06/06/2026
A Chance Meeting and One of My Most Challenging Cases
Sometimes the dogs that come to me happen completely by chance.
I was standing in Greggs getting my morning coffee when I noticed a lady showing a member of staff her badly bitten arm. She spotted my dog trainer uniform and asked if I was a trainer.
It felt like something straight out of Airplane!…
“Are you a doctor?”
“Why yes, I am.” 😂
We got chatting and she told me about Basil.
She had worked with several trainers over the years but never really got anywhere. In fact, some of the purely positive training she’d been advised to use seemed to make things worse. That’s something I come across quite a lot with more serious behavioural cases.
Basil had a decent bite history and severe resource guarding issues. He didn’t just guard high value items either. He would actively look for things around the house to guard. Sofa cushions, socks, dropped food, literally anything he could find.
I ended up taking Basil on a 7 week residential programme so I could really break down the behaviours and understand what was driving them.
To be honest, at the start I was slightly worried that I might not be able to fully turn him around. He wasn’t a young dog and these behaviours had been present since he was a puppy. When a dog has spent years practising the same unwanted behaviours, changing them can be incredibly difficult.
There were challenging days. There was frustration. There was hard work. There was even blood, literally.
But slowly things started to change.
Today Basil is calmer, more relaxed and far more responsive. His owners can enjoy life with him instead of constantly worrying about what he might guard next.
Getting this message from his owner means the world because it reminds me why I do what I do. Not every case is straightforward, but every dog deserves someone willing to put in the work to understand them.
Well done, Basil. You were a tough one, but you proved that even long established behaviours can be changed with the right approach and a lot of consistency. ❤️
