16/07/2025
Amazing star of the week video for Cooper & his hard working guardian!
It’s so lovely to see all the progress they’ve made together on this training journey
A well deserved Star of The Week highlight! 👏
How Cooper Became PupClub’s Star of the Week 🐾 | Massive Transformation Unlocked!
Today we would like to celebrate the astounding progress of another rescue dog.
All of the trainers at Pup Club have rescue dogs, and we are very proud and privileged that we are able to help so many of them and their human families make their new start a successful one.
Today we are hearing from Courteney and her handsome Collie mix, Cooper, who is our Star of the Week.
This is in recognition of the incredible progress he has made in being able to be calm around other dogs.
On top of that he is a very clever boy who has recently smashed his level 1 training.
Unfortunately, Cooper did not have the best of starts and Courteney was trying absolutely everything to solve his reactivity without success.
That is when she called in Pup Club.
Courteney was kind enough to talk to us about her training journey with Pup Club and the astonishing progress that Cooper has made.
Where did you get Cooper from?
I got Cooper from a farm. Looking back now I am pretty certain it was a puppy farm.
Sadly he was in a pretty poor condition: his skin was red and itchy and he had demodex. He was absolutely riddled with mites.
The treatment for this was not compatible with vaccinations, so these had to be delayed.
This means we could not take him out in that early phase as we would have liked and he missed out on crucial socialisation opportunities.
So I imagine this is where your problems started?
Indeed. It became a downward spiral: when we did start to take him out he presented as nervous and I think this made me apprehensive which intensified the problem for him.
I did not feel confident of how to socialise him properly. There is so much confusing information out there of how to do things.
To make matters worse it became clear that he wanted to avoid other dogs. He also seemed to be quite noise sensitive.
He became increasingly reactive to vehicles such as cars and bicycles going past.
He would lunge and bark at anything that moved.
The final straw came when I tried to control him on the lead and he redirected and nipped at me.
I was in complete despair! I just wanted to cry when I got home.
How did your relationship improve after joining Pup Club?
I remember when our trainer, Kira, first arrived at the house.
Cooper wouldn’t even approach her. He was very nervous and scared.
When we took him out, as I fully expected, he reacted straight away to a passing truck.
But Kira’s handling of Cooper was a revelation.
She used a thinner slip lead to manage and communicate with him.
I couldn’t believe the way Cooper responded to this. He was immediately calmer and was starting to listen.
Kira expertly showed me that dogs who are over threshold sometimes need physical communication and I was absolutely shocked to see Cooper listening and attentive, and able to think around those kinds of distractions.
What are things like now?
He’s a completely different dog: it’s like night and day.
Kira showed us the benefits of hand feeding Cooper. This meant, essentially, using his food allowance outside the house for behaviour and training work.
This took his progress onto a whole new level.
It increased his engagement a thousand fold and it also really strengthened my bond with him.
We started in October and now in April he is so much more confident.
He is now successfully learning how to interact with other dogs.
It has all been so life enhancing for both me and Cooper.
That’s the great thing about Pup Club.
It’s not just training on a field, we get to do walks, settles at cafes and socialisation training always with the support of trainers.
Most recently he has just passed his level 1 training at Dog Academy - I would never have believed it was possible for him to achieve so much within a few months.
I am so grateful to Kira and Pup Club as a whole: the training has been truly life changing.
If you have a reactive dog and, like Courteney, are in need of professional guidance and support then please feel free to book in a friendly, no obligation call with our behaviourist by sending us a message or visiting our website: www.pupclubofficial.com
It’s time to celebrate Cooper! 🎉🐶In this video, Colin sits down with Cooper’s proud owner to reflect on their incredible journey at PupClub. From early cha...
