Olivia

Olivia has been training dogs since she was about eighteen, and the moment that set her on this path was rescuing her first dog, a Dutch shepherd. Watching him transform from uncontrollable to a dog she could confidently take on public outings was, in her own description, the greatest thing, and it established what she has been chasing professionally ever since. She went on to work as a K9 handler in the private sector for around five years, training on the side throughout that period, before missing the training work enough to return to it full time. That handler background is significant.

What Olivia enjoys most is helping clients solve problems and build relationships with their dogs, then watching each animal progress into the best version of itself. Her own experience with her Dutch shepherd is the reference point she returns to, because she knows first hand what it feels like to have a dog that seems beyond reach and then to reach it. In her time off she travels to new places and takes her dogs hiking or swimming, and that active life with her own animals is part of how she thinks about training. A dog that gets to participate in its owner's life properly is usually a dog whose behaviour has somewhere to go. Olivia's decision to leave professional K9 handling and return to training full time tells owners something useful, which is that this is the work she actively wants to be doing.