years as a dog trainer/Behaviourist I am moving on to teach animal sciences. I have very fond memories of all the clients and pups that I have worked with over the years and I will miss you. Thank you to my wonderful clients and to all the glamorous assistants I have had over the years you are all so wonderful.

Do not worry the story of Bristol dog school does not end here... The lovely Amy and Sarah are taking over and will put their own fun spin on things.

Keep loving your dogs

Clair. Xx

16/05/2024

We have a puppy course in Brislington starting on Monday with two spaces left.
If you have a puppy 8-20 weeks old and would like to join this course please click on the link to book one of the spaces.

This is the last puppy course that we will be running for now due to some changes so grab your spot now!

Reward based puppy training class in Bristol

11/04/2024

What does reactive mean and why you may not see your dog trainer or behaviourist use this word to describe your dog.

We don’t tend to like the term “reactive” all that much because this word alone doesn’t really tell us much.

Reactive essentially means to respond to a stimulus.
Many stimulus start out as a neutral thing that then becomes conditioned through experience.
This stimulus can illicit a positive or negative conditioned emotional response (CER) in the dog. You will see either fear responses where we could see calming or avoidance behaviours such as ears down/pinned back, head turns, low body posture, maybe overt barking to create space. We may see the opposite forward posture pulling towards something excited barking high tails and ears.

So reactive from your dog trainer of behaviourist point of view is very different as it could simply mean your dog responds well to cues all the way up to very overt emotional responses.

If you have a dog that shows overt emotional responses to a stimulus we may refer to these dogs as socially challenged rather than reactive. We will then gather information to learn if the stimulus is creating a positive emotional response with extremely elevated arousal and possible frustration if they can’t get close.
or
Negative emotional response with fear and the need to create space or even making themselves smaller and quietly hiding away.

Once we have this information we can move forward with a plan to change how extreme the emotional response is by building confidence and/or self calming behaviours with gentle exposure.

So instead of saying reactive I prefer to say socially challenged and then explain the signals seen.

30/03/2024

Easter has become synonymous with chocolate and chocolate eggs but chocolate is not good for our dogs.
Chocolate contains Theobromine which effects a dogs central nervous system, heart and lungs,
They will become sick and struggle to breath and have an increased heart rate this can lead to death.

So keep you chocolate out of your dogs reach and please call a vet for help if you think your dog has consumed any.